Hula (film)
Hula | |
---|---|
Directed by | Victor Fleming |
Written by | Doris Anderson (adaptation) Ethel Doherty (scenario) George Marion, Jr. (titles) Frederica Sagor (uncredited) |
Based on | Hula, a Romance of Hawaii by Armine von Tempski |
Produced by | Adolph Zukor Jesse L. Lasky B. P. Schulberg (associate producer) |
Starring | Clara Bow Clive Brook Arlette Marchal Albert Gran |
Cinematography | William Marshall |
Edited by | E. Lloyd Sheldon Eda Warren |
Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 64 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent (English intertitles) |
Hula is a 1927 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Victor Fleming, and based on the novel Hula, a Romance of Hawaii by Armine von Tempski. The film stars Clara Bow and was released by Paramount Pictures.[1]
Plot[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/07/Hula-1927-lanternslide.jpg/262px-Hula-1927-lanternslide.jpg)
Hula Calhoun (Clara Bow) is the daughter of a Hawaiian planter, Bill Calhoun (Albert Gran). She follows the advice of her uncle Edwin (Agostino Borgato), and follows a simple and natural life, far from social conventions of her family and is considered a "wild child" who wears pants and rides horses.[2]
Courted with adoration by Harry Dehan (Arnold Kent), Hula prefers a young British engineer, Anthony Haldane (Clive Brook), who came to the island to oversee the construction of a dam on her father's property. However, Haldane is already married. At a party, Haldane tries to keep his distance but Hula gets drunk and performs a seductive hula dance for him. She manages to provoke him so much that he promises that he will get a divorce. When his wife, Margaret (Patricia Dupont), appears, Hula makes a deal with one of the foreman to use dynamite to blow up a point on the dam. Thinking that her husband is now ruined, Mrs. Haldane agrees to the divorce, and the two lovers can finally get married.
Cast[]
- Clara Bow as Hula Calhoun
- Clive Brook as Anthony Haldane
- Arlette Marchal as Mrs. Bane
- Albert Gran as Bill Calhoun
- Arnold Kent as Harry Dehan
- Patricia Dupont as Margaret Haldane
- Agostino Borgato as Uncle Edwin
- Duke Kahanamoku as Hawaiian boy
Production[]
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Clara_Bow_in_Hula.jpg/220px-Clara_Bow_in_Hula.jpg)
In the opening scene of the film Hula is shown swimming nude in a stream, and later is wearing pants and articulates her sexual desires.[2] Similar to Sadie Thompson (1928), the film depicts a modern woman who is located outside the bounds of American civilization and thus able to act in an "uncivilized" manner like natives who live on the islands.[3][4]
See also[]
- Nudity in film
- The White Flower (1923)
References[]
- ^ Progressive Silent Film List: Hula at silentera.com
- ^ a b Fischer, Lucy (2003). Designing Women: Cinema, Art Deco, and the Female Form. Columbia University Press. pp. 174–76. ISBN 0-231-12501-1.
- ^ Schlater, Angela (December 2008). Flaming Youth: Gender in 1920s Hollywood. Ann Arbor, Michigan. pp. 91–93. ISBN 978-0-549-94439-3.
- ^ Wood, Houston (1999). Displacing Natives: The Rhetorical Production of Hawaiʻi. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 104–05. ISBN 0-8476-9141-1.
External links[]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hula (film). |
- 1927 films
- English-language films
- 1927 romantic comedy films
- American films
- American romantic comedy films
- American silent feature films
- American black-and-white films
- Films based on American novels
- Films directed by Victor Fleming
- Films set in Hawaii
- Paramount Pictures films