High Barbaree

I am amazed at the reviewers who wrote negative descriptions that make me wonder if they paid attention to the film or even watched it. Van Johnson pilots a PBY badly damaged in an attack on a Japanese warship. Cameron Mitchell is not the co-pilot but is the plane's flight engineer. They are not stranded on a tropical island but are stuck in the plane with a broken radio that prevents them from radioing their location. Most of the crew was killed in action. Mitchell is cynical regarding their chances of survival; Johnson keeps the faith by telling about his childhood romance that finally came together when he saw June Allyson just before taking off on their patrol. Mitchell's cynicism does not make Johnson's recollections boring.

I saw this film on TV back in the 1960s and it has stayed in my memory all these years. That said, none of the reviewers mentioned that the film is based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, authors of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" trilogy. I read the novel as an adult and was surprised to find that the ending in the book was very different from the film.

I remember seeing this movie when I was around 11, one rainy Saturday afternoon, with my father. It's stuck with me all these years (I'm 46 now) and I wish I could see it again! I could be romanticizing it a bit based on memory of days long past, but I remember it well enough to know that it WAS a great movie despite the tricks the years may have played on me. It was indeed an unusual mixture of adventure, romance and fantasy - but what makes it unusual also makes it unique and well worth watching. I know I turned it on originally because of the phrase 'World War II' that I spotted in the TV Guide - but the war really has little bearing on how the story plays out. If you happen to see it advertised on TV, be sure and watch it - I've been waiting for years now, and have only seen it listed once (but sadly I wasn't home at the time and couldn't see it).

Van Johnson and June Allyson head a talented cast in this enchantingly dotty romantic fantasy about true love in peace and war. The romance begins when they're children, and the childhood scenes have some charmingly surreal moments, such as when the two run away to join the circus. Someone must have been reading Freud in his spare time when making this one. There are enough symbols, phallic and otherwise, to fill a fair-sized textbook. Director Jack Conway did an admirable job on the film, with beautifully composed shots which at times recall the best silent pictures. He had flair for investing what are, on the surface, mundane images,--a water tower, a tropical island--with a subliminal power rare in a Hollywood movie. Since much of the story is related in flashback, there's a slight but unmistakable distortion involved in what unfolds on the screen that makes the movie feel at times like a dream. There are strange, abrupt transitions,--a storm comes seemingly out of nowhere--that make the movie resonate in one's memory years after one has seen it. Corny as hell, this is in many respects a remarkable film.

Van Johnson plays a downed flier in the Pacific War, the only survivor with his co-pilot Cameron Mitchell in a plane they've managed to make seaworthy and float. As a lad he was told some tall tales of a legendary island like Shangri-La in the Pacific called High Barbaree. He and that teller of tall tales Johnson's uncle Thomas Mitchell actually plotted where the island should be and low and behold Johnson and Cameron Mitchell are down in the Pacific right where this mythical island is supposed to be.

In reading some of the books on western voyages of discovery a number of mapmakers in the 15th. 16th, and 17th centuries made mention of a mythical island called Hy-Brasil. You'll find it on many charts of the period. How the legend started who knows, but it was real to a lot of people just as High Barbaree is here.

On that voyage Johnson tells Cameron Mitchell all about his life in flashbacks, about High Barbaree and about his life and choice of career. The women aren't left out as he has two women interested in him, girl next door June Allyson and rich girl Marilyn Maxwell.

High Barbaree is a nice film about the hopes and dreams of one young man who went to war. Does Van Johnson find High Barbaree? For that you watch the film for.

I grew up watching movies from the 30's and 40's as a kid in the 50's. The early days of T.V. had a lot of time to fill and they did it with movies. Remember the Fabulous 52!, a movie of the week at 11:15 on Saturday nights? I probably knew those movies better than the ones from my own era. I was a particular fan of Van Johnson and June Allyson. This movie haunted me and my youthful imagination. I probably first saw this movie at age 12 when it was already 10 years old. Everyone needs a 'High Barbaree' in his life, a dream put there by some crazy uncle like the character Thomas Mitchell plays so well in this movie. I wish they'd put this movie on DVD so I could buy it and show it to my family and friends.