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Pagan Love Song
MGM struck out with 1950's Pagan Love Song, a snore-inducing musical that bored me to death, despite some gorgeous scenery and two of MGM's biggest stars in the leads.
Howard Keel and his lush baritone arrive in Tahiti as Hap Endicott, a schoolteacher from Ohio who arrives in Tahiti to inherit a plantation. Upon arrival he is instantly drawn to Mimi (Esther Wiliams), an attractive half-white, half native girl who is getting ready to leave Tahiti for America, decides it would be fun to stay in Tahiti and toy with Hap by pretending to barely speak English.
This movie, based upon a novel called "Tahiti Windfall", offers very little for the viewer to hang to here, outside some beautiful island scenery, Howard Keel singing shirtless, and Esther cavorting in the water surrounded by handsome native boys, there's just not enough any of this. Esther's first real choreographed encounter with the water doesn't happen until almost halfway through the movie, as does her first kiss with Keel. There's a whole lot of screentime spent watching the natives fall allover themselves to make sure the Big Kahuna
white master Keel is made comfortable. Keel even spends five minutes chasing a pig around the island.
There are a few musical highlights, but nothing special. There's one number called "Singin in the Sun" that is staged exactly like Judy Garland's "Happy Harvest' in Summer Stock.
Keel and Williams generate some chemistry and there is a brief appearance by a young Rita Moreno, playing one of those stereotyped island girls she talked about in her documentary. One of MGM's most dismal entries, for hardcore fans of the stars only.
MGM struck out with 1950's Pagan Love Song, a snore-inducing musical that bored me to death, despite some gorgeous scenery and two of MGM's biggest stars in the leads.
Howard Keel and his lush baritone arrive in Tahiti as Hap Endicott, a schoolteacher from Ohio who arrives in Tahiti to inherit a plantation. Upon arrival he is instantly drawn to Mimi (Esther Wiliams), an attractive half-white, half native girl who is getting ready to leave Tahiti for America, decides it would be fun to stay in Tahiti and toy with Hap by pretending to barely speak English.
This movie, based upon a novel called "Tahiti Windfall", offers very little for the viewer to hang to here, outside some beautiful island scenery, Howard Keel singing shirtless, and Esther cavorting in the water surrounded by handsome native boys, there's just not enough any of this. Esther's first real choreographed encounter with the water doesn't happen until almost halfway through the movie, as does her first kiss with Keel. There's a whole lot of screentime spent watching the natives fall allover themselves to make sure the Big Kahuna
white master Keel is made comfortable. Keel even spends five minutes chasing a pig around the island.
There are a few musical highlights, but nothing special. There's one number called "Singin in the Sun" that is staged exactly like Judy Garland's "Happy Harvest' in Summer Stock.
Keel and Williams generate some chemistry and there is a brief appearance by a young Rita Moreno, playing one of those stereotyped island girls she talked about in her documentary. One of MGM's most dismal entries, for hardcore fans of the stars only.