FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
Lucia Ayala
It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.
Yazmin
Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.
Chris-Miller-12
During my late teens I was growing up in Kidbrooke, a dormitory suburb in south-east London. My family and I did not have a television until 1958 so we were restricted to listening to the radio. About that time I heard Connie Stevens sing "Sixteen reasons" on the radio. From her voice I pictured Connie as a pretty, blue-eyed blonde. I immediately bought the record. A little while later my family bought our first television. About eight months later I saw Connie playing the part of 'Cricket' in "Hawaiian Eye" so imagine my astonishment when she looked exactly as imagined when listening to her voice approximately one year earlier. This was the first of only two times I was right when putting a face to a radio/telephone voice to a person whom I had never seen.Since then I have been a fan of Connie Stevens, and bought her compact disc some years' ago. Unfortunately I have not seen her biography on the shelving in London's bookshops. Near my place of employment in London's Covent Garden area is the Cinema bookshop, but again no pertinent biographic books and neither is there a signed photograph on display - how sad! I hope that Connie Stevens is keeping well and enjoying life. Should she visit London to give a show or perform in London's theatreland I would like to know as I would like to be in the audience as appropriate.I also wish that "Hawaiian Eye" and "77 Sunset Strip" would appear again on British Television.
bkoganbing
Before Steve McGarrett had Danno booking them, before Thomas Magnum started sleuthing out of the guest house of the Robin Masters estate, this duo of Anthony Eisley and Robert Conrad had a detective agency in Honolulu in this first television series to be based out of the Aloha State, Hawaiian Eye.Looking back if I was Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens I'd feel very cheated that Jack Warner didn't bother to spring for a location budget to Hawaii. The entire series was shot on the Warner Brothers sound stage with some establishing footage to make sure you knew it was Hawaii. This was good back in the day when you could have Dick Powell in Flirtation Walk singing Aloha Oe to Ruby Keeler on the sound stage, but audiences wanted more than that. At least movie audiences did. For the small screen Jack Warner and the rest of the brothers wanted things economical.In fact though Warner proved to be quite shrewd in plunging headlong into television production. His son-in-law William T. Orr produced all those westerns and detectives shows that were sprouting like weeds all over TV Land. The sponsor's money for these shows kept Warner Brothers out of the red like other studios were going through.Robert Conrad and Connie Stevens who was the gal pal of both Eisley and Conrad got their first big breaks in Hawaiian Eye. They're the reason the show is remembered today. Anthony Eisley never quite caught on the way the other two did. Hawaiian Eye was a cloned show as was Bourbon Street Beat and Surfside Six of Bill Orr's first success, 77 Sunset Strip. Many times the same plots were used in episodes of the different shows. And the detectives on one series were probably required to do box office duty and make guest appearances on each other's shows, which they did frequently. Talk about a good neighbor policy.Still Conrad and Stevens ought to feel cheated that they didn't get to go to Hawaii for Hawaiian Eye.
moonspinner55
After the hip, breezy opening credits sequence (with most of the cast riding surfboards on the foamy waves off Honolulu), "Hawaiian Eye" becomes a strictly set-bound detective series that drags its feet in the proverbial sand. The ABC show (popular for four seasons, though not in reruns) was recently seen, briefly, on the American Life network, but I was disappointed with the writing, the direction, the slim budget and the way gorgeous, mercurial Connie Stevens is shunted off to the Shell Bar without much dialogue (once Troy Donahue joined the cast in the final season, Connie's role was apparently expanded). Grant Williams is handsome but bland, muscular Robert Conrad is inert, but Poncie Ponce gives the proceedings a little bounce. Sometimes, the stories about these "great old TV shows" are actually much better than the programs themselves.
Thad Taylor
Ah, TV was a much simpler place back then. They didn't have gimmicks like car chases or explosions, and the plots were fairly transparent by today's standards, but it still holds up well as solid entertainment. Only one thing - the idea of an exotic Hawaiian location was nice, but we all know that not one foot of film was shot there, right? All done on the Warner Bros. sets in Burbank.....still, it paved the way for H-50 a few years down the road! Aloha
