South Pacific
by Paul Osborn, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, Joshua Logan, and James A. Michener
Carrie: I dunno if the problem is my TV or what but the colors in the opening credits look like they were produced on some serious LSD.
All I can think of is Channing Tatum dancing in Hail Caesar.
Sarah: This is going to be an interesting Matinee because I am not a big musicals person.
I get why other people love them, and I’ve been crew and tech and assistant stage manager for a few, and in some (I was in the mission band in Guys & Dolls in middle school and still remember ALL THE SONGS Good Lord) but to watch them does little for me. I get kinda bored.
Maybe because I’m not backstage? Who knows.
Carrie: Well I love musicals and Sarah this movie adaptation is BORING.
SO SLOW.
Sarah: Ugh. That is too bad. How long is it? I know musicals are usually 3+ hours
Carrie: 2 hours 40 minutes.
To be honest I made it to intermission and might call it a DNF.
Sarah: The movie starts on a blank screen. I’m ok with this musical.
The fact that it’s 2:36+ is giving me pause.
Elyse: We are about to start it.
Carrie: May God have mercy on your soul.
Elyse: I saw this a few times when I was really, really little.
And I think I saw a high school production once.
Amanda: My life does not have room for South Pacific. IT’S TOO LONG.
Carrie: Visually this movie is a train wreck but the music is still so wonderful.
The film includes the use of colored filters during many of the song sequences, which has been a source of criticism for the film. Director Joshua Logan wanted these filters to produce subtle changes, but 20th Century Fox, the company that would distribute the 35mm version, made them extreme changes; since tickets to the film were pre-sold (it was a roadshow attraction), there was no time to correct this.
That was more than made up for by South Pacific’s strong performance at the box office, particularly in England, where it ran for five years at one theatre. That engagement alone was enough to pay the $6 million budget. But the critics were less than pleased. Many complained that Mary Martin should have been cast in the role she’d made famous on Broadway. Others complained about Logan’s decision to use tinted photography for some of the musical numbers.
And Logan agreed with them. He’d suggested the idea as a way of visually blending the musical numbers with the film’s exotic, natural locations. Just in case it didn’t work, he wanted to film them two ways: once with color filters and once with natural color. Producer Buddy Adler supported that decision at first, but then he told Logan that the lab could take out the tinting if they didn’t like it. What he didn’t tell him was that the process would take three months. Logan shot the whole film with tinted musical sequences, then realized during previews that they didn’t work. But when he asked to have them removed, he found out that it couldn’t be done in time to meet the film’s bookings, so it went out with the tinting. In his memoirs, he would write that he wanted to picket each showing of the film with a sign reading, “I DIRECTED IT, AND I DON’T LIKE THE COLOR EITHER!”
Sarah: WHAT IS HAPPENING DID I DROP ACID DID SOMEONE AT EPCOT DROP ACID IN MY MARGARITA WHAT THE HELL
Elyse: It’s already alarmingly bright.
I’M REALLY CONFUSED. There’s a skull and a lady and a washing machine on the beach and everyone is singing.
I feel like this is was LSD might be like.
Carrie: I read a lot of background on this musical and drugs were not mentioned…but I’m pretty sure they were involved in the film production somewhere.
Sarah: WHY IS THERE SINGING.
Redheadedgirl: It’s a musical, Sarah.
People sing.
Sarah: Right for no good reason, just randomly in the middle of the scene. And WHAT IS THIS SONG BLOODY MARY OH MY GOODNESS.
Carrie: Emile, honey, before you propose to a woman, you should probably mention the murder thing and also the fact that you have 2 kids, those little details may seem petty to you but women are so wacky they just might want to know these things.
“Nellie, I have a surprise for you!” DUDE. Two children is a shock, not a surprise.
I mean, I get that from this point on we have to deal with Nellie being a huge racist but DUDE YOU DO NOT SPRING TWO KIDS ON YOUR FIANCEE LIKE THAT
Elyse: Emile: “I killed a dude at 22 and was forced into exile! On a gorgeous tropical island! And I got help from nobody! Except all the native people who I exploited for cheap labor to make my fortune! LOOK AT MY INDIGNITY! LOOK AT IT!”
Carrie: Lololol
Elyse: “I could be in France! Where I’d be crushed under the Nazi regime! Or probably dead! But no! I AM ON A TROPICAL ISLAND PARADISE DEF NOT FUCKING A HOT NURSE HALF MY AGE! WHY IS MY LIFE SO GODDAMNED HARD?!”
Hey, Nellie, I really love you also I killed a guy and can never go back to France
Nellie: NBD
WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE
Wait, are those kids his?
Carrie: SURPRISEEEEE
Elyse: Is that supposed to be a bad thing?
Carrie: I think it’s a bad thing that he doesn’t mention them to Nellie.
Sarah: Yuuuup.
Carrie: And Nellie thinks it’s a bad thing that they are mixed race.
She gets over herself but Emile remains a total psycho.
I mean, I get that they haven’t been together very long but by the second date you should mention “Oh yeah, I have 2 kids.”
Elyse: I repeat: WHO THE FUCK ARE THESE PEOPLE
Carrie: I find it interesting that he mentions that he killed a dude way before he mentions that he also has 2 kids.
Elyse: “Hey kids! You might have a new mommy! But you can’t meet her yet because she’s suuuuuuuper racist!”
Carrie: It’s infuriating that the men in this movie are never properly called out for being lying assholes.
