Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

MoPoshy Absolutely brilliant

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

gridoon2018 Howard Keel inherits a plantation in Tahiti, Esther Williams is a local girl he falls in love with....and that's about it as far as story goes in this light-as-air, exotic musical. Eye-filling Hawaiian (actually) sights and two very attractive stars (Esther must have been in the best shape of any female movie star of her time) make "Pagan Love Song" a pleasant diversion, even though it is mostly uninspired, both musically and comedically. The one exception is an extended underwater sequence with Esther near the end. The DVD includes a number of songs deleted from the final cut, which accounts for the short running time (only 76 minutes). ** out of 4.

marcslope The most minor of Arthur Freed's minor MGM musicals, and one suspects he took it on because it showcased his (rather pedestrian) lyrics. It's a Tahitian treat, by present-day standards astonishingly racist, with the happy, stupid natives bowing and doing the bidding of Howard Keel, an Ohio teacher who has inherited a dilapidated tropical estate, and Esther Williams, who keeps saying she's through-and-through Tahitian and has dusky makeup to back it up, but comes equipped with a Nebraska accent and seems incapable of playing anything but American. About the most dramatic thing that happens is it rains, and Keel and Williams squabble and make up, while a very young Rita Moreno schemes to get them back together. The two stars look terrific, Keel runs around shirtless most of the time, the Harry Warren melodies are very easy to take, and Esther's one underwater ballet displays Technicolor hues that will probably never be seen again. The storytelling's lazy and condescending, Robert Alton is not a natural-born director, and inconsequential doesn't begin to describe it. For all that, it's fun and tuneful and unpretentious, and you may even enjoy the over-simplistic world view of 1950.

museumofdave What a fascinating historical document, a dazzling Technicolor window into the hearts and desires of the American public, or at least what MGM was marketing to them in 1950! As long as today's viewer isn't expecting to see a gripping love story or the conflict that might occur when two radically different cultures attempt to meld, as long as plot or logic or suspense don't matter much, this musical document is amazingly entertaining! And perhaps it's entertainment value evolves from secondary values such as color and location and decent singing. It's not Mutiny On The Bounty! I expect no one ever has watched an Esther Williams film for the intellectual challenge or for cutting edge plot development: first and foremost, we want to see Esther swim, to gloriously navigate the MGM waters as no one else has managed--in over a dozen films, this Million Dollar Mermaid dallied with her suitors, wore bathing suits perfectly, and ultimately proved who was boss in the romantic department, just as she does in this escapist delight. When Howard Keel sails into Tahiti (at the time there were no viable airfields accessible on Tahiti so the studio settled for Hawaii, and it's ravishing!), he mistakes Esther for a native swimmer, treats her with condescension and Esther goes along with the joke until she can turn the tables on him.In the meantime, Howard learns how to live more gregariously with the local natives, a happy lot who seldom challenge his ways, and who are always happy to run off to a luau or a beach party when there's coconut to be husked. There are a couple of lavish MGM showpieces here, one of them a staged cellophaned hula extravaganza featuring dazzling hula action and a performer who utilizes his body as a percussion instrument: it's a frenzied five minutes!! And wait until you see the mind- boggling Dali-esque underwater fantasy ballet, a trip through a bright coral wonderland peppered with golden flashes from the local fishies!Had Stanley Donen, director of such gems as Singin' In The Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, been allowed to direct, this might have been one of Esther's best--but she had suffered under his indifferent attitude toward her talents on Take Me Out To The Ball Game, and she refused to work with him, so the studio provided Robert Alton. Fortunately, we are spared Red Skelton or the other usual guest appearances which hamper the pace, and we are gifted with actual lush photography from the island of what appears to be Kauai for a 50's time warp, a zippy escape from any kind of reality.

edwagreen To say that the film is thin on plot is to put it mildly.We hear songs such as Etiquette, Singing in the Sun, that's right, not the rain, and House of Bamboo.The Tahitian landscape is absolutely marvelous. Other than the scenery, the picture offers absolutely nothing.Rita Moreno is absolutely unrecognizable and Minna Gombell is given little to do.All of a sudden, ex-Ohio schoolteacher, Howard Keel, shows up in Tahiti to inherit a plantation from his uncle. Some plantation. It looks more like an urban shack, of the worst order. He inherits 3 children from out of nowhere. The excuse for getting these children is flimsy at best.Esther Williams, his eventual love-partner, does her usual beautiful swimming, but it's all for naught. We're not exactly experiencing Bali Hai from "South Pacific."Love conquers all, but still has a hard time with this absolutely nothing of a film.