Typhoon Treasure

Plot

Alan Richards is the sole survivor of a pearling lugger which has been shipwrecked on Pakema Reef during a typhoon. He sets out to recover some pearls which went missing in the wreck, crossing through the jungle and fighting headhunters.

Cast

Production

In the mid 1930s, Noel Monkman was working with F. W. Thring making documentaries. Thring offered to back Monkman in making a dramatic feature, and provided him with a writer, John P. McLeod. Thring planned to make the movie after visiting Hollywood in 1936 but died that year.

Cinesound Productions offered to buy the script but Monkman elected to make it himself. He formed a syndicate with Bruce Cummings and Commonwealth Laboratories, who provided the crew.

Filming commenced June 1937. The film was shot mostly on location in North Queensland, on the Great Barrier Reef, the Yorke Peninsula and Torres Strait. Joe Valli started filming in June but Gwen Munro did not arrive until October.

After the location work was completed, some studio scenes were filmed at Commonwealth Film Laboratories' studio at the Sydney Showground.

Music was collated from popular classics including Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Death of crew member

While filming underwater scenes on Green Island in October, one of the divers, James Bell, died of myocarditis. Bruce Cummings, who was in charge of underwater photography, went down in a diving cylinder, followed a few minutes later by Bell, who was his assistant. A few minutes later Cummings noticed something was wrong with Bell. When they brought him to the surface he was dead. An inquest was later held which found no negligence.

Release

Reviews generally found the story formulaic but enjoyed the direction and settings.

It was sold to America and a shortened version of the film screened in England in 1943. In the 1950s rights to the film were bought by George Maclolm who cut it down to 40 minutes and reissued it as The Perils of Pakema Reef.