When plans were shuttled for a Merian C. Cooper "adventure epic" that had already started location shooting in New Guinea, executives at RKO put their heads together - or rather, the unused footage and Steffi Duna together, since they felt their newly acquired starlet wasn't doing enough to justify her contract. (The Hungarian born starlet was plenty busy perfecting her English.) The new movie, patched together by writers John Twist and Wallace Fox (the latter also serving as director), centers around the seafaring Kara (Duna), a shipcaptain's daughter who loves sailing so much she postpones her wedding to John Hastings (Regis Toomey) in favor of one last voyage with dad Captain Perava (Mitchell Lewis). But when they're betrayed by the mutinous first mate Hawker (Raymond Hatton), will they be able to survive on an island populated with shrunken-head-hungry natives? The movie poster makes much of Duna's islandside wardrobe of sarong and beads, but Duna emerged unscathed to appear in much fancier duds in the following year's One New York Night (1935).

By Violet LeVoit