Sarah: Yup.
Carrie: As a modern movie this is almost unwatchable. The color filters are terrible, the acting is that kind of cheesy, hammy, acting that works better on stage, the pacing is leaden, and the treatment of the islanders is also dated although more on that later. There’s also no reason to be invested in the romance. Nellie has a wonderful and plausible character arc. But no one ever calls Emile out for his bizarre levels of secrecy, something which I had never picked up on when I saw this movie as a kid. Meanwhile, Cable and Liat have no relationship to speak of at all. So I don’t care if these people get together.
BUT
The music is still sublime.
AND
Even though the movie’s efforts to deal with racism are flawed, Rogers and Hammerstein still deserve a shit ton of credit for tackling the subject. I had not realized how much flak they took for “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.” The stage production was banned in some states specifically because of that song, and producers asked them to take the song out, and they refused. When the movie came out, the studio pressured them to remove the song, and they refused. Speaking of the stage play, James Michener, who wrote the novel the musical is loosely based on, said, “The authors replied stubbornly that this number represented why they had wanted to do this play, and that even if it meant the failure of the production, it was going to stay in.”
And that song isn’t dated at all. As evidence I present this quote from Denis Leary that keeps showing up on my Facebook and which pretty much says the same thing: “Racism isn’t born, folks. It’s taught. I have a two year old son. Know what he hates? Naps. End of list.”
So as a musical which is so much more than fair for it’s day, I applaud R&H. But is has not held up well through the years.
When the tour of the show reached a racially segregated theatre in Wilmington, Delaware, Rodgers and Hammerstein threatened to cancel the performances there unless seating was integrated, which it was. In 1953, with the tour in Atlanta, there was controversy over “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught”. Two Georgia state legislators, Senator John D. Shepard and Representative David C. Jones, objected to the song, stating that though South Pacific was a fine piece of entertainment, that song “contained an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow”, and explained, “Intermarriage produces half-breeds. And half-breeds are not conducive to the higher type of society. … In the South, we have pure blood lines and we intend to keep it that way.” They stated that they planned to introduce legislation to outlaw such communist-inspired works. The Northern press had a field day; Hammerstein, when asked for comment, responded that he did not think the legislators were representing their constituents very well, and that he was surprised at the suggestion that anything kind and decent must necessarily originate in Moscow. In part because of the song, touring companies of South Pacific had difficulty getting bookings in the Deep South.
It will be hard for me to grade. As a product of it’s time with noble intentions tackling a difficult subject (the stage play which involved Nellie becoming the happy stepmother of interracial children came out in 1949) it deserves credit but viewed from the lens of today the focus is entirely on white people and the islanders are presented as stereotypes.
Sarah: I was about to get really curious about portrayals of masculine ideals in this musical because I thought this guy’s jacket was his actual physique.
Carrie: It’s from the Golden Age when men didn’t have to be totally ripped to be considered sexy – but, alas, women had to be young, have perfect skin and hair, and weigh about 2 pounds.
Elyse: Also I’m like 10 minutes in and there is A LOT of homoerotic tension here
Sarah: The only reason this isn’t the most homoerotic thing I’ve ever seen is because I watched two seasons of Swim Free! for Read It and Weep, which has shots like these…
Elyse: Luther really likes statement jewelry
Sarah: To say nothing of that tattoo.
Elyse: Hey, you do you, Luther.
I do dig that he doesn’t have washboard abs and kinda sticks his belly out. Bet he can make the ship dance.
Sarah: Bunch of grumpy men wanting access to an off-limits erection.
“There’s nothing like a dame.”
Really.
I can’t even.
These guys are legit singing about how they can’t have orgasms they way they like.
And with that lens, Bali H’ai seems a little… thermonuclear?
Carrie: I think Juanita Hall works very very hard to bring a sense of humanity to the role. She’s loosely based on a woman James Michener met when he was in The South Pacific (her nickname was also Bloody Mary in real life). He respected her like crazy and when Vietnam started he thought of all the women out there with her smarts and courage and tenacity and knew the white people were doomed.
Sarah: WHY IS MITZI TURNING GREEN WHAT IS HAPPENING
Those lovely little white clouds aren’t WHITE they are GRINCH STOLEN GREEN.
In real life, when the sky is a bright canary yellow,
GET OFF THE BEACH.
THAT IS A BAD SIGN.
He’s longed for someone young and smiling climbing up his hill? That’s gotta be a euphemism, right?
Carrie: That whole song is a euphemism. They are actually have sex right now.
Sarah: Seriously.
SERIOUSLY.
Sarah: RUN. RUN NOW. GET UNDERGROUND. SOMETHING. Don’t stand there with balloon glasses. RUN.
Redheadedgirl: But those pants tho…
Sarah: This is also a euphemism.
Sarah: The color for “Some Enchanted Evening” is puce.
Nothing enchanted nor in the evening should be puce.
Carrie: Just shut your eyes. The song is pretty. The French guy is a douche, but the song…so pretty…
And he holds the high note softly – which is hard to do…
Here you go.
Sarah: “Ride that man right off your range.” Uh huh.
Carrie: Mary Martin washed her hair live onstage for 1000 performances.
Also in Jr High I sang that song in the shower to get over crushes. It neither works nor summons the crush on a white horse.
Sarah: I love how they’ve known each other a few weeks, but puce and yellow skies and a story of killing a person in self defense means marriage proposal. Oh, musicals. I don’t understand.
