The only thing that spoils this film, is the soundtrack. I'd say it's a better film than Blue Hawaii (this is understandably nicknamed Blue Hawaii 2) if it had been recorded the other way round (before the "mundane movie formula" had kicked in) and had the songs from "Blue Hawaii" (half of which weren't great themselves anyway) THIS could easily have been Elvis Presley's highest grossing film of his lifetime instead of it's Hawaiian predecessor. English beauty Suzanna Leigh plays the leading "Elvis Girl" in this Movie...what a fabulous figure!! 9 year old Donna Butterworth is arguably the most memorable female in the movie however, with a series of scene stealing performances that makes it hard to understand how this was her final film. She sings two songs with Elvis - the silly "Queenie Wahini's Papaya" and the tongue in cheek "Datin'" as well as a number of her own at a party. Elvis plays out of work pilot Rick Richards (sounds more like a Nascar driver!) who sets up a helicopter tourist business with his pal Danny Kohana (little Donna's dad) and digs himself into a hole by loaning funds to back his business from a bevvie of beauties he'd fled from 2 years earlier. Like most Elvis movies - it's enjoyable. Silly but enjoyable entertainment, never likely to win awards, get nominated for awards or even top anybody's "favourite film" lists, but sometimes it's good - especially for Elvis fans - to just sit back, enjoy some easy entertaining viewing. These films might have been panned in their day - even by the man himself - but now it's great to have so much visual footage of The King singing, talking, romancing, joking and fighting, even though this is the movie where for the first time it looks apparent that Elvis had grown tired of Hollywood and his dreams of being a "serious movie star". His previous few movies had been particularly soft, and heavily criticised and mocked and Elvis doesn't look as good as he had even 6 months earlier in "Harum Scarum" (a trend and a look that would continue over into his next few films, most notably "Clambake").
Review of Paradise, Hawaiian Style
