Dos amores

American schoolteacher on the North Island of New Zealand--unmarried and, indeed, untouched by any man--smokes and takes a nip of brandy once in awhile but cannot escape her Puritan attitudes towards sexual relations. Two men take a fancy to her: a reckless stud with suicidal tendencies and an older school district inspector estranged from his wife and children. Mercurial adaptation of Sylvia Ashton-Warner's novel "Spinster" features some very odd color schemes (from the emerald green landscapes to Shirley MacLaine's house of many colors), not to mention a peculiarly artificial schoolhouse filled with very emotional children. The melodrama on hand eventually proves too much for MacLaine, who dithers about eccentrically but is still unable to come up with an interesting characterization (this mainly the fault of screenwriter Ben Maddow, who treats virginity as an incurable disorder, physical as well as psychological). However, the material is just odd or offbeat enough to keep one watching, and the men (Laurence Harvey and Jack Hawkins) are both very good. ** from ****

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.

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.

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!

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.