Song of the Islands (1942) User Reviews

Grable in Technicolor in Hawaii

[donofthedial · 7/10 · 28 April 2007]

I never thought that this was one of the better Grable pictures and as I am taking a break from re-watching it for the first time in a decade I still hold to that original opinion.

The film has, if possible, too many character actors - Thomas Mitchell, George Barbier, Jack Oakie, Billy Gilbert, Hilo Hattie. And there is too much bickering.

OTOH, most of the songs are very tuneful, though undistinguished and the Technicolor is, as always, eye-popping.

The high points in the film are almost all Grable. If the film had been destroyed after the first reel, it likely would not have mattered because Grable's absolutely gorgeous entry into the film on a small outrigger just off shore of a tropical is breathtaking as is her brilliantly pretty face and figure.

And what a figure! All curves and plenty of them, looking delicious in clingy island dresses and hula girl out-fits. What a bundle! 5'4" (As I thought when looking at her while danced barefoot) and she measured in at 34 1/2-24-36 (self-described 1940).

She is singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands" as she heads towards shore with her blonde hair blowing gently in the breeze as she softly offers the song in that vastly under-rated melodious and well modulated beguiling voice of hers. She's radiant with gleaming white teeth and big eyes as she sings the entire song in 90 seconds with the big Technicolor camera slowly zooms in from a medium shot to what becomes a near full lose up if her expressive face, never once breaking away...all in one shot.

I had a customer in my video store about 15 years ago who had not seen Song of the Islands since its original release in 1942 and all he remembered all those years was that opening shot of Betty Grable, her hair blowing in the tropical breeze and singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands". Movie magic!

Victor Mature is in the film, too. He looks fine.

Hilo Hattie is the Hawaiian version of Charlotte Greenwood in the film; man hungry and doing her eccentric dances and songs.

As mention, it is not one of the 'great Grables' of the era, in spite of having the talented Walter Lang, who had directed some of Grable's best films in the 1940.

Unfortunately, what ever momentum the film has fairly comes to a halt about 50 minutes into the picture at which time there is little question (if there was ever any) about how the film will wrap up. The pictures weakest tunes are trotted out and Grable's last dance sequence is far from memorable.

Jack Oakie, playing Mature's sidekick (and only 39 years old at the time) manages to squeeze in a song and a romance for himself with a pretty island girl even younger than Grable and he and Hilo Hattie have the last laugh in the film. (Oakie frequently seems to get a special moment at the end of the films he is in. He had a big following and was extremely popular with everyone.) All in all...very lightweight stuff. Nice try by all involved. There's better Grables out there.

Now I'll go back and rewind the tape and watch that opening island sequence one more time. It's a freeze-framers delight!

Pure Entertainment Fun Featuring Betty Grable

[atlasmb · 6/10 · 22 June 2016]

Shot in color and released in 1942, "Song of the Islands" is a comedy about the relationship between Betty Grable (as Eileen O'Brien) and Victor Mature (as Jefferson Harper). The new couple seems happy until a conflict arises between their fathers.

Her father, Dennis O'Brien (Thomas Mitchell), is a long-time resident of Hawaii. He leads a low-key life of relaxation, based upon the principles of aloha. Life for him is about goodness toward others. And an inspired laissez-faire laziness. When Jefferson's father (George Barbier)--owner of an adjacent cattle ranch--wants to purchase access rights to O'Brien's waterfront property so that he can more easily export his cattle, O'Brien is insulted. He would gladly give him the rights for free, but resents efforts to reduce the transaction to a legal contract.

It's a premise that merely serves to contrast the two ways of life. The real story is the dancing and singing of Betty Grable and a chorus line of local hula girls. The dance numbers by Hermes Pan feature an Irish jig hula with swing elements (danced to "O'Brien Has Gone Hawaiian"). The songs, mostly by Owens and Gordon, include catchy ditties like "The Cockeyed Mayor of Kuanakakai (which gets a comic delivery by Hilo Hattie, who assumed that name after her role in this film) and "What's Buzzin' Cousin" (which comic relief Jack Oakie plays with).

It's a film with a heart of celebration and it will serve to push the wartime popularity of Grable, who becomes America's best known pinup girl. It's release only four months after the attack on Pearl Harbor could be viewed as a tribute to the island way of life, but I honestly don't know how Americans viewed its release so soon after the historic surprise attack.

