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On the run from the police, brothers Chris (Bill Cord) - the good one -
and Lee (Don Durant) - the crook - are shipwrecked on an island off Hawaii
that's inhabited only by female pearl divers, led by elderly Queen Pua
(Jeanne Gerson), who welcomes them not exactly with open arms, but at
least she gives them food and shelter and promises them a passage on thje
next boat leaving the island - which won't be until 10 days from now.
In the meantime, Bill and Lee try to make friends with the island
girls, especially Mahia (Lisa Montell), for whom Bill soon enough develops
a soft spot. Then though something happens that turns the island paradise
completely topsy turvey: At a local festival while dancing with Mahia,
Bill accidently breaks a flower garland, and from then on, the men are
taboo to every girl on the island. Still, Bill and Mahia meet in secret
and tender romance starts to develop - until Pua catches them at it and
decides to sacrifice Mahia to the shark god, meaning she will have her
thrown into shark-infested waters with her hands tied up as a trial by
ordeal ...
Bill of course can't let that happen and frees Mahia, and to keep their
backs covered, Bill and Lee soon enough take Pua hostage, and soon the two
men and Mahia and Pua take a boat Bill and Lee have built and leave the
island. However, in the first night they don't get far, only to the coral
reefs a few miles out where they decide to hide out during the day. But
Lee (remember, he's the crook) is one who can't let an opportunity slip
by, so he swims back to the island to steal the pearls they have stored
there (remember, the girls are pearl divers), even if that means he has to
kill a guard. But while he's out stealing, Queen hua escapes, swims back
to the island as well and gets her women to take their boats out to the
see to catch Bill, Lee and Mahia and retrieve the pearls.
Back on the reef meanwhile, Bill and Lee gets into a fistfight, with
Lee defeating Bill and daking the boat on his own. But he isn't even far
away from the reef when he drops first the sail and then the pearls into
the water, and when he jumps after them, he is killed by a shark. Bill and
Mahia meanwhile have reached the boat swimming and continue their journey
to somewhere else as a couple - with queen Pua and her girls in hot but
futile pursuit ...
The many pulp fiction clichés of this film are positively charming,
and the authentic Hawaiian settings (the movie was filmed there
back-to-back with Corman's Naked Paradise) are of course
attractive, but otherwise the film has little to offer: The story is just
too silly to be believable or at least involving, the dialogue is rather
bad and at several occasions the inherent cheapness of the picture shines
through a tad too clearly for my taste. It's not all bad, but it's one of
Roger Corman's lesser 1950's movies.
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