Walk Into Paradise

Walk Into Paradise (also known as Walk Into Hell) is a 1956 French-Australian international co-production adventure film directed by Lee Robinson and Marcello Pagliero and starring Chips Rafferty and Françoise Christophe. It was shot on location in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.[5]

Walk Into Paradise
US film poster
Directed byLee Robinson
Marcello Pagliero
Written byRex Rienits
Based onstory by Lee Robinson
Chips Rafferty
Produced byMarcello Pagliero
Chips Rafferty
Lee Robinson
StarringChips Rafferty
Françoise Christophe
CinematographyCarl Kayser
Edited byAlex Ezard
Music byGeorges Auric
Production
companies
Southern International Productions (Australia)
Discifilm (France)
Distributed byMGM (Aus)
Release dates
  • 28 July 1956 (1956-07-28) (France)
  • 24 October 1956 (1956-10-24) (Australia)
Running time
93 minutes
CountriesAustralia
France
LanguagesEnglish
French
Budget£65,000[1][2]
Box office£90,000 (England)[3]
1,333,157 admissions (France)[4]

Plot

In New Guinea, Ned "Shark Eye" Kelley floats in town on a raft, suffering from malaria and heat. He has discovered oil in a valley. The local Australian District Officer, Fred, tells Kelley he cannot exploit the oil until the area has been officially "opened up".

In Port Moresby, another District Officer, Steve MacAllister, is about to go on eight months' leave when called in to help on the expedition, as he is the only person who knows the area. MacAllister has to help put in an airstrip so geologists can fly to the territory.

MacAllister has to take along United Nations doctor Louise Dumarcet on the expedition. He is unhappy about this, as it is Louise's first time in the tropics. However, when there is a disease outbreak in a town, Louise helps treats some children.

The expedition arrives at a village and meet crocodile hunter Jeff Clayton. Kelley is reluctant to enter a village. He reveals his brother was killed by the locals. They decide to enter anyway. While treating a villager, Louise draws the patient's blood. This is seen by another villager who puts a snake in her bed. The snake bites Louise but she is treated by Jeff, who then kisses her.

The villagers rise up against the expedition and a fight ensues where Kelley is speared to death. However the children Louise was treating recover, ending the battle. The villagers help clear an air strip enabling a plane to land.

Cast

Development

Chips Rafferty and Lee Robinson had produced two earlier films starring Rafferty, The Phantom Stockman and King of the Coral Sea. Their formula was to set the action in an exotic location and for this third movie they chose New Guinea, where Rafferty and Robinson had both served in World War Two.

In May 1954 Rafferty and Robinson returned to Wewa from a location trip up the Sepik River. They announced they planned to film at Kambaramba, a village on the swamp lagoon, at the end of July with a cast and technical crew of 40. It would be the location of their next film. They were so enthused they planned to make several movies in New Guinea.[6][7][8]

Filming was delayed. Richard Boone and Chips Rafferty became friends making Kangaroo together. In December 1954 Boone announced he would act in the film, then called The Head Hunters.[9] Filming on this project was also delayed reportedly due to poor weather.[10]

The movie was based on a story by Robinson and Rex Rienits wrote a script. However Robinson later said they "weren't able to use" what Rienits had written.[2] Robinson elaborated:

The emphasis was to exploit all of the values around the story. And whether it was wrong or not wrong, I worked for a long time to an old Hollywood motto. They say, "Don't give people a new background and a new story concept at the same time, because you'll only confuse them. They can't handle that. If you're going to have a completely new type of story approach, or different format in a story, set it a known background, like New York, or something that people are familiar with, filmically. If you're going to have a completely new background, if you're going to shoot the picture on the Panama Canal or something, have a fairly conventional story-line, because the two differences are hard for audiences to handle.[2]

French involvement

French producer Paul-Edmond Decharme, best known for Manon and Bluebeard, proposed Rafferty and Robinson go into business with the French company Discifilm. The script was rewritten to accommodate two French stars.[11]

In April 1955 Rafferty said the film would be called Walk into Paradise and that Ann Vernon would play the female lead.[12] Later that month Rafferty and Robinson issued a prospectus for investors to put money into the film, offering debentures at £50 each. They claimed The Phantom Stockman had repaid investors 27% and King of the Coral Sea had repaid them 10%.[13]

