South Pacific on Blu-ray Reviewed
By Jerry Del Colliano
"South Pacific" is one of the great, almost legendary, hits of Broadway, running almost five years in its initial engagement. It starred Mary Martin and opera baritone Ezio Pinza; many standards originated in the show--"Some Enchanted Evening," "Younger than Springtime," "There Is Nothing Like a Dame," "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy," and perhaps most hauntingly, "Bali-Ha'i", the greatest musical expression of the powerful romantic lure of the tropics.
Richard Rodgers (music, book) and Oscar Hammerstein II (lyrics, book) were on a roll--"Oklahoma," "South Pacific," "Carousel," "The King and I," "The Sound of Music"--each of these (and others) were major hits, and each made its way in due course to movie screens.
"South Pacific" was a daring show. Based on James H. Michener's story collection-cum-novel, "Tales of the South Pacific," it's set on a small island where U.S. forces are preparing to launch the long-awaited attack on Japanese-held positions in the same area. Nellie Forbush, a nurse, has fallen in love with Emile de Becque, a middle-aged, wealthy French planter. Marine Lt. Joe Cable is flown to the island to get assistance in setting up an observation post behind enemy lines. He meets Bloody Mary, a Tonkinese woman who's a sharp trader and immediately eyes Cable as an ideal husband for her beautiful daughter Liat, who lives on the nearby island of Bali Ha'I. Also around is Seabee Luther Billis, another sharp trader, who's eager to get to Bali Ha'I for its forbidden "boar's tooth" ceremony.
Things are going well for Nellie and Emile--that is, until she meets his two children, born to his late Polynesian wife. Against her own desires, Nellie is shocked, horrified, that the man she loves had had a colored wife. On his part, though Joe Cable does fall passionately in love with the charming Liat, she's Asian--and a rising attorney from Philadelphia certainly cannot be seen with a woman of another race...
Rodgers and Hammerstein had bad luck with Hollywood, both before and after they teamed up, and wanted to show those moguls how to do it, so they produced "Oklahoma" and "South Pacific" themselves. They did well by "Oklahoma," but badly dropped the ball with "South Pacific." Despite much to recommend it, overall the movie is a major disappointment.
Together with Josh Logan, who directed the Broadway play and this movie, they made bad choices from the very beginning. At a Hollywood party, Logan asked Doris Day to sing a few songs from "South Pacific." Day had a reasonable position: she never sang at parties, for fear of having to sing and every party. She agreed to come in for an audition, but Logan got into a snit and decided not even to consider her for the role of nurse Nellie Forbush, who'd been played on Broadway by Mary Martin (too old for the movie, and not a big enough star). And he shot himself and his movie in the foot.
Day was perfect casting for the role in every way possible. She had the All-American quality Nellie needed (Nellie's from Little Rock, Arkansas), she was blonde, pert and sexy; she was a great singer--one of the best in American pop music history--and the movie camera absolutely loved her. So did audiences.
Logan wanted, incredibly enough, Elizabeth Taylor for the role of nurse Nellie. Never mind that she was wrong for the part--it's hard to imagine Liz Taylor in 1958 playing a character as naïve as Nellie--she had never starred in a musical (though reportedly was eager to try). She blew the audition, though, so Rodgers and Hammerstein turned to Mitzi Gaynor, resulting in the most important role of her career, but it also marked the end of her movie career. She never made another musical.
She's quite good as Nellie, but "quite good" isn't good enough. She's sort of shiny where Day would have glowed. It's not Gaynor's fault; she's always a trouper, always a good entertainer, but the movie demanded something very special, and she's not that. And she does do her own singing, which none of the other leads do.
Like Rossano Brazzi, an Italian starring as the French planter Emile; his voice is dubbed by American opera star Giorgio Tozzi. John Kerr, as Joe Cable, is dubbed by Bill Lee; even Juanita Hall, who played Bloody Mary on Broadway, is dubbed by Muriel Smith, the Bloody Mary of the London production. Sometimes the voices, as with Kerr/Lee, seem completely separate from the actor.
Brazzi is satisfactory as Emile, but it's amazing when you realize the role could--and should--have gone to Howard Keel, the greatest baritone of Hollywood history. And he was a reasonably good actor, too; it wouldn't have been hard to make him seem French and middle-aged. He and Day struck sparks in "Calamity Jane," but Keel doesn't seem to have even been considered.
