A great educational overview of the building of Hawaii in a well-done vintage movie. Never knew pineapples weren't always there! No way a Michener tome could be condensed fully for the screen, so this slice of working it into a movie was pretty good. Yes, the fast-forwards from decade to decade were a bit dicey & jumped without seguay, but it served to cover the time span enough to have Tina Chen grow old and be the matriarch as Auntie to her six children. Heston was perfect in his role. Technicolor worked beautifully and you really felt part of the early colony. Clipper ships loading so many into the cargo hold was very depressing, but I suppose realistic, as was the leper colony.

I'm a great fan of Michener and especially HAWAII. This movie is very pale compared to the sections of the novel it covers and is a much looser adaption than the Max von Sydow movie, but it's entertaining and well-intentioned. I saw it when it came out and I don't think I've seen it again until it turned up on Hulu.Geraldine Chapman said that she was disappointed the way the movie was cut. She had some scenes that made it clear her character was not just crazy, but dangerous.Noel Hoxworth (John Philip Law), Purity (Chaplin) and the Kee daughter aren't from the book, and Heston's Whipple Hoxworth has been cleaned up so much he's hardly recognizable. I don't think Heston ever played a real scoundrel; might have been better if they'd gone with a more disreputable leading man.I'd forgotten how truly horrible John Philip Law was in this. He was more than a pretty face; check out THE GOLDEN VOYAGE OF SINBAD to see him in much better form. He'd done a pretty good job playing von Richthofen before this movie. He had a bad drug problem; maybe he was taking too much nose candy, or trying to come down when he was shooting this one.He died in 2008.

Entertaining. I thought there was gratuitous nudity and rating was off the mark, but good story.