Grass Skirts? The Better To See Betty Grable's Legs

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 16 April 2008]

I'm not sure but that Song of the Islands was had been done before December 7, 1941 and definitely before US servicemen started bleeding and dying in the South Seas. There certainly is no mention of World War II at all in this escapist Betty Grable film where she's poaching on Dorothy Lamour's south sea territory.

I'm sure that Darryl Zanuck must have saw the kind of money that Paramount was raking in with those Dorothy Lamour sarong pictures. So why not put the woman who had risen to be their top musical star in the tropics. They gave Betty a hula grass skirt instead of a sarong, the better to show her legs with.

Zanuck was also smart enough not to pass the blond Grable as a native Hawaiian. She's come home to teach school on the island where her father, Thomas Mitchell, has a small place, but also where George Barbier is the absentee owner of a cattle ranch.

Barbier's place is run by Hal Spencer, but Victor Mature and Jack Oakie sail over from America to see if they can buy out Mitchell. Mature is Barbier's son and of course when he and Grable meet, the inevitable sparks do fly.

Zanuck also put an official Hawaiian imprimatur on Song of the Islands by using Harry Owens to write the music with Mack Gordon's lyrics. Owens was the musical interpreter of Hawaii to the world, his most famous song being Sweet Leilani. And a Hawaiian national treasure named Hilo Hattie also appears in the film, singing in her inimitable style and setting her marriage cap for Jack Oakie.

It's all light and pleasant escapist entertainment and Song of the Islands is a good indication of why Betty Grable was the number one pin-up of GIs all over the globe. Except for Rita Hayworth.

Betty Grable In A Grass Skirt

[Schlockmeister · 27 August 2000]

Great 1940s World War II Pacific island fantasy movie. The colors are so bright they almost can't be real. Victor Mature and Jack Oakie head to an island where Betty Grable lives in tropic splendor with her father (Thomas Mitchell - Gerald O'Hara from "Gone With The Wind", same Irish accent too by the way...). The music is just fantastic, Harry Owens and his orchestra are incredible, the classic Hula Comedienne Hilo Hattie is on hand as Palola to provide comic relief in her attempts to land Jack Oakie (Jack is afraid of Palola's Cannibal uncle however...). Gloriously non-politically correct in the way that only classic movies can be. Betty Grable in a grass skirt, (wow!) no wonder all the G. I. s you speak to from that time were crazy about her!

Pleasant nonsense....

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 21 June 2016]

Jeff Harper (Victor Mature) has been sent by his father to bargain for some prime cattle land....in Hawaii. While the cattle industry was big on some of the islands, why folks from the continental US would want a piece of this action is confusing. Regardless, Jeff arrives on the fictional Hawaiian island of Ahmi-Oni with his friend, Rusty (Jack Oakie). The first thing Jeff sees is Eileen (Betty Grable) and he's hooked but thinks (??) that she is a native and doesn't understand English (despite being VERY blonde). Soon he's in love and seems to have forgotten about his business...and soon Dad arrives to try to get talks back on track. Who will win out in the end? The love-struck son or the business-minded dad?

This film is a pleasant and lightweight bit of entertainment. The songs are mostly a distraction as big production numbers seem to have nothing to do with island life...but so it was in the 1940s! The romance is also cute but the best part is the grouchy gather, as George Barbier as one of the best supporting actors of his age when it came to playing old grouches! Enjoyable but slight.

Betty has gone hawaiian

[MegaSuperstar · 7/10 · 28 September 2020]

Nice light-hearted musical set in beautiful Hawaii with Betty Grable playing Eileen O'Brien, the daughter of an Irishman played by Thomas Mitchell and Victor Mature playing her love interest. The film is full of enjoyable songs although sadly one of them, "Blue shadows and white gardenias", sang by Mature (dubbed byBen Gage) to Grable was cut from the movie (probably from the scene both share on a boat at night). Also cut -but slightly watchable in the trailer- is Betty Grable being transported on a throne chair as the queen of the luau party. From the bright start with all the natives preparing a lunch while Harry Owens's version of Hawaiian war chant Kaua i ka Huahua'i (Ta-Hu-Wa-Hu-Wai) plays as background music the film is pure escapist delight. Miss Grable delightfully sings Sing me a song of the islands when arriving to the island on a boat and then the luau party, with Hilo Hattie and Betty Grable singing funny Down on Ami Ami Oni Oni Isle -each one in her own style. Then the movie tends to go down a bit -too much Jack Oakie routines although still has its moments, specially in the grand finale with Hillo Hattie singing Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunakakai and Betty Grable singing and dancing O'Brien Has Gone Hawaiian (a Hawaiian-Irish-tap dance mix-mach) although I have much preferred miss Grable doing a Hawaiian style routine with Hawaiian music and dancing only. Hermes Pan, usually a brilliant choreographer, is not at his top here, mixing too many styles in one dance. The combination of Hawaiian style with Irish and tap dance is a bit too much of a mélange. Although could have been improved with some minor changes (i.e, there is a sequence at the beginning of the film where miss Grable brings a bathtub to the island that could have been used with her having a bath while singing a song like Deanna Durbin did in Can't help singing) it is still a beautiful, entertaining and recommended movie to watch.

