His Majesty O'Keefe

1954 "Adventure Beyond The Fabulous! Two Years In The Making! All Of It Actually Filmed In The Fiji Islands!"
6.1| 1h30m| NR| en
Details

Men steal for it. Nations go to war for it. The it is oil - and it grows on trees. Coconut oil is the precious lifeblood of 1870s South Seas traders. And lots of real blood will be spilled to get it! Screen royalty Burt Lancaster is His Majesty O'Keefe in this last of three adventures that (along with The Flame and the Arrow and The Crimson Pirate) blew a revitalizing wind into the sails of the swashbuckler genre. Action, cunning and derring-do are watchwords of the title seafarer as he befriends, defends and ultimately rules the islanders of exotic Yap. Lensed on gorgeus Fiji locations, grandly scored by Robert Farnon and rousingly directed by Byron Haskin, His Majesty O'Keefe delivers heroics of regal proportions.

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Reviews

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.
Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
Sillyhuron A deeply subversive, yet utterly enjoyable (and kinda true)South Seas movie from the 50's. Burt Lancaster is a typical 19th century trader/pirate whose only ambition is to make money out of the "natives", and fast. He comes to a Pacific Island Utopia where no one has to work... because who needs money?...Vastly underrrated, this film makes all kinds of points. The Natives (half of whom, admittedly,are white guys in blackface)are dangerous quasi-cannibals. But the white guys (including Burt!)are plain Euro- Trash. The head chief, and Burt's head wife (Joan Rice in a lovely performance - she takes the cliché of the innocent island girl and makes a performance out of it with her eyelashes) are the real heroes.Did I mention the Chinese dentist who knows more about investments than Burt? Or the German philosophy student who can relate to the natives better than Europeans? Filmed on location in Fiji with a cast that seem to be having the time of their lives, HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE is a very simple, yet completely fun relic of the non-PC days. (P.S. Check out the other scripts by Borden Chase. Some good ones there...)
Dawnfrancis This film is not Lancaster's best but is enjoyable if you enjoy watching him in his athletic prime. Beautifully shot, it captures the exciting times of adventure on the high seas and island exploration. The plot is fairly insubstantial and there's nothing new here but at just over 90 minutes, the story never drags. Definitely worth a look if you're a fan of Burt's.
bux This is a pretty fair action flick, with the usual stunts you'd expect from Lancaster. Having spent a full year on the glorious Isle of Yap in the mid 60's, (with the U.S. Coast Guard) I can tell you that if they had native girls that looked near as good as Ms. Rice there, I would not have been so anxious to leave!
artzau Aside from some good old studio stand-bys, like Benson Fong and Philip Ahn (A Korean usually cast as some other Asian), this film has few of the faces that hung around the screens of Hollywood. But, Lancaster teamed up with the lovely Joan Rice from the UK to give us a wonderful tale of adventure in the South Seas. This time, it takes us to the Solomons to the island of Yap, who worship the stone Fey, spirits who reside in stone wheels cut and transported nearly a thousand miles. O'Keefe winds up becoming their king but with profit in mind. He wants to exploit the copra market but the Yap Islanders won't work. So, he hits on the plan to bring their Fey back and this is the beginning. The Solomons were part of the old German trust Islands and there actually was a man named O'Keefe who slipped in by marrying a local girl. But, the Germans, unlike in the movie, eventually kicked him out until they were kicked out after the first world war and then the Island went to the Japanese who were kicked out after the second world war and then...well, you get the idea. I loved this film when I saw it as a kid. No, it's far from perfect but it is a charming story with lots of action and Burt was at his best. But, those beautiful green eyes of Joan Rice were a delight as well. It's too bad we saw so little of her afterwards. Also, there's a lovely song from this film, based in part on Rachmaninov's rhapsody, called Sweet Emerald Isle. Check it out.