Der Fehltritt

Why do people feel the need to post a plot synopsis as their review? I don't get it. I don't need anyone to walk me through the trajectory of the film. I just want to know if it's worth seeing. And this one is most assuredly not!

The story line is tepid, at best. Cinematography acceptable, though nothing special. But it's the acting that really kills this one. In particular, Laurence Harvey is a hack.

MacLaine and Hawkins are fine; or they would be on their own. But Harvey's performance is so bad it absolutely drowns any chance of taking the other actors seriously. He is the skunk that invaded your neighbor's backyard barbecue. It would be okay that they're only serving hamburgers instead of steak - can't have everything every time. Even so, it's still impossible to enjoy a single bite with such a stench in the air!

This is actually quite a complex movie. Not the fragile plot of a school teacher desperate for love, the complexity comes in the characters themselves. Shirley MacLaine as the stressed teacher desperately tries to juggle with looking after her children, mentoring the teenage assistant and fighting her conscience which is constantly being sexually challenged. Laurence Harvey comes across as barking mad, but there's one short scene in the movie which explains the torture he's going through, a scene vital to be seen for the whole film to make sense. Jack Hawkins, trapped in an unhappy marriage is probably mis-cast although he is a good contrast to Harvey. Not a typical depiction of New Zealand but an unusual movie, great for discussion & debate.

It is interesting to note that this movie, purportedly set in New Zealand, has no one speaking with a New Zealand accent. It is also interesting that the "natives" ( Maori) are all Mexican or Japanese. This film is condescending, inane drivel. What were the likes of Jack Hawkins, Laurence Harvey and Shirley McLain thinking?

Anna Vorontosov (Shirley MacLaine) is an American teacher in a rural New Zealand community with mostly Maoris students. The new senior inspector William Abercrombie (Jack Hawkins) threatens her work. She has a relationship with self-destructive fellow teacher Paul Lathrope (Laurence Harvey).

This is supposedly Maoris culture. I wonder if this could have been a small New Zealand indie. I imagine getting into some real culture and some epic New Zealand landscape. The studio insisted on a star and got MacLaine. I don't like her character. I don't see her teaching technique as that great. I want to like the kids but I don't really know them. Shirley MacLaine has done better. She does some overwrought acting in an overly overwrought scene. It's bad writing. I certainly don't see any chemistry between her and Laurence Harvey who is playing a horrible drunk. It's dreary. The story meanders around without much tension.

Watching this film Two Loves I could not help but compare it to the film made of the James Michener novel Hawaii that starred Julie Andrews, Max Von Sydow, and Richard Harris. MacLaine could have been Julie's great granddaughter.

Julie was a missionary from New England gone out among the Polynesian natives to learn them some Christianity and other things that a good New England puritan deems necessary. MacLaine is a spinsterish woman from New England who has gone to New Zealand to teach the Maoris who are also a Polynesian people.

She is prim and proper and has her set ideas about love and sex. But bachelor school teacher Laurence Harvey gets her mojo going. But he's also an irresponsible drunkard and that part of his behavior repels her. Harvey given where he is has plenty of outlets for his libido.

Jack Hawkins is in this as well as the district education superintendent who first comes across as a stuffy bureaucrat, but turns out to be a very wise man indeed. Nobu McCarthy whose career was peaking at this time played many an Oriental part. This was one of her few non-Oriental, Maoris are Pacific Islanders, parts and she is a teen student of MacLaine. Also black American actor Juano Hernandez plays a Maori chief, another man much wiser than MacLaine.

Not one of Shirley's best, but her fans will like it.