LURE OF THE ISLANDS
US, 1942, 61 minutes, Black-and-white.
Margie Hart, Robert Lowry, Guinn 'Big Boy ' Williams, Gail Storm, Ivan Lebedeff, Warren Hymer.
Directed by Jeannie Yarborough.
The first thing to say is that this is pretty terrible.
It is an inexpensive supporting featurshe, something of a morale booster during World War II. The setting is Tahiti. Two Americans are landed because a contact has been killed by the German authorities on the island. One presumes they are there because Tahiti is still a French colony, therefore under German rule, Vichy.
The two men are brash American GIs with no apparent talent for being agents. They are the wolf-whistling type with their ostentatious, presumptuous flirting comments. They land on the island wearing hat/cap, T-shirts trousers and shoes and this is what they wear throughout the whole film.
This is Hollywood’s idea of South Sea paradise, South Sea songs, swaying dancing, a band, but it all looks like an act in a New York restaurant, a touch of cabaret. There is some action and Hollywood’s idea of the “natives�. The agents discover a radio, steal the condenser, but later re-insert it to misguide the Japanese plane which crashed lands. There is also the problem of clearing all the trees by the water overnight for a landing and the Chief going to prison for refusing.
The main femme fatale on the island has an American father and an island mother and her name is Tana Shaughnessy – and she does some of the singing although Gail Storm has a very Brooklyni song as well.
Some shootings, some heroism, Tana wanting a marriage, Gail’s Storm flirting with Williams.
It is unbelievable account of two Americans winning the war!
