The story is set in the immediate aftermath of the Panic of 1929. Joan, an unemployed costume designer and her boyfriend Voltaire, a disinherited scion of a wealthy family, embark together on a Caribbean cruise. Voltaire discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Constance, is a passenger on the ship: romantic complications develop.
The menage-a-trois find themselves shipwrecked on a tropical island. They discover that the paradise is populated by women, with only one male inhabitant, Jerry. Dubbed King of the Island, he quips “"It was one of the Virgin Islands, but it drifted." Further romantic complications ensue. When these are finally resolved, Voltaire’s grandfather arrives on a yacht and rescues the castaways. As they depart, the island sinks into the ocean.[3][4]
Paramount initially delayed release of Let’s Go Native, concerned that the narrative was too bizarre for audiences and “had not expected it to be quite so free-spirited.”[5]
Let’s Go Native opened simultaneously with the Marx Brothers’ Animal Crackers (1930) and was “favorably compared by period critics with this pioneering zany team classic” directed by Victor Heerman.[6]
The film was released on 16 August 1930 but a preview screening had taken place in April or May the same year.[7]
Retrospective appraisal
Film historian Wes D. Gehring identifies Let’s Go Native as a precursor to McCarey’s subsequent screwball comedy classic The Awful Truth (1937). Let’s Go Native not only catapulted the careers of Jack Oakie, Jeanette MacDonald and Kay Fransis, but “helped established McCarey as a viable feature film director.” The Marx Brothers-like elements of the film earned McCarey the honor of directing Duck Soup (1933).[8]
Film historian Richard Barrios in his A Song in the Dark: The Birth of the Musical Film writes: “Let’s Go Native was sheer [joyful] malarkey, played with bounce and directed by McCarey with some of the affinity toward musical anarchy he later brought to Duck Soup.”[9]
Hooper, Gary and Poague, Leland. 1980. Leo McCarey Filmography in The Hollywood Professionals: Wilder and McCarey, Volume 7. The Tanvity Press, A. S. Barnes and Company, Inc, San Diego, California. pp. 295-314 ISBN0498-02181-5
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