Carrie: I adore how this song captures the giddy stage. But I dislike the yellow.
Elyse: Okay now we’re yellow.
Yellow and smoky. That can’t be good. That’s poison gas. YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.
Sarah: Right? Either that or the pollen count is FROM HELL.
Elyse: Nellie when the sky is canary yellow you go the fuck to the basement
Sarah: No, no, Elyse, that’s OKLAHOMA!
Different musical.
Elyse: So when you’re in love everything becomes a nauseating shade of yellow? ‘Cause I don’t remember that.
Redheadedgirl: Clearly you’re not in real love.
Or maybe it’s just because you’re not in the South Pacific?
Elyse: SORRY RICH!
Sarah: …did Bloody Mary just give her daughter away? or pimp her? What the hell is going on here?
Ok I’m not on board with this.
Not only are they doing the 90-degree-bent-backwards head kiss where he mashes his lips onto hers so hard her cheeks might bruise but they just met.
Elyse: Wait. WTF IS HAPPENING HERE. Is that Bloody Mary’s daughter? Is she setting them up to bone?
WHY ARE YOU KISSING HER LIKE THAT
Rich: I’m just gonna be real optimistic that she’s over 18…
Sarah: Why are movie kisses from this era SO WEIRD. LIKE WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR MOUTHS. You need some lip balm after all that!
Sarah: Rolling their heads back and forth. Smoooosh.
Elyse: “She’s your mother! I just thought she was your pimp!” I love that THAT scandalized him.
CARRIE WHAT THE HELL IS
Carrie: All I can think when I hear that song, “Younger Than Springtime,” is, “How much younger, exactly?”
Elyse: Rich just walked into the room and asked what’s going on, so I told him that the French guy has biracial kids so the nurse has to go cry now in a jeep.
Carrie: Should we confess to our husbands that the sky doesn’t turn a bright canary yellow when we think of them?
Elyse: I’m super fucking weirded out by Bloody Mary basically pimping her daughter to Cable and being all “I’ll just LITERALLY WORK MYSELF TO DEATH so you two can have sex and talk about fucking moonbeams.”
Carrie: Yup.
She’s hoping Cable will marry Liat and thus give Liat a better life but a) I don’t buy their great romance and b) I just don’t think she’s thought it all through.
(BTW no one points out that Emile is all “oooh racism is bad except when it TOTALLY BENEFITS ME DIRECTLY.” He’s totally cool with cheap labor.)
She’s hoping Cable will marry Liat. It’s all very gross and depressing.
Recent article from NY Times regarding the stage revival and how the modern revival handles “Happy Talk.”
I think it’s a really important distinction to make – that when we first see Mary push Liat toward Cable, it looks like pimping, but she’s trying to basically arrange a marriage, and in order to accomplish that she has to make Cable fall madly in love, or lust, with Liat fast. Otherwise Liat does what? Goes to work in the plantation for Emile? Mary and Liat aren’t from Bali Hai, they are refugees and Mary’s life sucks for all that it’s very scenic.
Sarah: Generally, the biggest hurdle for me in any romance, musical or otherwise, is any degree of “insta-love.” It is not my bag. So if this is insta-love in 5 seconds, not here for it. And if it’s NOT supposed to be insta-love in 5 seconds, I’m even more not here for this.
Plus I know he dies. Does the musical explain what happens to Liat? Because dude.
Carrie: Not on board with either romance in this movie.
Here’s an interview from a revival of the stage show. She talks about why Bloody Mary offers Liat to Cable and explains the “Bloody” part.
Sarah: CHRISTINE ANU! I LOVE HER. She’s from the Torres Strait. She’s awesome.
Carrie, I love this interview with Christine Anu. I seriously love her. She was in a few Wiggles performances – and my kids were so into the Wiggles they were metal about it.
I have to say, I don’t have a problem with any of the performances, or the actors, or the singing. They’re all marvelous.
But the story and, as I expected, the sing-y parts are not doing it for me. I am not a musical person so I know the sing-y parts aren’t doing it for me, but the visuals and the story are really giving me some squicks.
I’m curious if some of the people who adore it – and I so admire and appreciate the affection and nostalgia and love people have for this show and the people in their families who adored it – experienced the music and songs apart from the show/movie. Does that make sense? The people who love the music (Hi Carrie!) love the songs and the way they capture feelings.
I’m not a musical person so I get that this is not a connection I can make.
Oh wow. Intermission 1:36 in, 1 hour to go.
If I were at the show, I’d have had to pee like six times. Maybe that’s why I am not a musical person. I have to pee too often.
Carrie: This movie is like 3 hours long, Sarah. Pace yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Embrace the weird.
Sarah: So is there some symbolism in the fact that Lt. Cable keeps his shirt off ALL THE TIME now?
Redheadedgirl: It’s very hot, Sarah.
They’re in the South Pacific.
(I mean, I’m assuming.)
Sarah: In the first half or so he’s all buttoned all the time.
Now he’s swimming and making out underwater with Liat.
Elyse: Where did they film this?
Because the scenery is so gorgeous they just ruin it with the filters (to quote Kimmy Schmidt “Hashbrown: no filter!”).
Redheadedgirl: According to Wikipedia, Hawai’i and Ibiza. With a second unit in Fiji.
Sarah: Motivational poster.
