Suggestions for "Tiki-sploitation"

You know, the kind of thing features on the covers of Men's Adventure magazines: beautiful voluptuous "island" women (who usually look like Caucasians in makeup, or belong to some unknown "White Girl" tribe), two-fisted ship-wrecked men. Exploitation angles like torture, violence and monsters are a plus. Am looking for more lurid 50s and early 60s type stuff, more than 40s Maria Montez/Jon Hall films.

Offhand, I can think of:

SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF
MERMAIDS OF TIBURON
IT'S HOT IN PARADISE/HORRORS OF SPIDER ISLAND
FROM HELL IT CAME

I guess the Blood Island films qualify to a degree. What else?

SHE DEMONS and THE BLOOD ISLAND movies (BRIDES OF BLOOD, MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND, and BEAST OF BLOOD)?

THE LOST CONTINENT (1951) and UNTAMED WOMEN (1952) adopted that basic template, but had dinosaurs also.

You should really check out Burt Lancaster in HIS MAJESTY'S O'KEEFE (1954), which has an interesting mix of island women and is based on a true story. (Bully Hayes of NATE AND HAYES fame is a villain in it.) RETURN TO PARADISE (1953), with Gary Cooper, offers an equally interesting variation on this theme, from a James Michener story based on a real character. Not as pulpy as you're looking for, but quite an eye-opener.

I'd also recommend KONGO, which is pretty damn lurid for 1932. It's set in Africa, but it looks and feels like the tropics. Walter Huston stars as a sadistic cripple who vents his rage at the natives and colonists alike. Lon Chaney had played the role four years earlier in WEST OF ZANZIBAR (which is on my DVR but remains to be watched).

Something Weird Video has a couple. There's a film that has lots of dancing girls and Herschell Gordon Lewis-styled gore. I can't recall the title, but the alternate title is SIX SHES AND A HE. That one would be perfect. The main title may be LOVE GODDESSES OF BLOOD ISLAND. It's not one of the Filipino films.

Then, there's the B&W Barry Mahon flick entitled PAGAN ISLAND. A bunch of girls dance around a tiki statue.

There's always WILD WOMEN OF WONGO, if you can stand it.

The best films I can think of from the 1950s that fit the "Men's Adventure" mode that you describe are some of the color Pine-Thomas productions from the 1950s, which are usually set in jungle rather than island settings. When I saw these films, those pulp magazines were the first thing I thought of.

Examples:

CROSSWINDS (1951) with John Payne, Rhonda Fleming and Forrest Tucker on a treasure hunt upriver in New Guinea (but shot in Florida).

JAMAICA RUN (1953) set, obviously, in Jamaica with Ray Milland and Arlene Dahl, with an underwater sequence.

JIVARO (1954) - my favorite of this gene, with Fernando Lamas and Rhonda Fleming going deep into the Amazon in search of Fleming's wayward fiance Richard Denning, who's off on a treasure hunt. Climaxes in the "Valley of the Winds." Originally shot in 3-D. Also with Brian Keith, Rita Moreno and Lon Chaney Jr. The Lamas/Fleming scenes are highly sexually charged. Lamas has to fight all the other males to protect her.

Thanks, all.

Brian, funny you should mention HIS MAJESTY O'KEEFE, Brian. The excellent MensPulps.com blog has some impressive scratchboard illustrations that the great Mort Kunstler, the king of "Men's Adventure" illustrators, did for the "Condensed Book" version that appeared in the April, 1954 issue of SPORT LIFE.

Without researching it, I cynically wonder if O'Keefe's story was as "true" as that of BLOODSPORT's Frank Dux or the guy who claimed to have won the bogus "Ocean of Fire" trans-Sahara horse race in HIDALGO.

I actually saw Jivaro IN 3D a few years ago in L.A.

This is on Netflix Instant, so I took the recommendation. It's a lot of fun. I enjoyed it a lot. I like the pacing and build on the Lamas/Fleming relationship.

I watched Beyond Atlantis for the first time last month. It was everything I wanted in googly-eyed natives and bikini-clad women. Add to that an appearance by George Nader of Robot Monster infamy AND Sig Haig as one of the stars, and it's an unbeatable umbrella-topped cocktail of awesomeness!

Here's what I said in my review at the time:

Beyond Atlantis (1973)

Delightfully dumb adventure shot in the Philippines features John Ashley, Patrick Wayne, and Sid Haig as somewhat less-than-upstanding expats. The trio, along with an anthropologist, go in search of some really big pearls. What do they find? Descendents of the citizens of Atlantis (who have eyes similar to those of the aliens in Killers from Space) and really big pearls. They also find the regular-eyed "princess" of this tribe, who has to mate with an outsider to continue the royal lineage (and keep said lineage's eyes normal). Film features some exceptionally pretty underwater cinematography (and so much of it!). The princess's dad is played by the hero of Robot Monster, George Nader. And that just seems kind of fitting. Film is the seventh in a series of films that Ashley and director Eddie Romero made together. Best line: "You WILL mate! You WILL mate!" For me, drive-in nirvana.

This is the only Ashley/Romero collaboration I haven't seen. Its reputation is putrid (and it gets ripped in MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED!), but the trailer looks really fun.