Bird of Paradise is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic adventure drama film directed by King Vidor and starring Dolores del Río and Joel McCrea.

Johnny Baker attempts to catch it hand casting with a large hook, but is yanked overboard when a loop of line attached to the impaled shark cinches around his ankle.

Director King Vidor, under contract to M-G-M, was loaned to RKO producer David Selznick (son-in-law to Louis B. Mayer) to make the "South Seas" romance.

Filmed on location in Hawaii, Vidor and writer Wells Root arrived on the island territory and began shooting background footage without a completed script (Actors McCrea and del Rio were delayed due to engagements on other projects,) .

Producer David O. Selznick and composer Max Steiner had both been experimenting with this idea, while other studios had begun development along similar lines, such the score by Alfred Newman for Samuel Goldwyn's Street Scene.

[5] Bird of Paradise created a scandal after its release owing to a scene which appeared to show Dolores del Río swimming naked.

The sexual promiscuity and eroticism exhibited in Bird of Paradise is a measure of the as yet unenforced prohibitions of the Breen Office with its "nude swimming...lovers hanging from bamboo poles trying to kiss and Doloros del Rio sucking an orange, then transferring the juice to McCrea's fevered mouth.

Selznick's story line that "climax[es] with the girl tossed into a volcano" is both an example of the producer's predilection for tragic melodrama and, as seen by some, a Vidorian "tongue-in-cheek" cautionary tale concerning the fate of racially mixed couples.