Pagan Love Song (1950)

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I know the title will put you off, as will the fact that Esther Williams dons dark makeup and pretends to be Tahitian and Rita Moreno speaks in broken English, but if you can get past the "island people are primitive" attitude the movie takes, Pagan Love Song is actually pretty good. I've seen a few Esther Williams flicks, and this one is by far my favorite. Probably because hunky Howard Keel spends more of the movie without his shirt than fully clothed.Half-Tahitian Esther Williams -because Hollywood wouldn't approve of a truly interracial romance-falls for visiting American Howard Keel and helps him adjust to island life. Rita Moreno and her boyfriend help out around the house, and an old woman sends her kids to live with Howard so they can grow up around a proper gentleman, and he complains about not being able to take a bath in a tub-oh, the difficulties of living in Tahiti!Howard is given several songs to show off his beautiful singing voice, and while they're simple-during one song, Rita Moreno taps a rhythm on bamboo stalks while Howard sings "The House of Singing Bamboo"-since he's singing them, they aren't bad. If he can sell a song while pedaling a stationary bicycle in front of an obvious blue screen background, he can sell anything. Plus, in glorious Technicolor, his teeth and tan are enough eye candy in themselves; just wait 'til he dons a sarong!The movie was filmed in Hawaii, so the surroundings for most of the scenes are lush and gorgeous. And even though some of the songs are silly, if you're watching an Esther Williams movie, you're not really expecting the songs to be complex. She has a couple of very pretty swimming dance numbers, and Howard even joins her for some of the choreography! There's also an entertaining Hula chorus number that helps transport you to the tropical setting. If you're looking to introduce yourself to Esther Williams, or if you're looking for a light musical with a ridiculously handsome lead, rent Pagan Love Song.

Esther's other tropical film, besides this one, was "On an island with you". They both also had Esther with a fake tan. I enjoyed both of them even though each had a couple of small problems. I really enjoyed the tropical island scenery here, which with it being almost 70 years ago, really gave me a "tropical getaway paradise" feeling, even more so than when looking at those same places today. Those islands I reckon really did provide a magical paradise getaway back in 1950. That was before they got hit with modern influences, high levels of tourism, and the internet which people everywhere including those islands now have. You can never feel as sucluded away anywhere anymore when with the internet right in front of you, you can bring so much up right in front of your eyes now at quick and simple pushes of a button. That just makes it all seem less private now. Not to mention how someone standing 15- 20 feet away can take a picture where you accidentally get in, and then it could be posted all over the internet. Back then if you got caught in a picture, most likely only a few people would see the picture like their close family and friends, instead of it being put on the internet for the world. Also back then, people had better manners and wouldn't deliberately take your picture without your consent, unlike today where people would and do. Yes, all those reasons definitely don't make tropical getaways quite the same anymore. I like the first scene with Howard Keel arriving on the ship (which is how everyone traveled abroad (USA to Pacific islands, USA to Europe, etc.) the first half of the 20th century before airline travel). Esther, who fools Keel into him thinking she's a native Tahitian who doesn't speak much English, has fun teasing him the first part of the film while then going back to her American family's house and talking about what a fool Keel is to her semi snobbish mother. That is more brought out during a semi elite garden party her mother throws that Keel comes to wearing a tropical slip (thinking it was a native Tahitian party like the earlier copra party where everyone was dressed as such) and making himself known, not quite the way he wanted. The earlier copra party was a scene where the natives half drank and partied/ half worked to make copra, I liked when seeing those natives climb those palm trees simultaneously side by side on about 5 side by side trees to pick the coconuts. I like when Esther says how she wishes to leave Tahiti and says "I'll be perfectly happy to never see another man in a hammock drinking coconut milk", then cutting to show Keel doing just that. At that point Esther still had Keel fooled into thinking she's native, and when he calls her a "broken down beachcomber" who she questions Keel what that means when she finally reveals to Keel about knowing English, but still hasn't revealed to him yet about actually being American (that part is revealed to him at the elite party earlier mentioned when Keel shows up not quite appropriately dressed). I enjoyed the songs during the first half of the film, first at Keel's hut (which he was initially disappointed about since he was expecting more of a modern (well 1950s modern) house with such amenities) when he sings "House of the singing bamboo" while using a clothespin to make melodic sounds out of the bamboo structured walls. I also enjoyed "Just singing in the sun" as Keel rides his bike through the old fashioned tropical scenery, nice old time scene. I also enjoyed the running joke of the bathtub breaking in half every time they try to deliver it, and also the scene with the elderly Tahitian woman bringing Keel a pig (that keeps trying to sqirm away, and eventually does) and her enjoying the simple pleasures of hearing Keel play on his typewriter. That's the word I keep meaning to use about people on the island (and in general everywhere) back in those days, more simple pleasures. The film was best throughout the whole first half, and during Esther's water scenes near the end. The part where Keel had to take in three Tahitian kids, I doubt that even back then, you were obligated to suddenly adopt three kids with no prior notice whatsoever in Tahiti. It was never explained who those kids belonged to before showing up in front of Keel. The song Keel sang to the kids about table manners seemed like something more of a thing for kids to watch. I didn't care too much for the scene where Keel gets upset cause he thought they left the copra out in the rain, it even stirred up tension between him and Esther. That scene just didn't fit with the rest of the film I really enjoyed the Esther water scenes near the end. First the magical fantasy sequence of seeing Esther swimming through the sky. I'd like to think I can almost see her swimming through the sky like that now, since she has now passed on and is up in heaven. I also loved the moment of Esther and some other girls dancing on an island, and then her swimming through all the coral reefs and underwater aquatic life, it was beautiful.

Wow. Funny in all the wrong ways. Somewhat of a poor man's South Pacific. Everything that South Pacific got right, this movie got terribly wrong. I am slowly working my way through all of Esther Williams movies and I love Howard Keel (Annie Get Your Gun & Seven Brides for Seven Brothers), but this movie was not their best foray into cinema. For one several times through out the movie both of them look like they fell into a vat of bronzer, then at other moments in the film they appear to be as white as the moon. The songs are enjoyable, but forgettable.

The most minor of Arthur Freed's minor MGM musicals, and one suspects he took it on because it showcased his (rather pedestrian) lyrics. It's a Tahitian treat, by present-day standards astonishingly racist, with the happy, stupid natives bowing and doing the bidding of Howard Keel, an Ohio teacher who has inherited a dilapidated tropical estate, and Esther Williams, who keeps saying she's through-and-through Tahitian and has dusky makeup to back it up, but comes equipped with a Nebraska accent and seems incapable of playing anything but American. About the most dramatic thing that happens is it rains, and Keel and Williams squabble and make up, while a very young Rita Moreno schemes to get them back together. The two stars look terrific, Keel runs around shirtless most of the time, the Harry Warren melodies are very easy to take, and Esther's one underwater ballet displays Technicolor hues that will probably never be seen again. The storytelling's lazy and condescending, Robert Alton is not a natural-born director, and inconsequential doesn't begin to describe it. For all that, it's fun and tuneful and unpretentious, and you may even enjoy the over-simplistic world view of 1950.