American Movie

Star To Film

South Pacific

A 48-minute film —“South Pacific Adventures” —will be the result of a seven-weeks cruise on the Matson liner Monterey by movie and television actor Victor Jory in May and June.

The film will include shots by Mr.

Jory of Bora Bora, Tahiti, Moorea, Rarotonga, Noumea, Suva, Tonga tapu and Pago Pago, taken on stop overs by the Monterey on her regular trans-Pacific run.

It will be shown in the United States and on Sydney television stations in early 1969, a product of Victor Jory Productions, of Los Angeles, California.

Mr. Jory said he was a good friend of television actor Raymond Burr, who has owned Naitaubu Island in Fiji’s northern Lau Group for nearly three years. He had hoped to meet Mr. Burr in Suva, but he understood Mr. Burr would be busy at Naitaubu in June.

40 years an actor

Mr. Jory, who in about 40 years as an actor has taken part in nearly 400 films and television series, told PIM in Sydney he had first arrived in the Pacific Islands in the mid-1930’5, when he made a brief trip to Fiji and Samoa.

He said most Americans who visited the South Pacific did so on pre-arranged tours. They stayed at only the best and most modern re sorts in Fiji and Tahiti and were reluctant to venture to not-so-well known areas as the New Hebrides or the Solomons.

“I think it’s a great shame more of the Americans who come to the Islands don’t do it on their own and see the real South Seas,” he said. “They may have to rough it a little, but this is what it is really like in many places.”

Mr. Jory said a tour of the South Seas was relatively expensive to Americans, compared to holidays to Europe and the West Indies, mainly because of high air fares.

And what did the versatile actor think of the South Seas today?

“Absolutely fabulous,” he told PIM.

However, he had his reservations about Papeete which he described as “like any other miserable port in the world”.