Customer Reviews

Return to Paradise [VHS]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This movie was Michener at his best--sympathetic with humanity as if he were amazed that beings capable of such evil were capable of such love. I saw this as a child, and it was the only movie that has has ever stuck in my consciousness with such persistence. No piece of art has ever come so close to being a life-changing experience. Some other reviewer mentioned that the last quarter of the movie ruined it from being a classic. Hell. The first quarter alone made it a classic. You don't even have to watch the last quarter, and you will be changed. And yet it is the last quarter that has moved me the most since becoming an adult. There is one scene there that was symbolic in a way that was incomprehensible to a child. Morgan, the no-good drifter, had abandoned his infant daughter to the natives and went bumming around the south Pacific. When he returns during WWII, he meets his daughter for the first time in fifteen years. The natives who raised her have spoiled her, letting her do whatever she wants, because she is the daughter of Morgan, who to them is a great hero and liberator. Of course the daughter, Tarea, is spoiled in another way: She can love no boy who doesn't match her heroic image of her father. One day, a U.S. Army pilot crash lands in the lagoon and soon lusts after the beautiful fifteen-year-old Tarea. Tarea, of course, sees an acceptable father substitute in the heroic but cynical young officer--someone who has come to rescue her people from the marauding Japanese. In one scene, Tarea does a little hula for the cocky unscrupulous pilot, expertly moving her tidy little body in an effort to seduce him. She is simultaneously totally lascivious and totally innocent. If I'm any judge of an audience, everybody was saying "No! Do not debase her. Do not ruin paradise!" Of course that is exactly what Michener was agonizing over in all his stories about Polynesian culture.

For three quarters of the way, Return To Paradise is an engrossing fable of a man's search for meaning in a world which seems to have spun out of control. Until Gary Cooper returns to the island and reunites with his 16 year-old daughter, this film is a warm and moving interracial love story. While the last 20 minutes don't sink the film, they undercut what could have been a genuine classic. Still very worth watching, especially on a cold, snowy night in January! Luscious photography, filmed entirely in the South Pacific. And it goes without saying, Cooper is aces.

Great pic...a master piece. A man of the world comes to grips of a new simple way of life .....one he never knew until he landed in Paradise....and found the woman who love him and changed his out look on life.......

I have seen this film at a very young age (about 10 years old) and it always stayed with me. Beautiful story, very well acted, the bottom line: GREAT PICTURE.

I have been waiting a long time for it to be released on DVD, and finally found it here at Amazon.com

It is a(Create space) DVD-R Media release, and I must say, I am not disappointed at all, with the video and audio quality of the DVD-R.

It is a great step up from the VHS release. Thank you Amazon.com for being able to release this wonderful family classic.

Hope you will continue to release other great films that are almost impossible to find...such as:

-The Miracle(1959)

-The Bengal Brigade

-Seminole

-The Left Hand of God

-All the young men

-Saskatchewan

-Cecil B. de Mille's North West Mounted Police

-King of the Khyber rifles

-Morocco

-Princess of the Nile

-Abandon ship, to name a few...

I enjoy revisiting old movies that I saw as a child on a small black and white television. Imagine my pleasant surprise of finding out the movie was in technicolor. This is a B movie that was never intended to win awards, but it is a morality play in the tradition of good versus evil. It shows that evil can be disguised and presented in the form of good and vice versa; that each of us must struggle to have an open mind and not pass judgement too quickly when confronted with beliefs different from our own.

This movie for me is quite exceptional! It is very close to the actual book. The characters were very convincing of their roles, Gary Cooper was at his best! I really enjoyed the entire movie!

Upon purchasing a condo in Florida I discovered one of my neighbors to be one of the stars in the film. I thought that it would be great to buy it if possible. My first thing is to search Amazon.com. They had the film on DVD and it was bought. It was a delightful film and more special knowing one of the stars.