In May 1955 Decharne announced he would make two films a year in the Pacific. The first two would be co productions with Rafferty and Robinson:, starting withWalk into Paradise, which would be shot on location in New Guinea, in English and French versions. The stars would be Rafferty, Reg Lye, and French players Pierre Cressoy and Francoise Christophe (Vernon having dropped out). Robinson would direct while Marcel Pagliero would be the dialogue director of the French version. The main party of the film unit will leave for New Guinea on 11 June. The voices-of the French stars will be used in both French and English versions. The voices of the Australian stars would be "dubbed" with French dialogue for the French version.[14]

Music for Paradise would be written by Georges Auric, well-known composer of film music and the writer of the title track from Moulin Rouge.

The second film would be made in Tahiti with French director Yves Allegret as the principal director and Robinson as director of the English version. This movie would be shot in Cinema-Scope and would hopefully star Gerard Philippe.[14]

"I was told that the Pacific was very wide, and its capital was Sydney* so I came here," said Decharne."I also heard that Australians appreciated French films better than any other country outside Europe. 'La Ronde' made more money in Australia than it did in France."[14]

The film would cost £150,000 and according to one account was financed on a 50/50 basis by Southern International and Decharme's company, Disci Films.[14] However Robinson later clarified:

We put up 70 per cent, and he [the French producer] put up 30 per cent. And we had the world-excluding Europe... South America in total - and French- speaking Canada. I think that was the French territory. The next film, they would put up 70 per cent, and we would put up 30. And then each one had the right to nominate the alternate pictures.So we saw this as a procedure of being able to get for the 100 per cent, two pictures for one. And the three that we had designed in Southern International, would become six under this system. So to us, it was a first-class deal.[2]

Robinson said 60% of the money invested in the film from his side came from housewives.[15]

Shooting

The French actors arrived in Australia in June 1955.[16] Shooting began in New Guinea in June 1955 and took place over twelve weeks.[17] The unit was based out of Goroka.[18]

Every scene was shot twice, once in French, once in English: Pagliero would direct the French version, Robinson would do the English. Robinson got along well with Pagliero calling him "one of the most delightful guys you would ever meet in your life"[3] He says after the first few days of filming both "very quickly realised that you can only have one boss on the floor of the set." They decided that Pagliero would work through the scenes with the French actors in the morning and when the Australian actors had to speak French, Pagliero would "get all the dialogue done out on idiot boards for them."[3]

Robinson said Pagliero "stood back from the film and worked with his actors a bit, helped the Australian actors with the French dialogue" but contributed more than Robinson originally thought because they would discuss scenes at night.[3]

Robinson said he clashed with the Frenchman only once, during a scene involving the lowering of the Australian flag but "it was a national argument rather than a film argument. But he was terribly aware of the fact that confusion would arise if the two of us were trying to run the set."[3]

Robinson recalled:

What I was looking for - from the French, of course - were two good actors. Christophe was a beautiful actress, but the bloke [Pierre Cressoy] was a sort of an action actor... a very big, good-looking fella...[but] I was looking for a performance like you expected out of the French people. Christophe, the French girl, was marvellous. She could do that. But he was such a bad actor, and she used to complain because he couldn't remember dialogue, and he used to write al his dialogue out. And in two-shots, where it's him and her and over the shoulder, he used to stick it on her forehead. (Laughter) And she came to me, and said, "I will not have him sticking these things on my forehead". And then somebody told me - I think it was Pagliero, that in a picture with [Gina] Lollobrigida, he actually wrote his dialogue in lipstick on her forehead! - So he could remember it. He used to have bits of paper everywhere. Had a scene here and he had a little bit of paper down there with dialogue on it.[2]

Despite the difficulties of shooting on location, the film was infused only three days behind schedule.[19]

The film was edited in Paris.[1] Robinson said "all of our pictures were fairly religiously, totally post-synched. And there was a tremendous amount of post- synching that went on. We devised post-synching techniques and stuff here to suit ourselves. We were post-synching more than anybody else in the world, I think, at that time."[2]

Release

The film was released in France as L'Odyssée du Capitaine Steve. A novelisation of the script by Gavin Casey was published in 1956. The film screened at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.[20] Director Lee Robinson was nominated for the Golden Palm Award[21] but was beaten by Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle for Le Monde du silence.