I’m not on board with the insta-love for Nurse Perfect Hair and the two children any more than I am for the romantic couples. It seems so false and disingenuous.
Though when she gives him the entire soup terrine I LOL’d.
So there’s no update on what happens to poor Liat. She was like currency between her mother and Lt. Cable.
I think one of the key elements of “does it hold up” is whether you can walk into it with no prior knowledge and not have the plot crash onto your head in a pile of boulders labeled WTAF.
Carrie: I’m gonna be a wimp and excuse myself fomr the group grade consensus, because I can’t even come to a consensus in my own head.
Sarah: What are the grades you’re thinking of?
Carrie: Music: B or A. Overall it’s not their strongest score but the standout songs which for me are “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m in Love With a Wonderful Guy,” and “Bali Ha’i” are amazing.
The movie over all, for it’s day: B because context and also R&H really took a lot of shit for their message and they stood by it.
Now: D+. Except for the music which is still B+/A-
Sarah: Why a D+ now?
Carrie: 1. The color and cinematography are simply unbearable – both lurid and cheap and stagey.
2. The story imparts a message that, sadly, isn’t dated at all, but it’s focus on white people’s experiences and use of stereotypes in depicting the Islanders is dated beyond belief even though at the time it was super progressive. The message has, unfortunately, aged just fine, but the method has not aged well at all.
3. Both romances seem based on nothing at all
4 (last one): Nellie has a very plausible, realistic, and important character arc, but no one ever deals with the fact that the French dude is so creepy that he might be a sociopath. I wrote at length above about how awful it is that he springs the kids – any kids, regardless of ethnicity – on Nellie the way he does, the way he withholds informations, and the fact that he’s a huge hypocrite since he owns a plantation and pays for his glamorous parties by underpaying his workers, at least according to Bloody Mary.
Music is still a glorious A though – nothing sums up that giddy stage of love like “I’m in love with a wonderful guy!” song
Oh also – it’s soooo sloooow.
Sarah: Yessss.
I’ve read like 45 wiki pages before they got off the beach
Carrie: I adore musicals and I adore R&H so if even I was bored silly there’s a real problem.
Sarah: Wow, this is going to be hard to grade. I’m entirely and utterly unqualified to grade any musical because I go into the experience at a negative. They’re not my genre. I love how happy they make people who adore them. They’re not for me. So I can’t grade this effectively. I can grade it in pieces.
The story: C-/D. As Carrie pointed out, the men are permitted to get away with being incredibly deceitful, and no one calls them on it. The romances are insta-love and the connection between the characters seems like it’s enforced by the fact that those are the romantic leads more than by any real emotional depth or experience. The relationship between Liat and Cable gives me the squicks on nineteen different levels at least, and Bloody Mary’s character affects that squick, too. The relationship between Emile and Nellie is equally rushed, though the song that takes place in their own perspectives, sung quietly and not to each other does a lot to build a better sense of relationship between the two of them.
The gut punch of “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” is so powerful, though. That moment alone does a lot to mitigate the dislike I have for other elements of the story. Cable doesn’t really DO anything with that knowledge, though. He doesn’t try to fix things with Liat, get a message to Mary, anything. And there’s no resolution of what happens to Liat beyond Nellie hugging her at the end.
Carrie: Liat never even gets to talk beyond a few words.
Sarah: She’s treated like currency and it’s depressing.
As for the movie, MY EYEBALLS OMG. I imagine watching this on acid would be WAY more fun that watching The Wall or Brazil or whatever else people watch while tripping.
I feel really terrible about being so negative because I know from the comments of our announcement how much people love this movie, the music, the way it captures certain feelings, and how much nostalgia and love and connection to relatives people find in the show itself.
Carrie: I think it just doesn’t age well.
Sarah: So my completely unqualified grade would be a C+. So many problems with the story, balanced against things to admire in the attempt and the context of the time, and in the music that is still alive in the way that people know, perform, and share it.
I’m utterly unhelpful, and I really hope that people who love it will share how they feel about it. I want to make it clear that it’s ok if you adore this movie or the musical or both or you just REALLY LOVE canary yellow skies – that is all OK!
Who DOESN’T love a pollen count that high, right?
Carrie: And the music is still amazing. I miss my vinyl!
Sarah: There’s always value and interesting discussion in something that is loved deeply for myriad reasons, so even if I was like WTF MY EYEBALLS and “Cable, you dickbag,” I hope folks will share with me why they love it, and what they think of it now, or when they first saw it, or whatever.
Carrie: I would encourage people to see a stage production if they can, and keep historical context in mind.
Sarah: Agreed. I’ll even be in it or volunteer for stage crew!
Carrie: I feel like the musical was so brave in tackling racism even though it did it problematically – but at least they made an effort. But in terms of sexism, it’s simply awful, with no attempt to address the manipulations of the men who lie both explicitly and by omission and in Cable’s case cheat. And the obsession with women being younger is a pretty frequent R&H theme and it was icky then and its icky now.
Sarah: In a way I have two minds while watching this much like I do while re-reading aged rape-tastic old skool romances. In contextual mind, with full scope of how things have changed and what was true then vs now: a lot of “wtf?”
In present day mind: WHOAAAAA WTAF IS THIS.
I see the problems and the context and it’s mixed with nostalgia and affection and horror and confusion, and it’s difficult to come up with a single summary or evaluation.
Elyse: Okay I got to “Happy Talk” and I’m tapping out.
