Purely Joyful Movie!

n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Saturday afternoon matinées were filled with Z grade bunk like this, and with a temporary end to the Tarzan series, Jungle Jim and Bomba would take their place. But, there are 52 Saturdays in a year, so there had to be more than those films, the Bowery Boys and various Z grade westerns to get the young juvenile crowd in. So Abbott and Costello, Ma and Pa Kettle and Francis the Talking Mule had a predecessor to their screening along with the last of the comedy shorts and serials, these otherwise un-bookable third tier films would never have seen the light of day.Made with a low budget that couldn't have topped $50,000, this comes from a poverty row studio that I had never even heard of up until now yet starring actors I was fairly familiar with, this is silliness taken to the max, the often "uh oh, there goes the neighborhood" theme of greedy civilized explorers out to hunt pearls and wild life without regards to the islanders whose lives they turn upside down. This was done so much better and on higher budgets (in color) featuring such lovelies as Dorothy Lamour, Maria Montez and Yvonne de Carlo, who while not acting school graduates, offered sincere (or at least campy) performances. The same cannot be said for vixen Devera Burton who has the drama education equivalence of Acquanetta.Plenty of stock jungle footage as old as Trader Horn is used to show the wildlife of the jungle, so if the kids weren't being entertained, at least they got a crash course in biology. I've seen a ton worse than this among the Z programmers and it gave me a few laughs. So an hour was worth it, and in coming from public domain DVD king Alpha Video, the price was right as well.

Camp? No! Well made? No! Good acting? No! Competent director? No! In fact this is the only film directed by Leon Leonard. Thrilling screenplay? No! In fact, this is also the only film written by Leon Leonard. Before he surfaced for Omoo, Leonard's only other association with the movies occurred way back in 1930 in which he acted in a Rudy Vallee short called "Campus Sweethearts" and was actually billed ahead of Ginger Rogers. Solid production values? No! Made on a shoestring budget? Definitely! Moody photography? Yes! Thank you, Benjamin H. "Tough Assignment" Kline! Based on the 1847 novel by Herman Melville? Sort of! Other info: Aside from a small, uncredited part in "The Threat" (1949), this is the only film appearance of its female "star", Devera Burton. The male star, however, Australian actor, Ron Randell who played the title role in "Smithy" (1946), went on to have a most distinguished career on the Broadway stage which, oddly enough, ran parallel to an extensive movie (mostly minor films) and TV career (mostly – except for the "O.S.S." series in which he played Captain Frank Hawthorn – "guest" roles). Available on a very good Alpha DVD.

1st watched 2/18/2007 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Leon Leonard): Fair adventure movie based on a novel by the author of Moby Dick fame, Herman Melville. This movie is about the captain of a ship who had stolen the eyes(that were extremely rare black pearls) from a native tribe's God sculpture and hidden them somewhere that only he knew about before leaving the Island of Tivi. He got very sick and was on a secret voyage to go back to the island to retrieve the pearls for himself while others(like his daughter) thought that he was going back to be treated by the local medicine man. Others didn't know the reason for the voyage. A stowaway actually knew the real reason for the trip -- to return the eyes to their God. The silly part is that the pearls were hidden very close to the statue and all this time the natives ran their tribe without their God having eyes(causing them all kinds of problems). Along the way, we are treated(for some reason) to a short underwater nature show with an electric eel fighting a local octopus(I guess only Herman Melville knows what this was all about). Once they get to the island, the Captain dies but passes the whereabouts of the pearls to his daughter but she also gets the sickness curse as well. One of the bad guys finds out where the God is housed and convinces the daughter to go there and steal back the pearls but at this point the good guys find out what's going on and a fight ensues. I won't tell you the results of the fight or the ending, I'll leave that up to you to find out if you want. As I said earlier, the movie was OK, but some very silly things that I've already mentioned lessened it's impact. I wonder if that new "Pirates of the Caribbean" got some of it's plot from this one ---hmm… black pearls, a curse( I wonder…) Well, it doesn't matter, those elements didn't make for a very good movie in this case or the other. It seems they would learn they're lesson, but with the money rolling in on that newer movie I'm sure they won't. Oh well.

Oh, Man, talk about the effect of advertising. Apparently, all that you have to do to enjoy box office succes is title your movie after a revered 19th century novel. Horrendous acting, directing, and cinematography in this sham of an effort.