GOONA-GOONA; AN AUTHENTIC DRAMA OF THE ISLE OF BALI
KRISS, THE SWORD OF DEATH
LOVE POWDER
KRISS, THE
LOVE POWDER
KRISS, THE SWORD OF DEATH
LOVE POWDER
KRISS, THE
LOVE POWDER
Its American title was Love Powder, but most exhibitors preferred to
stick to the film's original moniker Goona-Goona. This was the second of
the many exotic documentaries assembled by intrepid explorer-hunters
Andre Roosevelt and Armand Denis. Amidst reams of authentic expedition
footage, the producers endeavored to contrive a dramatic plotline
involving the romance between a Balinese prince and a servant girl. Our
hero finally wins the heroine's love with the help of a magic potion
concocted by the local witch doctor. Goona-Goona was re-edited to
conform to American censorship restrictions by Al Friedlander, the head
of First Division Pictures.
The
remote little island only became news to the rest of the Western world
with the advent, a few years ago, of a series of documentary films of
Bali with a strong emphasis on sex appeal. These films were a revelation
and now everybody knows that Balinese girls have beautiful bodies and
that the islanders lead a musical-comedy sort of life full of weird,
picturesque rites. The title of one of these films, Goona-goona, the
Balinese term for "magic", became at the time newyorkese for sex allure.
The newly discovered "last paradise" became the contemporary substitute
for the nineteenth-century romantic conception of primitive Utopia,
until then the exclusive monopoly of Tahiti and other South Sea islands.
And lately travel agencies have used the alluring name of Bali to
attract hordes of tourists for their round-the-world cruises that make a
one-day stop on the island."
(Miguel Covarrubias, Island of Bali, 1937)
Actual organised tourism came to Bali in the 1920's. By 1930 up to 100 visitors a month were arriving, mostly by sea. Their ecstatic reports were so positive that by 1940 this figure had increased to about 250 per month, not including the passengers on the various cruise ships that advertised a day or two in Bali as the highlight of their winter schedules.
The Dutch Steamship Line, K.P.M., initiated the first tourist passages to Bali on its cargo ships and several enterprising characters were quick to take advantage of these developments. A Persian-Armenian, M.J. Minas, was the first to realise the tourist potential. He introduced moving pictures to the villages, travelling with a portable projector, and he established the first movie theatre in Buleleng. Minas started picking up passengers off the K.P.M. ships in about 1920. An American adventurer, Andre Roosevelt, arrived in Bali in 1924 and joined Minas, bringing American Express and Thomas Cook patronage with him. Andre Roosevelt undertook in the 1920s to develop the tourist market, although this did not deter him from suggesting measures to preserve the integrity of Balinese society and its culture:
Having leisure, my friend Spies and I started a scheme which would tend to slow down the invading forces from the West and keep the Balinese in their happy, contented ways for a few decades longer ….. We want to make of Bali a national or international park, with special laws to maintain it as such.
(in Hickman Powell, The Last Paradise, 1930: xiv-xvi)
(Miguel Covarrubias, Island of Bali, 1937)
Actual organised tourism came to Bali in the 1920's. By 1930 up to 100 visitors a month were arriving, mostly by sea. Their ecstatic reports were so positive that by 1940 this figure had increased to about 250 per month, not including the passengers on the various cruise ships that advertised a day or two in Bali as the highlight of their winter schedules.
The Dutch Steamship Line, K.P.M., initiated the first tourist passages to Bali on its cargo ships and several enterprising characters were quick to take advantage of these developments. A Persian-Armenian, M.J. Minas, was the first to realise the tourist potential. He introduced moving pictures to the villages, travelling with a portable projector, and he established the first movie theatre in Buleleng. Minas started picking up passengers off the K.P.M. ships in about 1920. An American adventurer, Andre Roosevelt, arrived in Bali in 1924 and joined Minas, bringing American Express and Thomas Cook patronage with him. Andre Roosevelt undertook in the 1920s to develop the tourist market, although this did not deter him from suggesting measures to preserve the integrity of Balinese society and its culture:
Having leisure, my friend Spies and I started a scheme which would tend to slow down the invading forces from the West and keep the Balinese in their happy, contented ways for a few decades longer ….. We want to make of Bali a national or international park, with special laws to maintain it as such.
(in Hickman Powell, The Last Paradise, 1930: xiv-xvi)
| The black-and-white film Goona-Goona, An Authentic Melodrama, also called Der Kris and The Kris,
was originally shot in 1928 and 1929 by Andre Roosevelt and Armand
Denis with assistance at the outset from Spies. Walter Spies wrote about
his collaboration with Roosevelt: "I'm doing the directing and most of
the work; a certain Mr Roosevelt turns the handle. I've got a
marvellous, very simple story for it and have found some very good
actors." Much of it was re-filmed in 1929 after a processing accident in Surabaya in November 1928. Walter Spies was not involved in the re-shooting. The film was first released in America in 1930. Goona-Goona was most likely the movie which inspired K'tut Tantri, author of Revolt in Paradise, and later famous as Surabaya Sue, to travel to Bali in 1932: It was a rainy afternoon and, walking down Hollywood Boulevard, I stopped before a small theatre showing a foreign film and on the spur of the moment, decided to go in. The film was entitled Bali, the Last Paradise. I became entranced. The picture was aglow with an agrarian pattern of peace, contentment, beauty and love. Yes, I had found my life. I recognised the place where I wished to be. (K'tut Tantri, Revolt in Paradise, 1960) Although K'tut Tantri mentions that her decision to travel to Bali in 1932 was inspired by a film entitled Bali, the Last Paradise, this must be incorrect. Hickman Powell published a book about Bali with a similar title in 1930, but there was never any film of that name. There was a film entitled Bali, the Lost Paradise, a 12-mm black-and-white film made by Michael Lerner but this was American, not foreign, and was not made until 1939, seven years after K'tut Tantri's arrival in Bali. Der Insel der Dämonen was not released until 1933 and so Goona-Goona was probably the only film of Bali that could have been viewed in America in 1932. |
The film was very successful and actually started an American craze for all things Balinese. In New York high society goona-goona, a Malay and Javanese term for love magic, was turned into a popular phrase. Goona-Goona can be credited with linking sex and magic in the popular image of Bali.
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