The only romance I bought was the one between Luther and his statement jewelry.
Carrie: And his tattoo. I mean, the man knows how to commit.
I’m thinking the only possible grade is WTF.
Elyse: Agreed.
Carrie: And Elyse, with an attitude like that, you never have a dream come true, you know.
Elyse: Yeah well. I’ll survive
Did you watch South Pacific this month? What did you think? Does it hold up? Are you just as concerned about those yellow skies? What allergy medicine do you recommend for that level of airborne pollen?
Awe, sorry you all didn’t enjoy it. It’s one of those movies that definitely isn’t for everyone.
It is an age and nostalgia thing for me. We actually did the musical in junior high school. Funny to see a bunch of prepuberty boys sing “There’s Nothing Like A Dame” swabbing a stage deck.
I grew up on musicals. My mom had memories of some of the older ones when she was younger and she passed it on to me. Except Peter Pan with Mary Martin. I watched it once in my life and that is enough. If it wasn’t for the way I was raised and/or if I was even 10 years younger I probably wouldn’t enjoy it either.
I’m about the same age as this movie and grew up with it and the soundtrack. It’s hard for people born post civil-rights to understand the world of casual racism that existed in many places, not just the Southern US. Something that gets missed here is that France has a tradition of being pretty laid back about mixed race marriages. DeBeck had been married to the native mother of his children. At the time, that was still illegal in most places in the US and would have been a bigger scandal than his homicidal past. Bloody Mary is just a single mom doing what she can to survive and create a better life for her daughter. Marriage to a white Frenchman would have given Liat that better life. But who can blame the girl for wanting a good-looking relatively young guy rather than an older man? Cable doesn’t exactly know how to deal with liking a girl he can’t marry and take home to mother. Nellie has it easier in the sense that society expects her to marry a white man and put up with whatever he dumps on her. Cable, on the other hand, would be giving up his entire future in the US if he marries Liat and neither one of them would be happy in the US. Something to consider is that places like Bali Hai were some people’s first exposure to the idea of a world that didn’t have to be segregated. For that, it gets a soft spot with me.
As far as the filter related allergies, consult your personal healthcare provider and follow label warnings regarding the use of alcohol or heavy machinery.
Another point worth mentioning is that in the stories on which the musical is based, Emile has SIX children, by three different mothers, none of whom he was married to, because, to paraphrase, he was waiting for someone like Nellie to come along. So her reaction to his children is more than “simple” racism but also a small town morality issue.
Some of these complex issues remind me of Joan Fontaine and Harry Belafonte in Island in the Sun; race, class, colonialism/imperialism and sex. It was a very different world in the 1950s, but some things haven’t changed.
Now that I think about it, Island and South Pacific were both adaptations from books. As I recall, Michener’s collection of stories had a very different tone from the movie. The music made it all lighter and prettier. I do remember the colour was lurid and my grandmother told me how she’d had a crush on Rossano Brazzi. I thought he was pretty hot.
But I don’t think I could stand to watch it now.
Just rewatched this a week ago with my father (one of his all-time favorites), and your commentary is spot-on! As a bit of trivia, one of the sailor characters – Stewpot – had his singing dubbed by Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice behind Tony the Tiger and the singer in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”. Anytime you hear a deep bass voice in one of these musicals, it was probably Thurl.
South Pacific was too long for me as a child to really enjoy it (though I loved the music), but it is now one of my favorite musicals thanks to the revival of it that I saw when it was in NY. It felt so timely with the discussions of hate and racism, and the production was incredible. Now when I see the movie, I’m seeing the stage production in my head 🙂
Thank you, thank you. I thought I was the only person on earth to dislike the motion picture version of “South Pacific”. My mother was British whose factory organized a special outing to travel to London in 1951 to see this movie and have a late supper. She fondly remembered the experience as a highlight of her young adulthood. A few years before she passed away our local PBS station showed it . Mom realized how the bad cinematography affected her perception and how the stage play is a better medium for the story. She did say until she moved to the United States her only experience with prejudice was the song “You have to be carefully taught”. My Mom did experience prejudice up close and personally in the way my father, a Mexican American, was treated by some bigots.
Aside from all the thoughtful comments above, I thought it was interesting to think about from the perspective of audiences, especially when the stage musical opened in the late 1940s. All the (substantial) race/class/gender issues aside, a lot of people in the audience, having just been through the war, would have been familiar with the experience of traveling to a completely foreign place and being involved in a romance with someone totally outside one’s experience. (The insta-love stuff that bothered a lot of us probably rang less false knowing that a lot of couples had really quick romances in the war-time setting). In fact, a lot of families by the late 1940s were dealing with the consequences from these quickie marriages. Also, I wondered what it was like for veterans of the Pacific War to watch this fantasy version, knowing how brutal the real war was (see HBO’s The Pacific for specifics).
Plus, this movie sent me down several fascinating Wiki-holes, including finding out that the Seabees were one of the first units in the navy to enlist African-Americans, although in real life they were assigned to separate units. (I got curious when I spotted the African-American actor in the early musical numbers.)
I don’t really care for musicals. I have just never got the whole acting turning into singing thing, which yanks me out of the story by the hair. I think the only “musical” that I’ve ever liked, and some might say it really isn’t a musical, is Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?
