Released in 1937, PERILOUS PARADISE is a fascinating documentary filmed in the southern Philippines in the early 1930’s and re-released by Official Films in the 1940s. The director of much of the material in the film may be Marvin Gardner aka Eduardo de Castro, who made a feature silent film with similar content called “Zamboanga”. This was one of the earliest movies filmed in the Philippines and probably the earliest Philippine-made “talkie” in existence especially with the use of underwater photography.

This ethnographic film refers to the island of Jolo as Tictauban, and uses Hawaiian music throughout. The film shows Fernando Poe and Rosa del Rosario attending a festival of music, dance, singing, flame swallowing, cock and carabao fighting. The film ends with a lengthy segment showing men diving into the ocean, dodging dangerous mollusks, which threaten to capture men in their jaws.

Jolo is a volcanic island in the southwest Philippines and is the primary island of the province of Sulu. It is located in the Sulu Archipelago, between Borneo and Mindanao, and has a population of approximately 300,000 people.

The island is the location of the Jolo Group of Volcanoes, and contains numerous volcanic cones and craters, including the active Bud Dajo cinder cone. The Island is also headquarter of Abu Sayyad Terrorists.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com