Also available on DVD from Papua New Guinea Association of Australia
The story in a nutshell: A small expedition led by Steve McAllister (Chips Rafferty)
walks towards Paradise Valley, beyond the Sepik River, where an Australian adventurer
Sharkeye Kelly (Reg Lye) claims to have discovered oil. Running time: 93 mins
If the video has been removed from YouTube (again), watch it here
The movie's voice-over tells us: "Today a gallant band of young Australian administrators are bringing civilisation to the most primitive people left on the face of the earth", while thousands of warriors, plumed, painted and bedecked with feathers and boars' tusks pour into the valley, their spears taller and sharper than the kunai grass around them.
"Walk into Paradise" is no cinematic masterpiece, but it's a good yarn and in 1956 it offered audiences the chance to see, in glorious colour, the beauty of the Sepik and the Western Highlands, and be reminded that here was a Neolithic people being brought into the 20th century by the Australian administration.
Chips Rafferty produced and starred in this Franco-Australian film as a patrol officer who leads a party into a previously unexplored valley where oil has been found. The gathering in the valley occurs when Rafferty decides that he needs to flatten the grass in the valley to build an airstrip and so he calls for "the biggest singsing that's ever been heard in New Guinea".
While there are moments in the film which will make anybody familiar with the place and time chuckle, the film was not always a long way from the facts. The singsing incident was based on a real event involving the Leahy brothers, the Australian administration was pushing into new areas in the Highlands, and the film features two genuine participants in that work, Regimental Sergeant Major Somu, who plays RSM Towalaka, and District Officer Fred Kaad.
"Walk into Paradise" was just one of many influences on the way most Australians saw Papua New Guinea. I was one of the fortunate few who could experience it first-hand, the Sepik, the Highlands, the singsings ...