I saw this as a child in 1960, on a b&w tv, so that probably helps with the whole color filter thing. While I was in the South at the time, it was actually Florida during the early Space Program days. Unlike much of the South, our racism was lower key. It had to be as we had people from all over the world working there, white and brown and black and yellow. And a few women, too. My parents (one from very racist Oklahoma and one from a different, but equally racist New York City) were extraordinarily open. It is probably why I never really got the whole racist thing myself, although I did see it around me. Anyway, what I was trying to get to was that I caught the racism in the film, but didn’t understand it. I was only 6 at the time.
I watched it again in Cinema Appreciate Class in 1974. Dear God, the color! And the racism really hit harder for me. As well as Mary pushing her child at the soldier. I was much farther south in Florida and racism was more overt there, not just in regards to color, but shades of color and where you came from. Whites hated Cubans. Cubans hated Haitians. Haitians hated all of us. Older citizens hated younger citizens and vice versa.
For this column, I tried one more time. Nope, almost quit before intermission, but struggled through. To me, it just keeps getting worse.
I’d have to give it a D for subject matter, the color, and the characters. It just didn’t work for me on any level.
I haven’t rewatched this, possibly since I was five years old and watched it many, many times in the theater where my mom worked. I loved it. I cried every day when [somebody–spoiler in comments unwelcome?] died because I loved him.
But mainly, I will always cherish this film because it had a huge impact on me. I could not figure out why Nellie was so concerned about those beautiful children. I could not understand why Lt Cable couldn’t marry Liat and take her home. It killed me inside. It killed me. Because I didn’t understand it, and it was just so wrong.
And every single day, Lt Cable sang–to me, directly to me–“You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late to hate all the people your relatives hate; you’ve got to be carefully taught.”
Which is why I probably won’t watch the movie now. Because I don’t want my memories tainted.
“South Pacific” was my first exposure to musicals. My aunt and uncle brought their new 78 record of the stage show when they came to visit. I nearly wore out the grooves playing that record. The movie was a delight for me. I remember: blah, blah, Beautiful Music, blah, blah. Scenery, plot, lighting and social issues; were all just distractions. — BUT, I object to your points about the plot from the white man’s perspective. Someone needs to create that movie, yeah. But this isn’t that movie, that plot.
A friend and I attended a showing of this at our local cinema (Cineplex Canada Classics series) earlier this year. The notes sent along with the show did not tell the cinema that the first part (overture) was music only so they stopped and restarted the film 3 times before someone in the audience went out to tell them it was so! Needless to say we were in there much longer than the originally planned 3 hours!
We both knew we had probably seen this movie many years ago, but neither of us remembered seeing it, but knew the songs and had seen relatively recent stage versions. Initial impression: the director had a whole new set of cameras and filters he wanted to experiment and showcase, and it led to some very odd shots! When we came away our overall impression was coloured by these distracting odd angles/ shots/ filters. A few days later we discussed it and agreed it was probably very much of its time, the next blockbuster musical, of a story reflective of the age.
It has not aged well, and I can see why audiences of today would struggle to see the appeal. Glad that any recent productions I have seen have managed to deal with the story line and themes better.
My dad was born in 1921 and my mom was born in 1942 and they raised me on all of the old R&H musicals. I basically had to learn about 80’s pop culture and music in the 90’s because I basically had all things 1940’s in my house as a young child. My parents loved South Pacific and my mom would sing one of Bloody Marry’s songs to me whenever the mood would strike. And yes, she has repeatedly brought up “you Have to be Carefully Taught” as a timeless piece of antiracism music. As a kid I didn’t question any of it. But as an adult I look at the casual racism they display and then read your comments and think “ya story checks out”.
I also think you can’t forget that this came out 4 years after the end of WWII when the military was being deified (especially white service members). I see a lot of playing to the GI crowd like, “it was bad, but not that bad right guys?!” Most of my dad’s stories from his time stationed in New Caledonia during WWII seem to be very much in line with what is portrayed in the movie. French plantation owners, interacting with the natives, going fishing, scirmishes with the Japanese, officers and nurses having romances, listening to Tokyo Rose and dancing. As flawed as it is I think we also have to place it as a nostalgia pice for those service members who had returned to a changing country.
“I’m curious if some of the people who adore it – and I so admire and appreciate the affection and nostalgia and love people have for this show and the people in their families who adored it – experienced the music and songs apart from the show/movie.”
Not exactly separately, but I watch it as a piece of nostalgia, so the outdated race and gender stereotypes don’t really bother me. When I watch it, it’s like I’m 10 years old again, and it’s 1962. Sort of like the Latino stereotypes in “West Side Story”, the music just overcomes every flaw. Also, you didn’t mention the comedic parts which I love. “Nothing Like a Dame” I still love for the clever rhymes, the Thanksgiving show, Luther(who was played very gay in the Lincoln Center revival) with the coconut tits, it’s slapstick but I enjoy it.
The only thing that really icks me out is the Cable/Liat relationship which went right over my head as a kid.
