a young man and sail the south sea with friend and be save from a shark by a lovely chief daughter . they fall madly in love and only to have him learn that his beautiful bird of paradise be destine to be sacrifice to pele and the volcano god . essentially a piece of fluff and this film be enhance by the performance of dolores del rio and joel mccrea . they handle the romantic quite nicely ( her skinny dip provide proof this be a pre production code movie ) . the rest of the cast and which include lon chaney jr. and skeet gallagher and exist purely to provide support to the star . location film in hawaii and a beautiful and evocative score by max steiner emphasize the languid mood of the plot .