Hurricane, The (1937)
The Hurricane (1937), directed by John Ford.
A Polynesian bridegroom is sent to prison after knocking down a rude white man. After years of escape attempts he makes it back to the home island and his wife and child just in time for the biggest hurricane I have ever seen on film.
Seriously: they must have retired those pumps and wind machines afterward as being too dangerous. Amazing effects, both models and life-sized.
I wasn't going to review this but -- as is often the case -- the Blu-ray commentary track made it a more interesting film. Notable points:
John Ford had a great fondness for the Pacific.
We are lured by the fantasy of the South Seas as the Earthly Paradise, a bit of Eden where the locals still live in happy innocence...
...except when disturbed by cruel colonial overlords, the French this time. Raymond Massey is the unyielding governor and John Carradine the sadistic prison guard. This is a sharp political critique of colonialism. The French government insisted that the prison scenes be toned done because they were too cruel.
Some of the Europeans are nice: Mary Astor as the governor's sympathetic wife, C. Aubrey Smith as the kindly priest, and Thomas Mitchell does his usual scruffy doctor, dancing with the natives.
Ford was not much interested in organized religion, and here even the humane church is no shelter from the storm. Built from massive stonework as it is, nothing survives the hurricane.
Eroticism in plain sight: the simple wrappings the island women wear give them soft, unencumbered outlines. Very appealing. And you know the lovers will dispense with even that much clothing when the Euros are out of sight.
You can see why Dorothy Lamour was called the "Sarong Queen". We know she's Polynesian because of the clothes and flowers in her hair, but I didn't understand for a long time that hunky Jon Hall was also supposed to be an islander. Then I found that the actor was himself half Tahitian, so you never know.
Available on a Kino Blu-ray.