After reading last week that you were going to watch this movie, I got the CD and I still love it. I knew that the old 1950s movie was a total loss, so I got the Glenn Close/ Harry Connick Jr. movie, made in 1988 and unfortunately, I didn’t like that one, either. First, you can criticize the 1950s version all you want (and boy, it deserves it), but parts of it are funny, but the Glenn Close version was so serious, so heavy on its emphasis that THERE’S A WAR ON, FELLAS and RACISM IS BAD, BAD, that it fought with the fairy tale love story–after one or two meetings, of the French planter and the “hick”–that it caused another problem. Yes, Bloody Mary is trying to give her daughter a better marriage than what would have been available, but it still is icky. Even Cable essentially can’t believe that Bloody Mary is pimping out her daughter who looks 16 to his 28. A central problem, though, is that nobody could believe Glenn Close as a “cock-eyed optimist” and “A little hick.” At least Mary Martin and Mitzy Gaynor had that going for them. The age difference between LeBecque and Nellie was a real problem, as was it between Lian and Cable. And probably audiences in the 1940s and 50s didn’t think of exploitation and French colonization when LeBecque tells Nellie that he came to the island and made himself rich. However, I did. I do give you one thing about this newer version though: it didn’t wash out the scenery with camera gels.
You want to see an old romantic movie that holds up well, see “Notorious” with Cary Grant and Ingrid Berman and Claude Rains, directed by Hitchcock. Great, great movie, IMO.
Haven’t seen this movie version–probably never will, as I have heard much about its problems even before your review. I did, however, see the utterly amazing revival at Lincoln Center some years ago, and I really hope that you will give this musical another chance in a live performance–by a cast who understands that this is not just a dated piece of 50’s claptrap but (like most classic plays and musicals) a living piece of art whose meaning grows and changes and deepens with the times and the artists who interpret it. Perhaps in a live, modern performance the artists are able to add nuances to the work in a way that defuses and reinterprets some of the 50’s-era prejudices and perspectives you found so problematic in the film. Perhaps a live performance also gives a sense of legitimacy and believability to the “insta love” relationships you found unconvincing on film, and creates more sympathetic feelings for the characters.
I found South Pacific to be a story about individuals from different cultures and backgrounds thrust together in an awful situation not of their choosing (WWII), and how they choose (or are forced) to cope with those circumstances. The clash of cultures (army and civilian, American and islander, old and young, men and women) brings out the best and the worst in the musical’s characters (you have certainly elucidated many of the “worsts” in your review), we get to see each one act in both noble and ignoble ways, and each one changes and grows by the end of the story. Besides which, the music is amazing (in my opinion, R&H’s best score)–I dare you to not to melt in a puddle when Emile looks right in your eyes from the stage and sings “This Nearly Was Mine”!
I did not watch South Pacific this month because I watched both the movie and a live production a few years ago and had the same reaction you guys did to the movie. The live production was better, but I still had so many problems with the story. I love musicals and I would list this one towards the bottom of my list of musicals I’ve seen.
Liat and Lt. Cable are supposed to be icky-they were icky when the story was written and are even more so now. Bloody Mary is trying for upward mobility for her daughter like the factory girls in An Officer snd a Gentleman. But it is destined to end tragically just like the secondary romance in that movie.
Sarah, I grew up parents who played the Broadway recording once or twice a month. When I finally saw the movie, on black and white TV, I was bemused. It certainly didn’t fit what I imagined from the music and reading the album cover. But do I love the music? Oh, yes.
I am DYING. You guys are all so freaking funny. (I THINK my fave was “Rich just walked into the room and asked what’s going on, so I told him that the French guy has biracial kids so the nurse has to go cry now in a jeep” but maybe “GET UNDERGROUND. SOMETHING” or “WHAT THE HELL IS” with no punctuation. Tough tough call.)
I shared my thinky-thoughts about South Pacific in the post where you announced you’d be watching, so I’ll just say that I thought this show was un-rescuably dated and then saw the Lincoln Center revival and found it electrifying.
I have never actually seen this movie–but oddly enough, I have had at least a little exposure to its music via SF/F fandom!
In the late 80’s there was a group calling themselves the Fish and Ships Players, who did a couple of live performances of musical parodies at SF conventions. Specifically, they did parodies of Star Trek II and Star Trek III–calling them, respectively, Wrath Side Story and…
Wait for it…
Spock Pacific.
They were GLORIOUS. 😀
My wife and I had some old VHS copies of these as filmed at a couple of cons, and a while back Dara finally digitized the VHS copies and slapped ’em up on YouTube. You can see them here!
Wrath Side Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xEZTLuZ77A
Spock Pacific: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnFA5RcnedY
(All of what I put into the previous comment I now mention because, in general, I cannot think of South Pacific without thinking of Spock Pacific! And immediately singing WE’VE AN ADMIRAL BRAVE AND DARING, HE’S THE BEST THE FLEET HAS GOT. 😀 )
I did first experience the songs and music separately from the movie. I commented in your previous post about “South Pacific” that I grew up listening the old R&H musicals, on vinyl, because my mom loves them. I almost certainly knew all the words to the songs from “South Pacific” by the time I saw the movie, when I was about eleven or twelve–this was when movies on VHS first started becoming available at our public library, and I remember my mother borrowing it. I was very confused by the color filters.
I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard the various cast albums, but I’m always happy to hear them again, especially the one from the Lincoln Center production. So the music in isolation still holds up for me.
“South Pacific” was, now that I think about it, my introduction to a theme that I’ve found fascinating ever since: two people from very different backgrounds and ways of life, who never would have met each other otherwise, are brought together by war, and the subsequent story of how they cope, or don’t.
“South Pacific” is not my favourite Rogers & Hammerstein MOVIE because of the coloured filters on the songs. My DVD has a documentary on it where they show what it would have looked like without the filters and naturally it is a lot better. If they released a version without the filters I would buy a copy of that. As it is I tend to turn the colour down on my TV – sure, I don’t get the lovely technicolour in the rest of the film but I think it is worth it.
