Dos amores

Apologies to the other two 'Kiwi' reviewers but "Two Loves" ("Spinster"in N.Z.) is not all that bad. To start with,just how many of the most successful movies in history are historically accurate and who cares anyway ? More importantly,the three leads were all accomplished actors with box-office appeal. Shirley MacLaine gave something unique and interesting to most of her roles. Jack Hawkins,always good value,gave off an appropriate air of integrity in this role. Laurence Harvey was not out of his depth either.Here,he played a rather avant-garde character;a free thinker,frustrated at having landed himself in a parochial environment. His singing was deliberately off-key (listen to his sublime King Arthur in "Camelot"). Being a Laurence Harvey fan,I'm tempted to rate this one a ten but realistically,I'll bring it down to a seven.

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.

Okay...I'll admit it right up front. I did not finish "Two Loves". While I have a very high tolerance for bad films, the dialog and characters in this one were so bad I simply couldn't take it after a while. And, overall, I can't think of much I liked about "Two Loves".

The story is set in New Zealand and that could have been very interesting, as I've been there a few times and love the country and cultures. But here's a serious problem...the film obviously was NOT filmed in the country. Sure, you see a lot of neat Maori style carvings and decorations, but the extras area bout as Maori as Mantan Moreland or Keye Luke! Most appear Filipino and some are black Americans....and just don't look a bit like the Maori people. And, in many ways, these 'Maori' are portrayed almost as children...and the good teacher, a white savior of sorts. Now I am NOT the most politically correct person...but this even bothered me. And, don't even get me started about the horrid dialog and the character way overplayed by Laurence Harvey...uggh!!

The bottom line is that you'll learn nothing productive about the Maori and the romance is just stilted, weird and, well, horribly written. The film is probably Laurence Harvey's worst...and it's not exactly one of Shirley MacLaine's best, either. It's a tedious film...and woefully inadequate in showing the Maori as anything other than cartoon characters.

Sylvia Constance Ashton-Warner (who died in 1984, 23 years after this movie was made) in large part actually lived this story herself: she taught in mostly-Maori schools where inspectors and rules were somewhat lax and thus she had latitude to innovate.

Both in NZ and North America and elsewhere she came to be regarded as brilliant. To quote from an American review of the book: "Sylvia Aston-Warner was a brilliant teacher and her innovative approach to teaching Maori children is as valid today as it was when it was first demonstrated in 1965. I used this system of teaching early reading. Not only in my Kindergarten and First Grade classrooms but also with my children and grandchildren. It is particularly useful for children who do not immediately respond to other methods of teaching reading such as totally phonetic or whole language approaches. It can easily be included as a quick and easy supplement to any reading program. This is a particularly valid approach to underprivileged and resource-deprived classrooms."

The movie's resemblance to the real NZ and its people and their looks and accents is almost non-existent, as other reviews have rightly decried. One big tell is the lurid colors: NZ is closer to the sun especially in summer than the northern hemisphere ever is, and the intense sunlight is somewhat white and bleaching, so lurid is a rarity.

A pity the film had to be made on a Hollywood backlot and the NZ look and main theme of the book was somewhat trampled on; Sylvia Constance Ashton-Warner deserved better. Nine stars to maybe encourage a teacher or two to make a beeline for her much superior books.

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?