Robinson said the film made "fair money" in Australia.[2]

US release

American producer Joseph E. Levine purchased the film for distribution in the US for $60,000. Robinson said he had to sell these rights in order to finance his involvement in The Stowaway and the deal was not good for Robinson. Levine asked for two minutes of action footage to put up the front, which Robinson provided, saying "I got half the price of the picture for that two minutes of material."[2]

When the film did poor business he retitled it Walk Into Hell, which increased its earnings dramatically.[22][23] Robinson claimed at one stage the movie was one of the 100 top grossers in the US.[3] In 1976 Robinson said it was the highest grossing Australian film ever, including a gross of over £200,000 in England. However little of this returned to him.[2]

Critical reception

The Los Angeles Times called it "a fairly pleasant travelogue".[24]

Variety called it "more of an adventure travelog... done in color with a definite storyline and benefits from some excellent photography of the New Guinea locale" and "some exciting sequences."[25]

References
  1. Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper, Australian Film 1900–1977: A Guide to Feature Film Production, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1998, 222.
  2. Robinson, Lee (15 August 1976). "Lee Robinson" (Oral history). Interviewed by Graham Shirley. National Film and Sound Archive.
  3. Moran, Albert (1987). "Lee Robinson interview with Albert Moran". Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture. Vol. 1, no. 1.
  4. French box office figures for 1956 at Box Office Story
  5. WALK INTO PARADISE Monthly Film Bulletin; London Vol. 23, Iss. 264, (1 January 1956): 88.
  6. "'Chips' scores in N.G." The Argus (Melbourne). Victoria, Australia. 11 May 1954. p. 11. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  7. "Film Location Chosen On Sepik River". The West Australian. Western Australia. 11 May 1954. p. 9. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  8. "Feature Films to be Made in N. Guinea". The Age. Victoria, Australia. 26 May 1954. p. 5. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  9. Hopper, Hedda (31 December 1954). "Dick Boone Visits New Guinea for Movie on Head Hunters". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 10.
  10. Schallert, Edwin (5 May 1955). "George Sanders Joins All-Star Group; 'Consul at Sunset' Optioned". Los Angeles Times. p. B17.
  11. "French movie stars for New Guinea wilds". The Australian Women's Weekly. 29 June 1955. p. 13. Retrieved 27 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  12. "FILM STAR VISITS PARRAMATTA". The Cumberland Argus. New South Wales, Australia. 20 April 1955. p. 7. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  13. "PUBLIC INVITED TO HELP PRODUCE FILMS". The Cumberland Argus. New South Wales, Australia. 27 April 1955. p. 3. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  14. "Frenchman Here to Make Two Films Yearly". Sydney Morning Herald. 1 May 1955. p. 17.
  15. "New hope for stars of the future". The Australian Women's Weekly. Australia. 9 May 1956. p. 23. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  16. "French movie stars for New Guinea wilds". The Australian Women's Weekly. Australia. 29 June 1955. p. 13. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  17. "Worth Reporting". The Australian Women's Weekly. Australia. 25 May 1955. p. 30. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  18. Kayser, Carl (April 1956). "Assignment New Guinea". American Cinematographer. pp. 222–223, 256–258.
  19. "Worth Reporting". The Australian Women's Weekly. 25 May 1955. p. 30. Retrieved 27 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  20. "Australia's good showing at Cannes Film Festival". The Australian Women's Weekly. Australia. 23 May 1956. p. 23. Retrieved 18 April 2020 – via Trove.
  21. "Festival de Cannes: Walk Into Paradise". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  22. Scheuer, P. K. (27 July 1959). "Meet joe levine, super(sales)man!". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest 167430798.
  23. Robertson, Nan (1 August 1987). "Joseph E. Levine: a towering figure in movie making is dead". New York Times. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  24. Wild Land Setting of New Movie F L M. Los Angeles Times 6 December 1957: C11.
  25. "Walk into Hell". Variety. 31 July 1957. p. 6.
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