Huracán sobre la isla

Sure, the leads are silly, and there's a great deal of mannered melodrama to endure, but don't overlook this. Academy Award nominations for Thomas Mitchell and Alfred Newman, and a well-deserved Oscar win for Thomas Moulton, the credited sound guy. The 10 minute Hurricane sequence plays entirely without music; just sound effects and scattered dialog, shouted over the wind and waves. You'll forget that the wind is ringing the church bell constantly through the storm, until the church is washed away and the bell sound is suddenly gone. The visual action and stunts are extraordinary and ahead of their time. I show this sequence to my film sound students, and I wish I could get it on DVD!

The Hurricane is a terrific but overlooked film from 1937, often thought of as a tepid "island romance," but in actuality a solid dramatic film (directed by John Ford) with great special effects and music by Alfred Newman.

Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall play the leads, Pacific Islanders who get caught in French provincial law and governance, as applied by strict governor Raymond Massey. Despite sympathetic tendencies of others Hall is convicted of striking a white man and imprisoned in Tahiti-600 miles away. He escapes in time for the "big blow" that seems to his the island in retaliation for the white man's laws.

Lamour is quite good as the island beauty, and Hall brings more to his role than the usual "hunk" attitudes and poses. Massey is solid as the taciturn governor who finally sees the light. Mary Astor is good as always as the governor's wife. Thomas Mitchell is the drunken doctor. Jerome Cowan is the ship captain. John Carradine is the sadistic guard. Spencer Charters is the inept judge. Inez Courtney is the girl on the ship. And best of all is the regal C. Aubrey Smith as the island priest.

The hurricane is awesome and the special effects among the best of the decade. The scenes of Astor crawling along a rope to find refuge in a tree and windblown Smith playing the organ as the church roof blows away are great. The destruction of the island is totally convincing and becomes almost mythic as a natural force to wipe out man's inhumanity.

Great film and very underrated.

The story line of this movie gets a bit fanciful at times, but it doesn't get out of hand and the movie does not pretend to be anything it isn't, so I think most people well enjoy it.

There are several fine performances. My favorite is that of Raymond Massey as he is very convincing in the thankless role of a cold-hearted governer who towards the end shows a sadistic side and then, at the very end of the movie, shows that there is good in everybody.

Then there is the hurricane itself. Naturally I have not seen every movie ever made, but seeing how this movie predates the computer age the hurricane is surely the greatest special effects in movie history.

Directed by John Ford with an extraordinary eye for detail and with tremendous sympathy and sensuality, this picture will be a surprise for those who only know the later Ford films that explore the male worlds of military life on the frontier. In those, Ford seems to take the side of authoritarian severity, as if he had come to agree with the Raymond Massey character of THE HURRICANE, for whom human nature can and should be broken on the wheel of law. But in this earlier film you can feel Ford's deep yearning for the freedom and eroticism of a natural life of the body and the senses.

I grew up with THE HURRICANE, which was a staple of TV viewing throughout the '60s and '70s. But seeing it now for the first time in years I am struck by how subversive of convention it must have seemed in the '30s, and how much it was in sync with the cultural and political wars of the late '60s. Terangi, the kind, capable natural man wants merely to live freely and happily, but he is imprisoned and tortured and unwittingly finds himself in opposition to a rule of law that is anti-love, anti-life, anti-human. Every frame of this film sides with Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall, the gorgeous young lovers, against the hard fanaticism of Massey's governor. Meanwhile the priest, the doctor, the sea captain and the governor's own wife are sensible, kind-hearted (if condescending) humanists who are on the correct side of the debate, but who are helpless in the face of insane obedience to authority.

Yes, the hurricane is marvelously done, impressive and absorbing, and it acts as a very necessary catharsis after the anxiety aroused by the many injustices Terangi must endure. But what seems to matter most to Ford is the idyll of sexy young love, not seen in films since the first two pre-code TARZAN pictures from MGM. Once married, the couple are stripped of their western clothes by their friends and returned to their near-naked state wearing sarongs and flower leis. It is Lamour's character who signals to her husband that she is ready for the honeymoon to begin, and the camera follows the happy couple to their private island where they lay in the sand to make love under palm trees. Just as sensual is the morning after, where Lamour raises the shades of their hut, letting the sun fall on her husband's naked back, and her hair falls around him as she leans down to kiss him tenderly on the neck. This must have been a powerful vision of romance and eroticism to workaday, Depression-weary audiences. The island scenes cast a naive spell, like something from Melville's early books of south sea island life. Ford films these like silent screen montages, with dissolving images of swaying palms, bare, tanned legs, the look of young, tawny bodies and shining hair. Rather than just a professional job for him, his work on THE HURRICANE seems deeply felt.

Lamour was just right here: Though not yet the wry comic actress she would become, she was rather gravely beautiful in a way unusual for an American star then and now, full of languor and sometimes a startling natural grace. The way Marama suddenly pulls her hair back from her face when first seeing Terangi after eight years is an expressive gesture, full of emotion. Hall was very appealing, with the grace of an athlete and for all his muscularity there is something feline about him. And for those aware of rumors that director Ford may have nursed closeted yearnings all his life (as revealed by Maureen O'Hara in her autobiography of 2005) the fevered way that Hall's body and face are photographed in the midst of his torments will have an added charge and interest.

The South Seas island of Manikoora is alive with happiness on the day of the wedding of Terangi and Marama. Terangi has his honeymoon cut short, when he has to sail to deliver cargo to Tahiti. Terangi's visit to Tahiti becomes hell when he slugs a man in a barroom brawl and is unjustly sentenced to six months in prison mainly because he as a native islander hit a white man. Terangi repeatedly tries to escape and is caught each time, only to add more years to his sentence. Back on Manikoora, Governor De Laage makes no effort to release Terangi because in his mind Terangi is a law breaker and deserves to be punished, despite the words of his wife, priest, and island doctor to the otherwise. One night Terangi does manage to escape, even though he unknowingly knocks a guard to the ground, killing him. Father Paul rescues Terangi from the sea and arranges to meet Marama and their daughter Tita. When De Laage learns that Terangi is back on the island, he makes a determined effort to apprehend him, not realizing one of the most devastating hurricanes is coming to strike, which may destroy the whole island. A very good movie. I was expecting much footage of hurricane destruction, I didn't realize the plot aspect of the prison, which was a lot more than plot filler. Hall and Lamour were good, even though I enjoyed their movies from the 40's a lot better. Massey gives one of the best performances of his long career as De Laage, as a heartless and sadistic fellow. The special effects are amazing, even by 2004 standards. Beautiful on-location photography as well. Rating, 9.