John Kerr is drab and colorless as Joe Cable. He just cannot summon up the emotional turmoil of this troubled young man; he just looks a little worried. He's also given the most romantic song--"Younger Than Springtime"--and simply cannot get into the mood. He does much better with the great "You've Got to be Carefully Taught," a song against racism, which stunned audiences in 1949. Various interests tried hard to get Rodgers, Hammerstein and Logan to pull the song, but to their credit, they not only refused, they said that the racial elements of the story were why they did the play in the first place.
The most memorable characters: Luther Billis, played by Ray Walston (who'd had the role in the London stage production), fresh from "Damn Yankees" (where he played Mr. Applegate, the Devil), and on his way to "My Favorite Martian." He's sharp and funny, and can make his belly dance. Juanita Hall, who's African-American, is outstanding as the shrewd, conniving Bloody Mary, who touchingly turns out to be a loving mother. It's too bad the leads weren't as sharp and memorable as these supporting roles, but everyone above them is colorless and not memorable.
Joshua Logan was a great director of Broadway plays, or so his consistent successes attest. But he simply was not a good director of movies, particularly of musicals, somewhat surprising in view of his having helmed so many Broadway musical successes. His best movies as director are probably "Sayonara," "Tall Story" and "Fanny." Despite its faililngs, "South Pacific" is probably his best movie musical, since the other choices are "Camelot" and "Paint Your Wagon."
One of his worst decisions--and even he acknowledged this--was the addition of heavy, intrusive washes of color to many of the songs. "Bali Ha'I," one of the best songs in the score, is overlaid with a strange dark cerise, which doesn't seem magical (like the song does), just ugly. "Cockeyed Optimist" is tinted yellow--probably to match the line "when the sky is a bright canary yellow." It goes on this way throughout the film (though the second half has few songs), and it never--not once--works as intended. Perhaps if the colored filters had been applied to the lights, the hoped-for effect might have materialized.
Another strange blunder: the production company hauled tons of equipment and hundreds of people to the Hawaiian island of Kauai, one of the most beautiful spots in the world. And then makes lousy use of these gorgeous locations. When the camera is down on the beach, we're looking across Hanalei Bay at Makana Point in the distance--exactly, precisely, the same vista that's seen from Le Becque's home on the hill (just below present-day Princeville). If the camera had turned 90 degrees toward the west, there's a majestic, pastoral view of Hanalei valley, ringed by 20 or so narrow waterfalls. But there isn't a single shot in that direction. Later, when Cable and Billis finally reach Bali Ha'I, the movie makes good use of their boat landing at Tunnels--with Makana Point still in the background. (Even today, it's often called "Bali Ha'i.") There are a couple of scenes of beautiful waterfalls, and one shot of "King Kong's Profile," a well-named formation--but the rest of the time, Kauai is a background only. Except for a few shots on Bali Ha'I, nobody ever gets out into the terrain.
At the time, it was thought that too much cutting in a 70mm movie was hard on audiences, so most scenes begin and end with the camera firmly planted in one spot, panning left or right to accommodate the action. There's some variation in the "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" number, and a good aerial shot begins "Bloody Mary," but there needed to be much more of this, much more use of the terrain AS terrain, not as backdrops.
But all this being said, "South Pacific" does make a great movie for Blu-Ray. The crystal-sharp Todd A-O footage looks wonderful in high definition; you can practically see the freckles on the legs of Nellie and the nurses as they jog by the Seabees on the beaches of Hanalei Bay. You can count the fronds on Mary's and Luther's bogus grass skirts. The cinematography by Leon Shamroy is perfectly composed, with the colors both rich and natural. The movie may be stodgy and unimaginative overall, but it's still entertaining, still a sight to see. And much better than the TV production of a few years back (with Glenn Close, far too old for Nellie), which looked cheap and cramped, and omitted "Happy Talk."
The extras are also exceptional. There's a documentary that covers the book, the theatrical production and the movie, hosted by a still-chipper Mitzi Gaynor. There's also an exceptionally interesting "60 Minutes" segment, in which Diane Sawyer takes James Michener back to Espiritu Santo, the real island where Michener was stationed during World War II, and where he wrote "Tales of the South Pacific." There are also clips from a TV show of Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza doing a couple of songs from the show, and a vintage making-of featurette about the film.
But the most unusual and welcome addition on the second disc is the road show version of the film. In those days, great big honking movies like "South Pacific" were often premiered in "road show" engagements--one show a day except for weekends, all seats reserved. When "South Pacific" was released that way, it was 14 minutes longer than in its regular theatrical run, the basis for all previous video releases. Here, the extra minutes are identifiable by lessened color and detail, and also pointed out by the commentator of that cut, Richard Barrios. There's a separate commentary track, by Ted Chapin and Gerald Alessandrini, on disc one.
