On the Isle of Samoa

A fairly decent formula movie of this era with Hall again on an island (Samoa) but this time after he steals some money from his nightclub boss and crashes a stolen plane on the island. Hall is not likable in this movie, which is a credit to him since I thought I would have a hard time disassociating him from his other island movies.Unfortunately his character keeps one from enjoying the movie as we did in the "Tuttles of Tahiti". Susan Cabot is the love interest and she plays the part well. Lightweight fare that does somewhat struggle to hold your interest. However, it's only 63 minutes so it won't tie up your evening or Sunday afternoon.

This B picture has low, low, really low production values. The plot would have us believe there was an island in the South Pacific that was totally untouched by Western civilization, let alone by the Pacific Theater in World War II, where the Japanese and Americans were looking for each other in every nook and cranny.

Much of the film footage is lifted from other films. In the scenes of the islanders' celebrations, one portion looked like it was from a silent film; another showed characters who were obviously supposed to be African, then segued back to Polynesian-looking people.

The main character steals an airplane, which crashes on an island in the Samoan chain during a hurricane. An unintentionally funny part of the film is caused by the borrowing of all the film footage. The aircraft keeps changing. On the ground before take-off, it's a DC-3. Then when airborne, it becomes an odd type of 1930s aircraft I can't identify with a double-decker tail. Then, it becomes a Lockheed Electra when flying in the sunshine above the clouds, then changes back to the odd aircraft when flying in a dark storm. When the plane begins to dive, it's back to the Lockheed again, but then back to the odd aircraft when crashing down into the jungle.

I thought that odd aircraft looked familiar, then I remembered having seen it in RKO's 1939 film, "Five Came Back". I viewed that film to confirm that the footage was taken directly from that film.

What would a South Sea island movie be without an erupting volcano? At least the plot didn't have a virgin to be thrown into it. The volcano footage looks suspiciously like that in United Artists' "One Million B.C." (1940) with a little film trickery added.

Fortunately, this film is only about one hour long. Don't blame the actors for the quality of this film. Blame the producer and the scriptwriters. If you absolutely have nothing better to do, you might be able to stand watching this film.

Columbia distributed this quickie made on the cheap in California with settings that convincingly make it look as though it was filmed in Samoa. The B&W photography is crisp and JON HALL is once again a man on the lam after a crime whose plane crashes in the South Seas.

Naturally, he falls in love with a native girl who recites the sort of dialog Dorothy Lamour used to have in all those jungle films she did early in her career. SUSAN CABOT is the girl, and while she's very pretty she's also a very limited actress--which doesn't matter much in this case since she just has to wear a sarong and gaze longingly at Hall for most of the film and smile prettily at the end when he returns to civilization without her to seek redemption for his theft of stolen money.

Hall had put on a little more weight by this time and looks beefy but still has the famously rugged physique that served him so well in all those films he did in the '40s with Maria Montez and Sabu.

It's really a simple morality tale, told amid pleasantly lush surroundings of an island paradise. RAYMOND GREENLEAF is the island's pastor who convinces Hall to make amends and then return to the island after he's served his time. If the plot sounds familiar, it's because Jon Hall had basically the same role years earlier in his breakthrough film, THE HURRICANE where he spent most of the film escaping from various jails in order to be reunited with Dorothy Lamour.

This is no "hurricane", but it does have a volcano that erupts in the final reel as well as a minor earthquake.

Summing up: Passes the time in a brief spell, but everything about it is "minor", including the story.

Interesting piece that started off with a robbery - well, two robberies, as he stole a plane also - and had the villain flying into a hurricane. A hurricane in the Pacific. I'm no expert, but I think they should get that part right - the Pacific has typhoons, not hurricanes.

Anyway, the story is really about owning up to your mistakes and making amends, The islands customs in this regard were very interesting. It was also about greed. The chief made it very clear that he needed no money. They had plenty of fish, coconuts, and boats. What would they do with money. Forget that and let's party! The acting was surprisingly good overall and the life was one that would certainly be envied.