Thor Heyerdahl was a determined scientist with a theory. It was his belief that a resolute young man, by rafting across the Pacific, could earn enough money to retire for life. "Kon-Tiki"--which has grossed him an estimated four million--has proven Heyerdahl's point, and it's also a darn good movie.

There are a few uneasy moments at the start, when Ben Graner gushes about "the daring man they said would never come back alive" and how he "threw himself at the mercy of the Pacific." An adventure, as every adventurer knows, is adventurous only in the retelling; and nothing can be so downright dull as three months on a raft. But after Mr. Grauer's hyperbolic foreword, "Kon-Tiki" luckily avoids the perils-of-the-deep, the yoicks-man-overboard, and the eek-it's-a-man-eating-shark, episodes that seem presaged by the opening. It becomes the tale, always unusual and often rather scientific, of life in a strange new world, where parrots bite radio aerials and a waiting breakfast is picked off the decks at daybreak. Unless you are the squeamish type who shrieks at the sight of a whale, you will enjoy "Kon-Tiki" well abaft of the edge of your chair.

The photography, although it necessarily leaves you somewhat sea-sick, is excellent considering the conditions; and the accent of narrator Heyerdahl is pleasingly inscrutable. The well-versed conversationalist won't miss "Kon-Tiki."