Paramount designated DOROTHY LAMOUR their sarong girl and couldn't resist pairing her with JON HALL in another one of those South Seas epics that inevitably ends with the Gods getting angry enough to cause the local volcano to erupt. Well, it does erupt here and there's an earthquake too, but nothing atones for the banal script.
Paramount would repeat the story somewhat with RAINBOW ISLAND ('44), three years later, again a South Seas tale in Technicolor with a volcano erupting for the climactic scene but it was more a spoof of Lamour's usual films than ALOMA OF THE SOUTH SEAS, which takes itself seriously.
The plot has JON HALL sent off to England for an education (as a tot he's played by Scotty Beckett, another unlikely child performer to turn into Jon Hall). When he returns to the island, he picks up his romance with native gal Lamour until all hell breaks loose to stir things up for the finale. But it's too late to rescue the film from boredom.
Summing up: Prettily photographed in Oscar-nominated Technicolor and some Special Effects, also Oscar-nominated, but hardly worth all the expense.
Paramount would repeat the story somewhat with RAINBOW ISLAND ('44), three years later, again a South Seas tale in Technicolor with a volcano erupting for the climactic scene but it was more a spoof of Lamour's usual films than ALOMA OF THE SOUTH SEAS, which takes itself seriously.
The plot has JON HALL sent off to England for an education (as a tot he's played by Scotty Beckett, another unlikely child performer to turn into Jon Hall). When he returns to the island, he picks up his romance with native gal Lamour until all hell breaks loose to stir things up for the finale. But it's too late to rescue the film from boredom.
Summing up: Prettily photographed in Oscar-nominated Technicolor and some Special Effects, also Oscar-nominated, but hardly worth all the expense.