Mimi Bennett lives with her wealthy aunt Kate on the Polynesian isle of Tahiti. A half-indigenous, half-White girl, Mimi's dream is to someday leave the South Pacific to live in America.
Hazard Endicott's arrival changes her plans. He is a schoolteacher from Ohio who has inherited a Tahiti estate. His first task is to hire a servant and, mistaking Mimi for a native girl, offers her the job. She amuses herself by feigning a bare grasp of English.
The estate turns out to be little more than a shack. Endicott also miscalculates an invitation to a party at Kate's, coming in casual island attire to an event with elegantly dressed guests. Mimi takes pity on him, and a romance blooms.
The film was originally announced as Tahiti and was to star Ann Miller, Howard Keel and Ricardo Montalbán.[4] Eventually Miller was replaced by Esther Williams and Montalbán by Charles Mauu.[5] The title was then changed to Hawaii.[6]
The film was to have been directed by Stanley Donen, but Williams refused to work with him after her experience filming the previous year's Take Me Out to the Ball Game.[7] Location shooting took place on the Hawaiian island of Kauai.[8][9]
Williams realized that she was pregnant while making the film. She claimed that she nearly drowned during filming.[8]
In a contemporary review, Thomas M. Pryor of The New York Times praised the scenery and Williams' "aquatic exercises" but panned the film overall: "Presumably there is a story somewhere in the picture, but all we can recollect is a series of incidents, some eye-filling and some amusing, others rather pointless and tedious. Perhaps life on the island is just too idyllic."[10]
According to MGM records, the film earned $2,157,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $1,203,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $108,000.[3] This was considered a relative disappointment for an Esther Williams film.[8]
^ abcThe Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
^Hopper, Hedda (May 7, 1949). "Looking at Hollywood". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. 17.
^"David Wayne to Stay for Films Till Fall". Los Angeles Times. Mar 18, 1950. p. 10.
^Hopper, Hedda (May 19, 1948). "Looking at Hollywood". Chicago Daily Tribune. p. a4.
^THOMAS F. BRADY (Jan 28, 1950). "DRATTLER DRAMA IS BOUGHT BY RKO: Studio Acquires 'Miami Story' as Vehicle for Robert Ryan --Author Named Producer Of Local Origin". The New York Times. p. 10.
