Love Island

Eva Gabor... from Green Acres. as Sarna, the island girl, no less. Flashback of Lieutenant Taber (Paul Valentine) crash landing on the south sea island. Picture and sound quality are pretty terrible, but.. public domain. Sarna shows Taber around the island, which has elegant (Thai ?) temples with beautiful gardens and dancers. Pretty elaborate for a south sea island! Seems to have scenes from other, earlier films cut and pasted into it. lazy! It's all very average. Sarna is torn between all her choices for a husband, and spends most of the film trying to decide. Acting is not so good. very stilted conversations. imdb states this was made by Elliot-Shelton Films. couldn't find much on them.. except that one of the producers is Hall Shelton. It's funny that in this one, Gabor seems to have LESS of an accent than she does ten years later in Green Acres. but i digress. This one is mostly interesting for the history of the Gabor sisters in hollywood. Directed by Bud Pollard. He got into films just as the studios were switching to talkies. Love Island was the last project he did, as he died after making the film.

This film is in the public domain, meaning those who made the film didn't bother to renew the copyright. And, considering that it is one of the dullest, stupidest and most worthless films ever made, its public domain status should come as no surprise!

Despite it being an absolute horror, there were two reasons why I saw it. First, I actually like bad movies. I don't mean that I like pain or boredom, but I like films that are so bad they are funny (such as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE or ROLLER BOOGIE). Unfortunately, this one just turned out to be bad--and not in a good way! Second, when I found out that it starred Eva Gabor (the "nice" Gabor sister and star of GREEN ACRES), I was just so curious I had to see it--especially when I saw she was cast as a Balinese islander! Think about it--this lovely Hungarian with a very thick accent, cast as a primitive South Seas island girl!

After seeing this horror of a film, I wonder why Ed Wood got so much publicity as "the worst director in history", as this movie was much worse and pointless than PLAN 9 or any of Wood's other "masterpieces". Why do I say that? Well, look at LOVE ISLAND--a Hungarian actress, lousy sets and lots and lots of long and boring home movies or documentary footage of Balinese dancers. These dancer segments were very long and pointless and were inserted rather randomly to film time, as the movie without them would probably have only been about 45 minutes long! And all during these dances, Ms. Gabor narrates and describes what they are doing--sort of like what Aunt Minnie would do when she's showing footage she took from her last vacation!

So who is the winner with this film? Certainly NOT Eva, as her acting was terrible and the film was god-awful. Certainly NOT the audience, as they watched this crap. However, the real winner is Zha Zha, as the wretchedness of this film greatly overshadowed her own embarrassing bad film performance in QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE!

By the way, there is one bright spot in this film. Lt. Taber sings a song in the film that is not rotten, as the actor(?) Paul Valentine had a pleasant voice. Otherwise, he was a horrible actor and the overall effort is still wretched.

Sad to say that the sight of Hungarian-born Eva Gabor with flowing long black hair and wearing one of Dorothy Lamour's cast-off sarongs isn't enough to save this poverty row film. It's a love story between an island girl and the Navy lieutenant who parachutes on to her beach and is intermingled with shots of Balinese culture. Beautiful Sarna (Gabor) has marriage on her mind and plenty of suitors - there is the buff suitor who is really just a friend much to his chagrin and the nasty suitor who looks like Charlie Chan and tries to blackmail her into wedded bliss and the singing officer Dickie (Valentine) becomes known as the 'foreign' suitor. Out of this Tom, Dick and Harry group a decision must be made - will Sarna follow her heart or help her father by marrying not for love but for his safety. Or will she follow her girlfriend who walks into the ocean rather than stay married to her old husband now that her fisherman lover is dead. No mention of throwing oneself into a volcano a la Bird of Paradise! Will Sarna stay in the east or go west (Darling I love you but give me Park Avenue!). YOUR decision is if you stick with this film long enough to find out.

An American gets stranded on an island full of the most laughably un-native natives you will ever see or hear. Paul Valentine starts as Richard Taber, a pilot who has crashed onto an island called Tubakara or whatever. English translation: Love Island! He falls head over heels over one of the native girls there played by Eva Gabor (!!!) but must fight for her from other white-men-playing-savage-beasts on the island. Realizing that this thin thin plot won't last for an hour, the filmmakers have also handily put in marriage customs (I think) of Other Lands for time-padding purposes. The end result is a bloody mess. Stilted acting, silly fight sequences, and laughable love scenes.. and oh yes, Taber SINGS in this too, makes for a less-then-hooty time.

I have the most amazing luck. My movies-to-watch stack is a couple hundred high, many of them mysteries to me. I chose two at random to watch tonight, this one and "Legong: Dance of the Virgins."

As it turns out, both are based in Bali. This movie has three settings: a few beach scenes, clearly shot in California; some really cheesy studio sets, and inserts taken from "Legong." The selections from "Legong" must have been a real trial to find footage without any topless women. And where the 1935 original is in glorious color, this presents it in black and white.

I'm a real critic of "Mystery Science" nags when applied to science fiction movies because the nature of the genre demands suspension of disbelief. But this project enters a world that actually exists, and climaxes in perhaps the most amateurish, even buffoonish fight ever filmed. Truly dreadful.

Eva Gabor, still with Hungarian accent, plays the Balinese beauty in a "me Jane" sort of movie English usually reserved for Native Americans. She's not appealing.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.