"His Majesty O'Keefe" is a pleasant adventure film, but one that it far from Burt Lancaster's best. For fans of the charismatic actor, it's well worth seeing but for the rest it is imminently forgettable.
The film is set around the now the middle of the 19th century in the South Pacific. After a mutiny, the Captain (Lancaster) is cast adrift and eventually finds his way to the Fijian island of Yap. Here he meets a nice German guy who has been working there for 20 years trying to get the locals to work to produce copra (a dried coconut product), but without much success. However, the newly arrived Captain O'Keefe is a natural for this sort of work and is able to eventually figure out how to get the islanders to produce tons of the stuff--and finds himself as their new king! The problem is that there are greedy forces out there that want this crop and are willing to take it if necessary--and His Majesty O'Keefe needs to mobilize his people for this onslaught. In between there is a romance and lots of other happenings.
Pleasant. That's my feeling about the film. It's not super-exciting nor extraordinary, but given Lancaster's nice screen presence, it's easy-going and of some interest.
The film is set around the now the middle of the 19th century in the South Pacific. After a mutiny, the Captain (Lancaster) is cast adrift and eventually finds his way to the Fijian island of Yap. Here he meets a nice German guy who has been working there for 20 years trying to get the locals to work to produce copra (a dried coconut product), but without much success. However, the newly arrived Captain O'Keefe is a natural for this sort of work and is able to eventually figure out how to get the islanders to produce tons of the stuff--and finds himself as their new king! The problem is that there are greedy forces out there that want this crop and are willing to take it if necessary--and His Majesty O'Keefe needs to mobilize his people for this onslaught. In between there is a romance and lots of other happenings.
Pleasant. That's my feeling about the film. It's not super-exciting nor extraordinary, but given Lancaster's nice screen presence, it's easy-going and of some interest.