***

[edwagreen · 7/10 · 2 July 2016]

Enjoyable 1942 film with Bette Grable and Victor Mature in Hawaii. Son of a wealthy scion, Mature falls for Grable while he is trying to get her father, a wonderful Thomas Mitchell, to sell his father, George Barbier, land. The relationship between the two elders is terrific of one of hostility then amiability until a fast working executive tries to evict Mitchell from the land for non-payment of taxes.

Jack Oakie steals the show as Mature's sidekick. Hilo Hattie, as the Hawaiian woman who has designs on Oakie, belts out those Hawaiian songs and acts as a Jewish mother by constantly feeding Oakie.

The songs of Hawaiian and American style are great and it's too bad that the film was just an hour and eighteen minutes.

Cartoonish Claptrap

[LeonardKniffel · 2/10 · 14 January 2020]

Not so much a comedy as an opportunity to show off Betty Grable's million-dollar gams, this stinker is rendered unwatchable largely upon the arrival of two idiots (played by Victor Mature and Jack Oakie) to a fictional Hawaiian island inhabited by rival white guys and a tribe of good-hearted natives. For some unfathomable reason Oakie is pursued by a native woman and her cannibalistic cohort, both of whom are man hungry, so to speak. The absurdity of Grable as having grown up on the island and thereby mastering the hula outweighs the genuinely Hawaiian musical interludes, and although it was filmed in color, most of the sea scenes are obviously movie sets.

No famous songs, but nonetheless essential viewing!

[JohnHowardReid · 9/10 · 21 September 2017]

Director: WALTER LANG. Screenplay: Joseph Schrank and Robert Pirosh, Robert Ellis and Helen Logan. Photographed in Color by Technicolor by Ernest Palmer. Film editor: Rby Simpson. Art directors: Richard Day, Joseph C. Wright. Set decorator: Thomas Little. Costumes designed by Gwen Wakeling. Make-up: Guy Pearce. 2nd unit director: Orro Brower. Technicolor color consultant: Natalie Kalmus. Associate Technicolor consultant: Morgan Padelford. Technical director: Hilo Hattie. Assistant directors: Bernard Carr, Fred Fox (2nd unit). Sound recording: E. Clayton Ward, Roger Heman. Producer: William LeBaron.

Songs by Mack Gordon (lyrics) and Harry Owens (music): "Blue Shadows and White Gardenias" (Grable); "O'Brien Has Gone Hawaiian" (Grable); "Sing Me a Song of the Islands" (Grable, Hattie); "Down On Ami Ami Oni Oni Isle" (Grable, Hattie); "What's Buzzin', Cousin" (Oakie); "Hawaiian Drinking Song" (Hattie). Choreographer: Hermes Pan. Music director: Alfred Newman.

Copyright 13 March 1942 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Roxy: 11 March 1942. U.S. release: 13 March 1942. Australian release: 4 November 1943 (sic). 6,716 feet. 74 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Tycoon's son falls for beachcomber's pretty daughter.

COMMENT: Everyone knows that 20th Century-Fox had the best sound department in the business. Everyone, that is, except the industry's own sound supervisors, technicians and engineers. How often did Fox carry off Hollywood's most prestigious annual award for Sound Recording in the golden years from 1929 to 1976? Just eight times, would you believe? Wilson (1944), The Snake Pit (1948), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), All About Eve (1950), The King and I (1956), The Sound of Music (1965), Hello, Dolly! (1969), and Patton (1970).

