Hula is a 1927 American silent romantic comedy film directed by Victor Fleming, and based on the novel Hula, a Romance of Hawaii (1927) by Armine von Tempski. The film stars Clara Bow and was released by Paramount Pictures. The film entered into the public domain on January 1, 2023, because regardless of the film itself's renewal status, the copyright of the book it was based on was renewed in 1954.
Contents
Plot
Hula Calhoun is the daughter of a Hawaiian planter, Bill Calhoun. She follows the advice of her uncle Edwin, 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.
Courted with adoration by Harry Dehan, Hula prefers a young British engineer, Anthony Haldane, 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, appears, Hula makes a deal with one of the foreman to use dynamite to seemingly 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
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. 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.