TINSELTOWN'S VIEW OF ISLAND PARADISE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Writer

Title: ``Made in Paradise: Hollywood's Films of Hawaii and the South Seas''

Author: Luis I. Reyes

Data: Illustrated, softcover, Mutual Publishing, 382 pages; $29.95

Our rating: Four Stars

Though not quite a tropical vacation, Luis I. Reyes' ``Made in Paradise: Hollywood's Films of Hawaii and the South Seas'' is more fun than a lot of the movies it covers.

A big, picture-packed showpiece publication that's also an excellent work of cinema history and socially informed criticism, it strikes a pleasing balance between nostalgic fun and rewarding insight.

Reyes specializes in ethnically focused media studies that are both enjoyable and exhaustive. His 1994 ``Hispanics in Hollywood: An Encyclopedia of Film and Television'' is the definitive reference work of the subject, yet it never falls into dry academics or political posturing, thanks to Reyes' instinct for the telling anecdote or wry cultural detail.

By the nature of its subject, ``Made in Paradise'' is even more fun. Overstuffed with photos of grass-skirted gals and bare-chested boys, breathtaking island vistas and stirring military tableaux, its every page is a visual treat. Moreover, Reyes and Hawaii-based journalist Ed Rampell, whose introduction sets the tone for the book's essays and individual film entries, identify various themes that run through island films, and amusingly examine how they usually revealed more about the Western minds that made them than about life as it really was in Pacific cultures.

A typical, if frivolous example was the sarong, a clingy Malaysian garment, first popularized by Dorothy Lamour in the 1936 ``The Jungle Princess.'' Hollywood figured this a marvelous compromise between semi-nudity and the clothing preferred by many Hawaiians, which made them look larger rather than slimmer. So, even though they had no real place in Polynesia, sexy sarongs came to define films set during the pre-bikini era.

More serious matters, rooted in religious world views and racism, turned up with surprising consistency in what quickly formed into the South Seas film genre. Reyes describes these and other filmed attitudes in all their odd variations, while never forgetting the sheer fun that goes with seeing John Wayne, Elvis or Ma and Pa Kettle mix it up with hula dancers.

Conveniently for researchers, if a tad confusingly for casual browsers, the movie listings are divided into four sections based on their stories' locales and where they were actually filmed. Chapters on the development of Hawaii's film industry, island-set television productions and personalities associated with the shows make this a complete reference work.

Surf, skin, sarongs and a lot of sublime silliness make it a paradise of photographic pleasures.

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Photo: (1--2) Exhaustive researcher Luis I. Reyes, left, has chronicled Hollywood's obsession with island locales in ``Made in Paradise.'' The famous Burt Lancaster-Deborah Kerr love scene in 1953's Academy Award-winning ``From Here to Eternity,'' right, was filmed in Halona Cove on Oahu.