I watched the abbreviated 78 min. version of this farcical adventure film, rather than the 95 min. version. I'm a sucker for most any film with Claudette Colbert a leading player. Here, she transforms from a dowdy bespectacled schoolteacher into a sensuous South Seas maiden, with long flowing hair, highlighted by a couple of flowers, wearing a leopard-skin outfit(where did she get that in the jungle?)Wow! Worth viewing for that alone. When she returns from her adventure, she's somewhere in between in the class room, looking like the classic Claudette. Supposedly, the two men and two women were on a pleasure ship, just departed from Malaysia. Very shortly thereafter, a bubonic plague epidemic broke out. The 4 steal a life boat before it gets worse, and land on a shore filled with fierce-looking natives, but led by the English-speaking Montague(Leo Carillo), who calms the situation. He says not practical to return to 'civilization' by small boat, so he will guide them through the dense jungle for some days.
The 4 refugees are composed of 2 shy ones: Claudette and Herbert Marshall, as Arnold, and two confident gregarious extroverts in matronly society lady Mrs. Mardick(Mary Boland) and newspaper reporter Stewart(William Gargan). Gradually, as Claudette literally lets her hair down and gains confidence, the 2 introverts begin to fall in love, even though Arnold is unhappily married to a society matron(This will be fixed near the end).
During their trip, besides the unpredictable natives, they encounter various scary features of the jungle. Shrub limbs are so thick near the ground that they have difficulty making their way through the jungle(Surely, the natives already had decent trails!). At one point, they are trying to navigate between closely spaced bamboo 'trees'. Australian kookaburras fill the forest with their raucous calls, heard in nearly every jungle treck film of this era. An African Chimpanzee steals Claudette's clothes while she is bathing under a waterfall. Eventually, most are retrieved while Claudette is wearing an elephant leaf skirt and bikini. A water buffalo scares them, though they don't encounter any crocodiles. The roar of a lion, and falling coconuts unsettle them, as does a scary-looking centipede. An inquisitive cobra is killed with a pistol shot.
Along the way, Mary Roland helps diffuse the tension with her lubricious comments. She tries to convince the natives that birth control is good for them. The women are more favorably impressed than the men. Speaking of the natives, they are identified as Semang or Sakai, which is the actual name of some Negrito native tribes in Malaysia. I'm impressed.
Outdoors shooting takes place mostly on the slopes of the two highest volcanoes of Hawaii Island. Unlike the written statement that these are located in the South Seas, the island of Hawaii is located at 21 degrees North latitude, farther north than Jamaica. Also, the coast of Malaysia, where the action supposedly takes place, is in SE Asia, not the Pacific South Seas. I'm sure most viewers don't care about such fine geographical points.
The cast could have used a good male comedian to complement Mary Roland(I'm thinking of Bob Hope, as in "Road to Singapore"). It also would have been nice if several musical numbers had been included, as was the case in some subsequent films with a rather similar plot.
Producer and director Cecil DeMille's next project: "Cleopatra" also starred Claudette. Of course, it was much more popular than the present film. In fact, this film was the only one of her 4 films for 1934 that wasn't nominated for Best Film Academy Award!
See it at YouTube.
The 4 refugees are composed of 2 shy ones: Claudette and Herbert Marshall, as Arnold, and two confident gregarious extroverts in matronly society lady Mrs. Mardick(Mary Boland) and newspaper reporter Stewart(William Gargan). Gradually, as Claudette literally lets her hair down and gains confidence, the 2 introverts begin to fall in love, even though Arnold is unhappily married to a society matron(This will be fixed near the end).
During their trip, besides the unpredictable natives, they encounter various scary features of the jungle. Shrub limbs are so thick near the ground that they have difficulty making their way through the jungle(Surely, the natives already had decent trails!). At one point, they are trying to navigate between closely spaced bamboo 'trees'. Australian kookaburras fill the forest with their raucous calls, heard in nearly every jungle treck film of this era. An African Chimpanzee steals Claudette's clothes while she is bathing under a waterfall. Eventually, most are retrieved while Claudette is wearing an elephant leaf skirt and bikini. A water buffalo scares them, though they don't encounter any crocodiles. The roar of a lion, and falling coconuts unsettle them, as does a scary-looking centipede. An inquisitive cobra is killed with a pistol shot.
Along the way, Mary Roland helps diffuse the tension with her lubricious comments. She tries to convince the natives that birth control is good for them. The women are more favorably impressed than the men. Speaking of the natives, they are identified as Semang or Sakai, which is the actual name of some Negrito native tribes in Malaysia. I'm impressed.
Outdoors shooting takes place mostly on the slopes of the two highest volcanoes of Hawaii Island. Unlike the written statement that these are located in the South Seas, the island of Hawaii is located at 21 degrees North latitude, farther north than Jamaica. Also, the coast of Malaysia, where the action supposedly takes place, is in SE Asia, not the Pacific South Seas. I'm sure most viewers don't care about such fine geographical points.
The cast could have used a good male comedian to complement Mary Roland(I'm thinking of Bob Hope, as in "Road to Singapore"). It also would have been nice if several musical numbers had been included, as was the case in some subsequent films with a rather similar plot.
Producer and director Cecil DeMille's next project: "Cleopatra" also starred Claudette. Of course, it was much more popular than the present film. In fact, this film was the only one of her 4 films for 1934 that wasn't nominated for Best Film Academy Award!
See it at YouTube.