I have never seen a professional stage production, but even the amateur productions I have seen were wonderful, even though the actual performances weren’t as polished as the film.I also feel that the film is a bit choppy compared to the stage version, possibly because they wanted to show lovely Tecnocolour shots of islands. Don’t base your thoughts about the musical on the movie, try to see a stage version.
I am not having the same problems with the racism aspects as some of you are. Possibly because my great grandfather (originally from England), who owned coconut plantations in the Solomon Islands, married a 16 year old part Solomon Islander girl (my great grandmother) after his first wife (also Solomon Islander)and family were killed by head hunters. He was in his 40s at the time. This was in 1910, but the family stories say that great grandma wasn’t so keen on marrying a man so much older than her, but that HER (white) father wanted her to marry a white man so she could have a better life. Anyway, my point is that my ancestors lived the whole “mixed-race” thing in the same area of the world.
Interestingly when my grandmother and mother were evacuated to Australia during WWII my great grandmother refused to leave and hid in the bush, helping Coastwatcher’s like Lieutenant Cable.
Elyse, if you thought this version of the file was homoerotic, try watching the Glenn Close version from 2001.
I grew up loving musicals but could never warm up for all of the reasons stated above. I never quite believed either romance–No chemistry for either couple and Mitzy’s over the top acting makes me sorry for those poor kids on so many levels.
@ LyndaX: “Notorious” is PERFECT. Great example. It has held up really well, in most ways. I need to re-watch that…
“South Pacific” sounds like a complete hot mess. I’ve never watched it (neither did my parents, I don’t think), so it’s not going to be a nostalgia thing for me. I think I will shield myself from the casual racism and general WTF-ness and just take a hard pass on this musical.
I’m glad someone mentioned “This Nearly Was Mine”. I love, love R/H musicals and consider “This Nearly Was Mine” one of their best.
@Billie, I agree, This Nearly Was Mine is R&H’s most beautiful ballad.
Thanks for this. I know some of the songs, but always avoided the movie and stage show because its setting and premise seemed so problematic. But I knew nothing of its exploration of race and prejudice.
I am in the middle of packing up and selling some of my grandma’s stuf, and she has LPs of so many old musicals. She loved this one and probably has it; I will have to give it a listen before I sell it.
I do have a fondness for this musical. I might be older than most of your commenters, I’m 55-but this does have a real nostalgia factor for me. BUT…I have always had problems with the mom offering her young daughter to the white officer. Even when I was a youngster watching it on TV.
Sarah, I laughed at your comment “WHY IS THERE SINGING?”. When I was young, it always bugged me that people would break into song, and most importantly-start to dance, and they knew the same steps, and how did they do that because they just met??? HOW DID THEY DO THAT? How did Ginger and Fred know the exact same dances? It perplexed me for years, till I learned that movies aren’t actually real life.
Hey, we only had 3 TV channels and no internet when I was growing up 🙂 I was naïve!
I do love the music of this movie. In fact last night I was singing, “I’m going to wash that man right out of my hair”, while holding my kitten and manipulating his paws…so he was washing that man right out.
Oh, wanted to mention-“This Nearly Was Mine” is a beautiful song. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.
@Maureen: It really is, isn’t it? And your comment made me laugh so hard. HOW DO THEY KNOW THE SAME STEPS LIKE THAT!? Ha!
I haven’t seen this film, but I did see a stage production on the very day the review was posted! Spooky.
It was kind of weird because a couple of PoC were cast as soldiers and nurses, including a Black woman as the head nurse. I understand why they did it that way – PoC tend to be under-represtented on American stages and screens, especially historically, so colorblind casting is a way of addressing the imbalance – but it’s an odd choice for South Pacific. A harmonious, racially-integrated US military is not only anachronistic for World War Two (the Armed Forces weren’t integrated until 1948), it undermines Nellie’s and Cable’s struggle against their internalized racism, which is the central theme of the plot. It was weird watching Nellie freak out over Emile’s “colored” children after having seen her dance and be friendly with a Black woman! And why would Cable be so certain that Liat wouldn’t be accepted in the US when his PoC military colleagues don’t seem to be treated any differently from their white counterparts?
The Lincoln Center production cast some Black actors as military. But they also kept them “separate but equal” from the rest of the military! The dancing was almost segregated, with the Black performers off on one side, all together. It was a smart, quiet and pointed way to illustrate the themes of the play while also having a more diverse cast.
LOL on the comment “this was the old days when men didn’t have to be ripped(sic). I can remember watching old swashbuckler movies on TV when I was a teenager, and constantly pleading with the handsome leading men, “Please! Don’t take off your shirt…you’ll ruin the whole romantic effect!” Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn were particularly egregious in this area. My high school athlete friends and boyfriends had better bodies.
Here’s a fun fact : Sean Connery got his start in show business as a chorus boy in the London production of SOUTH PACIFIC. The story goes that he was in a pub one day when a stranger said “Can you sing or dance ?” “Not really” “It doesn’t matter – just show up at the theatre”. The reason was that the first number in the show is ‘There is nothing like a dame’ and the average London chorus boy is gayer than a maypole. So if the producers didn’t want the audience to laugh for the wrong reason, they figured they should hire some guys who looked as though they liked women to fill up the front row of the chorus. When Connery realized he could actually make money doing this, he took it up as a profession.