I was reminded of this quote from "Out of Africa" after I'd been so absorbed watching "Walk into Paradise" last night that I skipped both my usual dinner and my usual bedtime.
The plot is simple enough: Steve McAllister is an Australian Patrol Officer ordered to lead an expedition up the Sepik River to Paradise Valley into ‘uncontrolled territory’, where Sharkeye Kelly has discovered oil. Accompanying them on the expedition is glamorous French United Nations doctor Louise Demarcet, who is reminded by Sharkeye that she’s on the Sepik River not the Riviera. Anxious to reach the highlands before the start of the wet season, McAllister’s initial suspicion of the doctor evaporates when her skills are required to save the children of a tribal leader to avert massacre.
The film was shot on location in New Guinea in 1955 which makes it both classic and timeless as it reflects the ethos of the colonial fifties when adventurers confronted one of the last unexplored and dramatic cultures on earth. And to make it a true collector's item, it stars "the [then] living symbol of the typical Australian", Chips Rafferty (who didn't know a puk puk from a pek pek), as the Australian District Officer Steve MacAllister.
They don’t make films like this any more, and nor could they in today's New Guinea with its political instability, endemic corruption, and breakdown of law and order.
And I don't travel much any more either. There's no need to travel to New Guinea and suffer the prickly heat, the tropical ulcers, and the malaria-carrying mosquitoes, when I can relive my time there by simply skipping both my usual dinner and bedtime and watching this movie.
