Review of Girl of the Port

Notable. This is worth seeing, in spite of sometimes poor production values and early sound stiltedness, for its unsubtle presentation of racism ("Gentlemen, to White supremacy!"), for the surprisingly interesting supporting character Duke Kahanamoku, the popularizer of surfing, is given as the menial servant Kalita, who is also a Fijian chief, by whom "Whiskey Jim" receives the final catalyst that propels him and "tabby" Josie to their fates. We are in Robert Lewis Stevenson's world of the South Seas, a world filled with brutalities, castaways, half-castes and tourists, dignity and hypocrisy, greed and cruelty, and the casual exploitation of native culture and resources in the name of a social Darwinism the film both affirms and destroys, as it's protagonists wander in a world beyond the pale of their law and culture, in more than one sense. If Stevenson might have left us with a crueler end, the story pursues something of an exploration of character, of post-traumatic stress, of worlds without safety nets for those orphaned from family and friends, and a trial by fire which one can watch with interest as one sips one's Mai Tai.