Traveltalks goes to Hawaii. There are beautiful flowers, local performers, and surfers at Diamond Head. What's missing is the vast mobs of tourists. This is pre-war Honolulu and the city is not so built up. The tourist industry is not so overwhelming. This is the perfect marriage of early color cinema and this early tourist hot spot. It's pre-war when this place is still a backwaters in the world and people in the lower 48 would be amazed to see this paradise.
7 Reviews
Hawaii six years before Pearl Harbor...
Doylenf22 November 2008
A picture postcard look at Hawaii is what we get in this James A. FitzPatrick short subject with Hawaiian chants in the background as he narrates in his usual dry style a brief history of the island.
It begins with some landmark sights in Honolulu, the capitol, with a look at the imposing Tower of Aloha before switching to some natives wearing colorful capes that were worn by the Kings of Hawaii; then we see the coloring of coral; women making floral wreaths to greet visitors; a few glimpses of dances to demonstrate the various hulas of Polynesian life; and an interesting shot of Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head mountains looming in the background.
The short closes with the narrator saying something about the crescent waves and the turquoise sea as the sun sets on the island paradise.
Mention is made of the U.S. Naval Station which would later undergo attack at Pearl Harbor, but it is not shown at all.
It begins with some landmark sights in Honolulu, the capitol, with a look at the imposing Tower of Aloha before switching to some natives wearing colorful capes that were worn by the Kings of Hawaii; then we see the coloring of coral; women making floral wreaths to greet visitors; a few glimpses of dances to demonstrate the various hulas of Polynesian life; and an interesting shot of Waikiki Beach with Diamond Head mountains looming in the background.
The short closes with the narrator saying something about the crescent waves and the turquoise sea as the sun sets on the island paradise.
Mention is made of the U.S. Naval Station which would later undergo attack at Pearl Harbor, but it is not shown at all.
Aloha Oe
krorie11 September 2006
This colorful James A. FitzPatrick taveltalk gives the viewer a glimpse of the paradise of the Pacific just a few years before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, just west of Honolulu. Although the traveltalk doesn't show Pearl Harbor, it does show such popular tourist attractions as Waikiki Beach and Diamond Head.
Narrator FitzPatrick relates the history of Hawaii and how the Polynesians first came to the islands across the Pacific, concentrating mainly on the aboriginal population. Perhaps due to time since this is a one-reel short, only nine minutes in length, almost nothing is said about the later European and American interlopers.
The Statue of King Kamehameha, the monarch who united all the Hawaiian islands under one government, is spotlighted. How the traditional Hawaiian lei is made is also featured.
A highlight of "Honolulu: The Paradise of the Pacific" is the native music played throughout the film. The Hula dance made famous by the Hawaiians is presented by two cuties in grass skirts. The traveltalk appropriately ends with "Aloha Oe," written by the last queen of Hawaii, Queen Lydia Liliuokalani.
Narrator FitzPatrick relates the history of Hawaii and how the Polynesians first came to the islands across the Pacific, concentrating mainly on the aboriginal population. Perhaps due to time since this is a one-reel short, only nine minutes in length, almost nothing is said about the later European and American interlopers.
The Statue of King Kamehameha, the monarch who united all the Hawaiian islands under one government, is spotlighted. How the traditional Hawaiian lei is made is also featured.
A highlight of "Honolulu: The Paradise of the Pacific" is the native music played throughout the film. The Hula dance made famous by the Hawaiians is presented by two cuties in grass skirts. The traveltalk appropriately ends with "Aloha Oe," written by the last queen of Hawaii, Queen Lydia Liliuokalani.
