His Majesty O'Keefe

Burt in All His Glory!
If you like Burt Lancaster, you gotta love this movie. It's even strangely politically correct for its time. One of the themes boils down to not messing around with indigenous cultures to satisfy the White Man's greed. Meanwhile, if you want to dispense with the anti-exploitation morality, just enjoy the most virile male lead in Hollywood history spreading his testosterone around the Fiji islands. Every Burt Lancaster film has a memorable scene that marks his territory forever in your mind. In this movie its the scene where is challenged by the native chief and fights him for domination of the island. His Majesty O'Keefe is a flawed hero, but a real man, no question. He learns from his mistakes, such as ruining the native economy while trying to do them a favor. It does a satisfying job poking holes in the White Man's Burden myth and is rousing entertainment. This isn't a rampant swashbuckler like Crimson Pirate, but if you like that movie, you'll probably enjoy this one also.

Inspiring Swashbuckler!
This all-but-forgotten fifties swashbuckler produced by the team of Harold Hecht-Burt Lancaster is a thrilling, beautifully photographed epic of the South Seas and the people of Fiji. Lancaster was never better as Captain David Dion O'Keefe, a soldier of fortune obsessed with making a fortune in copra, the oil extracted from cocoanuts. His intentions are deeply affected by a philosophical German trader, the heroic chief of the natives (played by an amazing local character who appears to be a naturally gifted actor/dancer), and the lovely half-caste girl he falls in love with. As if the visuals are not enough, the film is worth seeing for the incredible score by Dmitri Tiomkin, definitely one of his best.

Burt goes native
This is a true story about an American in the western Pacific who sets himself up as king of the island of Yap in the late 1800's. The book is very interesting and the movie is too although it is a 1950's Hollywood "treatment" of the story. Burt Lancaster is in his prime in this adventure film. He gets to show off his great physique, his acrobatic talents and of course his 1000 watt smile. The movie was actually filmed in Fiji and the scenery is beautiful. It made me smile to see how conservative our culture was in the 1950's: In the book, O'Keefe has nightly trysts with a native girl but in the movie Burt simply looks at her and smiles and then later you see her with one of his gold coins around her neck. Sex used to be much simpler.

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