You'd never learn from this list that it was actually in musicals of the 1930s and 1940s that Fox's sound department really excelled. Take 1942, for example, a good year because each studio was able to nominate one movie. What was the Fox selection? "This Above All"!

Okay, so in addition to its magnificent sound track, what does "Song of the Islands" have to recommend it? Nothing much except sprightly performances (even Victor Mature is quite personable), a witty script, catchy tunes, lavish production values and gorgeous Technicolor.

What more do you want? Free admissions would be nice, but we've got that now with TV. Admittedly, we pay for it by sitting through myriads of dastardly advertisements, but you can't have everything!

Light fluffy war time comedy

[raskimono · 7/10 · 21 June 2005]

I kinda liked this movie. The plot is not much to write off and is questionable if it will have any appeal to adults because it involves full grown men and women acting like ten year olds. Set on the Hawaii Islands it has something to do with some millionaire rancher's son who falls for a enjoy-life goodnik loafer on the Islands. Romance, fighting, with some will they or will they not get together? That is a typical Betty Grable picture. Gable who couldn't really act but was always charming with a nice smile and is always fun to watch because the woman approached all her roles with gusto. It didn't matter the role; she played as if it were Scarlett O'Hara. Poor Victor Mature suffered in being cast in light tripe like this where he practiced how to take pratfalls and sound dopey and goofy before better things and dramatic roles elevated out of this parts. The popular radio star Jack Oakie provides much needed support and has many scenes where his sub plot line dominates the movies. This I have to mention because this is sorely missing in Hollywood movies, today. Let's take a recent hit like "Hitch", Kevin James gets no scene without Will Smith on the phone and in the background and it's a credit to him that he still finds a way to steal the movie. Gable too was not a very good dancer but again you forgive because she lights into it with so much pep and determination and that can be said for the whole movie. It is poorly written, obvious with no surprises but everybody plays it to the utmost fullest that makes you enjoy the whole silly farce for what it's what.

Victor Mature in Hawaii

[marthawilcox1831 · 3/10 · 14 August 2014]

Apart from the fact that Victor Mature gets to act alongside of Thomas Mitchell, and the story is set in Hawaii, there is nothing to commend this film. Some of the Hawaiian characters are Americans made up to look Hawaiian. The characters are one-dimensional, and the story fails to engage the audience at any level.

I'm not a Betty Grable fan, but she does look good in a straw skirt, and she has a nice back.

The film is shot in beautiful Technicolor, but it is not a masterclass in colour grading.

I would advise Mature fans to stay away from this film as it comes nowhere near the quality of 'Samson and Delilah'.

Jack Oakie steals this one

[weezeralfalfa · 7/10 · 11 September 2010]

No wonder Clark Gable was hesitant to star in a film('Call of the Wild') with notorious scene stealer Jack Oakie as his sidekick. Jack really hams it up in this one with his nonstop clowning and occasional songs: a complete vaudeville entertainer!. If you like Jack, you'll like this early Technicolor escapist fare. He's joined at times by veteran comedic heavy Billy Gilbert, as the crude wild-looking cannibalistic father of the luscious Hawaiian girl Jack is romancing. Problem is, a matronly-looking native woman(Hilo Hattie) is very hot for Jack and he's not interested. She eventually does a song and dance number, serving in the combined roles of Charlotte Greenwood and Carmen Miranda in the standard Fox formula for Grable/Faye/Blaine musical comedies. This is followed by an all female native song and dance routine headed by Betty. Meanwhile, beefcake leading man Victor Mature is romancing and fighting with Betty . As a non-singing/dancing, non-comedian, he has little else to do. Also, the fathers of Betty and Victor initially are at each other's throats over the ownership of a key bit of land on this small island. In the end, all is forgiven and all the Caucasian principals join at the finale for an encore rendition of the theme song 'Sing me a song of the islands'.Plenty of music and comedy dispersed among the heavier stuff. Probably, Jack has more screen time than either Betty or Victor. A native male singing group also interacts with Jack. Betty's singing and dancing is pretty limited. Too bad this film is so rarely shown on TV and is not available on DVD. We really could use a Jack Oakie Collection to showcase his now under-appreciated entertainment talent. He was a significant presence in several other Fox musical comedies, including:'Tin Pan Alley', 'Hello, Frisco, Hello' and 'The Great American Broadcast' Too bad he was never in one of those films including Carmen Miranda. I think those two would have made a dynamite comedic pair.