Intrigues sous les tropiques

Only Sam Katzman, Columbia's king of cheap, could have created a 3D movie as flat, boring and set bound as this one. Overlong at 73 minutes, Drums of Tahiti hardly takes advantage of the 3D process. Instead we're bored numb by a lackluster romance between Dennis O'Keefe and Patricia Medina.

In 1877, Tahitians under the rule of aging Queen Pomare (Frances Brandt) dislike their position as a French protectorate and quietly plan a new war with assistance from Britain.

Mike Macklin (Dennis O'Keefe) a resident American, imports arms for the natives in a vague rebellion vaguely attributed to outside British support. He also spends a great deal of time eluding a foxy, overly polite police prefect (Francis L. Sullivan) and learning to appreciate his own new bride.

As an excuse for sailing to San Francisco, he must enlist a "wife" of convenience; enter gold-digging showgirl Wanda Spence. Will Mike tame her or ignore her in favor of inauthentic dancer Mawaii?

The gold digging show girl is played by Patricia Medina who can make any viewing experience enjoyable- shes a real beauty, however, she doesn't feature enough for her to save the film from mediocrity. It's a too talky, dull and too short for the plot to be fleshed out. Even the natural disaster at the end failed to ignite excitement into a flatlined plot. Surprised that William Castle directed as I have seen a fair few of his films and he's quite competent.

This is a delightful little adventure/romance which could just as easily have fit Bogie and Bacall, though I doubt if they could have done better than O'Keefe and Medina. O'Keefe is great as the tough American merchant in Tahiti who turns out to be a sucker for the underdog, and joins Queen Pomare's attempt to import guns from San Francisco in order to start a revolution against the French. In order to allay the French Commissioner's suspicions, he states that he is only going to Frisco to get married, but the Commissioner unexpectedly decides to accompany him, in order to be best man at his wedding. The shenanigans that occur as O'Keefe tries to find a woman to play the part of his intended bride while he is secretly obtaining guns, and the love/hate relationship that develops between he and Medina. under the watchful eye of the suspicious Commissioner are delightful, and Francis L. Sullivan deserves a lot of credit for his performance as the lovable but shrewd Commissioner, as well. Very entertaining!

Being the sole remaining unwatched costumer in William Castle's filmography (the rest of which is made up of Westerns, Thrillers and Comedies), I decided at this very late stage to include the film under review in my current Easter Epic marathon that is now winding down to a close as the end of the month approaches. While the previous such effort of the director that I had just watched, THE IRON GLOVE (1954), had been included by virtue of its swashbuckling nature and British monarchy background – that complimented other similar stuff that I had watched earlier in the month – DRUMS OF TAHITI belongs to another facet of the genre, i.e. South Sea adventures, which I had expressly kept out of this year's choices to cut down from my considerable selection of unwatched Epic titles.

Having said that, I had already watched four period pieces starring this one's leading lady, Patricia Medina – namely FORTUNES OF CAPTAIN BLOOD (1950), its sequel CAPTAIN PIRATE (1952), THE LADY AND THE BANDIT (1951) and LADY IN THE IRON MASK (1952) – in all of which, incidentally, she was flanked by handsome British star Louis Hayward. In this Sam Katzman cheapie, Castle pairs her with rugged American actor/director Dennis O'Keefe – best-known for starring in Anthony Mann's classic Film Noir, RAW DEAL (1948); interestingly, the actor's two directorial efforts were made just prior to and right after this one! For the record, Medina would star twice more for Castle in DUEL ON THE MISSISSIPPI (1955) and his last pre-Horror effort, URANIUM BOOM (1956) – both of which, as if you did not know, currently lie in my unwatched pile; besides, accompanying them in that seemingly bottomless pit, are these further costumers featuring Medina: THE FOXES OF HARROW (1947), THE FIGHTING O'FLYNN (1949), SANGAREE (1953), SIREN OF BAGDAD (1953) and PIRATES OF TRIPOLI (1955)…

At any rate, the acting honours in the film are stolen by rotund British character actor Francis L. Sullivan as a French Police Commissioner stationed in Tahiti and kept busy by British gunrunners seeking to aid a native uprising led by their aging queen. Needless to say, tavern owner O'Keefe is Sullivan's chess-playing crony by day and adventurer-foil by night; equally typical of such fare, O'Keefe's star attraction (Sylvia Lewis) is enamoured of her boss and eventually butts heads with incoming romantic interest Medina. Curiously, much of the relatively short running-time is spent in San Francisco where O'Keefe picks up a wife for himself (guess who?) as a ruse to cover his clandestine activities from under the nose of best man Sullivan; Medina tries to abscond with her $2000 fee to New York but, eventually, not only does she go through with her part of the bargain but she falls for her newfound life companion during a volcanic eruption on a nearby island where the boatload of guns are stashed! As can be seen from the above synopsis, this is a very modest programmer but Castle does insert a couple of neat 3-D tricks throughout (a knife thrown at Sullivan when he discovers a batch of guns being smuggled in at the start of the picture; Lewis bringing her fiery props in extreme close-up during her number; Sullivan popping a champagne bottle during the muted wedding party in which he is deliberately made to pass out, etc.) to liven up things somewhat.

Another 3-D potboiler from producer Sam Katzman, this one quite good, as B-movie's go, with Dennis O'Keefe involved in smuggling guns into Tahiti to fight the French, and finding romance along the way. Some nice scenery.