The South Seas have always been a favourite setting for romantic pictures ever since "Moana of the South Seas" and Dorothy Lamour. Somerset Maugham's famous "Rain" has been filmed several times, but never in the actual locale of the story, Pago Pago. Tahiti saw the filming of Nordhoff and Hall's novel "Mutiny on the Bounty", and Bora Bora was the inspiration for the same authors' "The High Barbaree", an exquisite story wretchedly pictured. "Return to Paradise", starring Gary Cooper, was filmed in the village of Lefaga in Samoa, some fifty miles from the port town of Apia, about as far away as one can get without leaving the island entirely. The village is straight out of a fairy story and the lovely bay on which it is located was for a few weeks in 1952 inundated by Hollywood. The tropical beaches surrounding Telekivava'u are even more paradisical but you share them with no one when you walk the few steps from VILLA MAMANA to the water's edge.
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