TravelTalk
Michael_Elliott15 March 2009
Honolulu: The Paradise of the Pacific (1935)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Another entry in MGM's popular TravelTalk series with this one looking at Honolulu and needless to say there's a lot of outdoor activities being shown off. We visit various sites including the capital, floral wreaths making, coloring of coral, Waikiki Beach plus countless surfers and swimmers. I've said this several times but it's important to remember when a short like this was made. Sure, you can punch up Honolulu on your computer today and get a much better documentary on what to do there but in 1935 I'm sure this was a major delight and that's why this series lasted so long. The one interesting note while watching this movie is the fact that it shows the island six years before Pearl Harbor.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Another entry in MGM's popular TravelTalk series with this one looking at Honolulu and needless to say there's a lot of outdoor activities being shown off. We visit various sites including the capital, floral wreaths making, coloring of coral, Waikiki Beach plus countless surfers and swimmers. I've said this several times but it's important to remember when a short like this was made. Sure, you can punch up Honolulu on your computer today and get a much better documentary on what to do there but in 1935 I'm sure this was a major delight and that's why this series lasted so long. The one interesting note while watching this movie is the fact that it shows the island six years before Pearl Harbor.
Nathaniel Shilkret's Traveltalk Orchestra Was A Thing?
boblipton27 May 2019
This example of James Fitzpatrick's Traveltalks starts off looking like a series of hand-colored postcards -- caused, no doubt, by the Technicolor elements shrinking at very slightly different rates. He speaks about the natural beauty of the islands, their major industries -- in this case, the Pearl Harbor Naval base -- but no mention of pineapples, and an erratic recounting of its history and the hula dance.
Fitzpatrick always had an annoyingly strident delivery to his narration of the script, and it's certainly an annoyance here, but Wilfred Cline's color photography is quite lovely. Fitzpatrick's other business was a travel agency. I bet he sold some tickets off this!
Fitzpatrick always had an annoyingly strident delivery to his narration of the script, and it's certainly an annoyance here, but Wilfred Cline's color photography is quite lovely. Fitzpatrick's other business was a travel agency. I bet he sold some tickets off this!
could be a travel ad for travel to honolulu
ksf-214 December 2022
Warning: Spoilers
This was directed by ruth fitzpatrick! One of the six that she directed. But narrated by james, of course. Just about in the middle of his long career. So many beautiful things described in this chapter! The incredible sunsets. A little history of kamehameha royals. The tower of aloha. The sale of colored coral to earn money. The importance of music and colors, and flowers. The various stories told by the different hulas. Diamondhead and the beaches and boats at waikiki. And the rising influence of the u.s. Mainland, since honolulu is an important naval station for the us.... (which would rocket into importance in 1941, just six years later, at the bombing of pearl harbor!) it wouldn't become a state until 1959. It's very well done. Amazing to see the almost empty beaches, which are still beautiful, but so mobbed now.
This is the film responsible for coining the phrase . . .
oscaralbert19 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
. . . "Loose lips sink ships." During the 1930s the reprehensible narrator of HONOLULU: THE PARADISE OF THE PACIFIC was known as "The Fuhrer's Travel Agent," luring scads of potential victims on the Prussian Hit List to Death Camp Doom by churning out many upbeat, enticing shorts promoting "bucolic" Bavaria as a "friendly" travel destination right up to and even beyond the advent of a juggernaut-like Germanic "Blitzkrieg" rampaging across Europe! Backed by fellow-traveling Fifth Columnist American Quisling traitors with names such as "Coughlin," "Ford," and "Lindbergh"--aka, "Michigan's Germophile Mob (or MGM)--who rigged elections to install the leaders of the U.S. Pro-Axis Movement in Congress, they encouraged their Hollywood propaganda chapter (that is, the House of the Groaning Fat Cat) to aid the Enemy in any way possible. HONOLULU begins by blabbing to the Japanese war-mongers that Pearl Harbor is the location of America's most important Naval Base. Later during HONOLULU, its treasonous narrator isolates footage of Diamondhead as a key landmark to be used in pin-pointing insidious sneak attack bombing raids. Sure enough, months later the Imperial Rising Sun Strike Force acted upon their Tinsel Town agent's Helpful Hints, prompting one prominent U-M academic to chortle, "In my book, any Power able to take out the Pacific Fleet can't be all bad!"
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