South of Pago Pago

Edward Small took director Alfred E. Green's cast and crew - an uncommonly attractive and brilliant assemblage - to the south seas to do the majority of this curiously undersung piece on location. Far less stylized/dated than Goldwyn's THE HURRICANE, it is admittedly riddled with cliches and formula, but packaged in such visual and technical excellence it scarcely matters.

There are scenes that will stop the heart. Chiseled adonis Jon Hall and porcelain idol Frances Farmer outlined in profile(s) against the steaming background volcano take the romantic closeup to a level that defies comparison.

Edward Small's films typically were strings of frames any one of which was an individual work of art in itself. What can one say but that with this one he outdid even himself, as did workhorse composer Edward Ward on song and score, some years prior to his work on Universal's stunning PHANTOM OF THE OPERA?

When the film begins, an idiot sailor is way too talkative about some gigantic pearls he's found on a far off island. Now you'd THINK he'd keep this to himself...especially since he has found a captain and crew to take him back to where he got the pearls so that they can all become rich men. Instead, however, he's swayed by the blackhearted Captain Larson (Victor McLaglen) and his vicious femme fatale, Ruby (Frances Farmer). In fact, they are so evil that when they near the island with the pearls, they murder the poor sailor. Then, when they land, they behave like they love the locals and only want what's in their best interest. But when their pearl diving natives try to find pearls, all they find are tiny ones....making their trip a waste of time. But when they try diving in much deeper places, they hit pay dirt...gigantic pearls. But there is a major problem....it's so deep that the divers risk death and one does die from the bends. So, the local kahuna, Kehane (Jon Hall), orders the divers to stop. So, it's time for Ruby to use her sexy wiles and get Kehane to change his mind...and he does so because he's head over heels for this heel! What's next?

So is this any good? Well, it's pretty good...though it would have been nice if more parts had actually been played by Polynesian actors and if the sea battle late in the film hadn't been so cheesy. Jon Hall at least was in real life half-Tahitian....which makes this better than many similar films of the era. My assumption is that there just weren't that many Polynesian actors available on and around Catalina Island, California, where the film was made! As for the story, it's an interesting little parable about the evils of 'civilization' and its impact on innocents...and the impact this has on the scoundrels who invaded their paradise.

By the way, this film stars Frances Farmer, a woman whose life story, "Frances", is mostly fiction. She never was labotomized and much of the IMDB biography from her is based on a book that completely fabricated much of her life and experiences.

South of Pago Pago is a pre-mature White Supremacy look at the corruption of an island paradise by a surly, ruthless captain (Victor McLaglen) and his band of brigands in search of pearls. With a white goddess in tow (Francis Farmer) he manages to dazzle the acting chief (Jon Hall) with her and exploit the native population allowing things get violently out of hand.

This South Sea Island dud opens with a raucous almost slapstick brawl as it introduces caricatures McLaglen and Farmer. Once island bound the devious ways of Captain Larsen get ugly fast as he cons the divers with drink and trinkets to undertake dangerous tasks. Larsen then distracts Kehane by marrying Ruby off to him. As the death toll and casualties mount, the islanders led by kehane revolt.

Outside of his informer performance, McLaglen's career has been a series of bellicose self parodies and though particularly cruel in this waterlogged clunker it is an uneasy mix here. The monotoned Farmer sleep walks through her part while the rest of the cast gets in each others way.

There are some decent underwater moments while some model work is glaringly bad. The editing is a fractured montage of hodge podge but the brutality quite graphic as the natives get the last say in this sorry South Seas adventure. Stay as far south and any other direction from this Pago Pago.

Around 80 years ago, I saw this film at our small town's only movie theater. I was eight years old, and a juvenile fan of movies that told simple stories involving high adventure, uncomplicated romance, easy identification of the good guys v. the bad ones and scenes that included underwater thrills. South of Pago Pago was such a film, and I found it to be very appealing and a fun experience to watch.

Recently, I had the opportunity to see it again on YouTube. Apparently, it is hard to find elsewhere. How does it now appear to someone in the twilight of life? It is still enjoyable. The good guys (and gal) are still positive role models and the bad guys are truly repulsive in an unrelenting sort of way. The acting seems natural, and the story of greedy men spoiling a native paradise until meeting their justly deserved fate is spun out in an easily understood way.

Olympe Bradna, who plays Jon Hall's girl friend, continues to remind me of Debra Paget as she has for many years. And Frances Farmer, whose real life involved a truly tragic story, is just as beautiful and stirring as she seemed to me so long ago. The underwater sequences are still exciting. The setting and costumes greatly add to the movie's appeal.

All in all, South of Pago Pago is a film that deserves to be objectively reconsidered by a new audience.

And how about the great movie trivia question that it poses. What do South of Pago Pago and The Jolson Story have in common? Give up? Same director!

It's a strange movie. Frances Farmer is the main attraction. This is not her ideal role- her patrician blond beauty seems a little out of place here. Although only 27 when she made the movie, she does not look quite as breathtaking as when she made Come and Get It 4 years earlier. Nevertheless, it is one of the few movies one can see Frances in. Jon Hall is an interesting character. I remember him from the 1950s as Ramar of the Jungle. Apparently he never sustained the successes in his early movies.