La intocable

"Sea Wife" is a film best enjoyed if you don't have particularly high expectations and accept it as it is. I liked it but could easily see folks complaining about one serious problem with the plot.

When the film begins, 'Biscuit' (Richard Burton) has arrived back in England after a very long absence. The first thing he does is arrange for some odd personal ads to be run in the various newspapers with odd messages from 'Biscuit' to someone called 'Sea Wife'. These messages turn out to be fruitless and eventually an acquaintance named 'Bulldog' contacts him and asks him to come see him about the messages. Then a lengthy flashback occurs. The time in 1942 and the setting is Singapore as the Japanese are invading. Biscuit is on board a ship that is trying to escape--as are many, many others on this overloaded ship. Eventually, the ship is torpedoed with it's out to see and Biscuit and four others end up in a life raft together. Oddly, they don't use their real names and they all assign nicknames to each other--Bulldog (for the nasty and extremely bigoted jerk), #4 because he was the fourth one aboard, Biscuit (this one made little sense) and Sea Wife since she was a lady. Their adventures make up most of the rest of the film and during this time, Biscuit falls for Sea Wife and she NEVER bothers to mention to him that she's a nun and that's why she's rebuffing his advances. WHY NOT JUST TELL THE GUY!?!?! And, if the story is being discussed by Biscuit and Bulldog, how can we see and hear conversations that go on between #4 and Sea Wife if they never told the other two about what they said?!?! Huh?!

On the other hand, the film was excellent in many ways. I particularly loved how the film focused on the horrible aspects of human nature. The ship sinking scene was great--very harrowing and exhibiting all the worst in mankind!! Likewise, Bulldog was a great character simply because he was so awful. Overall, a nice adventure film that occasionally didn't exactly make sense. Worth seeing but certainly not a must-see.

Still pining for a mysterious woman with whom he and two other gentlemen shared a lifeboat many months earlier, a British army officer recollects the shipwreck that led to their encounter as well as their intimate time together in this early career Richard Burton motion picture. The film plays out primarily in flashback and seeing Burton so young is just as curious as Joan Collins being cast as his love interest - a nun who never revealed her true identity to him during their time together. The story is propelled by a couple of implausible elements -- namely, her extreme reluctance to say that she is a nun, and the fact that the four shipwreck survivors insist on calling each other by nicknames rather than their real names -- however, these improbabilities add unexpected layers of depths. In particular, the film handles Burton's attraction to Collins with delightful ambiguity; we never find out if she truly ever reciprocated his feelings, and is it out of craving for human affection that she chose to never tell him that she was a nun? The naming thing is quite interesting too as we get to know the characters through their traits and idiosyncrasies more than anything else, and as Collins keeps telling Burton, things are different when stuck out at sea. Clocking in at just over an hour and a quarter long, the film feels incredibly short with a lot of unrealised narrative potential, but the ending is so unexpected and packs such an emotional wallop that it is hard not to exit the film a tad shaken. Certainly, 'Sea Wife' is very far removed from the average wartime romantic drama out there.

In their only time together in a film, Richard Burton and Joan Collins co-star in Sea Wife which is a combination of Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat and John Huston's Heaven Knows Mr. Allison. It was sad to say not a really good blend.

The film is told in flashback with both Richard Burton and Basil Sydney remembering the events of many years ago during World War II. After leaving the besieged Singapore in a crowded cargo ship, Burton, Sydney, Joan Collins and Cy Grant find themselves on a rubber dinghy after the ship is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

Sydney is your typical John Bull like administrator who spent his life among the various native populations and has a racist superiority attitude concerning them. Cy Grant is a black sailor and the only one who is really capable of helping this disparate bunch survive. He knows something about Collins that the other two don't, that she's a nun who had to leave the ship quickly without habit.

Why she doesn't come right out and tell the other two I'm still not figuring out. I mean Deborah Kerr did in Heaven Knows Mr. Allison and it kept Robert Mitchum somewhat at bay. But she keeps it a deep dark secret and let's Richard Burton's hormones go raging.

The real story here is with Sydney and Grant and Grant has the best acted role in Sea Wife. Had this been an American production the part would have gone to Sidney Poitier and he would have been acclaimed for his performance.

Sea Wife is not anything that will be listed among the top ten of either Richard Burton's or Joan Collins's films.

Richard Burton and Joan Collins in a shipwreck/lifeboat drama was something that I could not resist checking out. Once all has been said and done I'm still happy to have checked it out and spent some time with these characters. The entire cast does a fine job, Grant and Sydney are also both solid and their story is ultimately one of the more interesting elements of Sea Wife. Some reviewers mentioned having trouble with Collins playing a Nun but for me I think those individuals are bringing too much baggage to that analysis because if you are able observe her soley for her performance here she does an excellent and to me believable performance. The main weakness is the story, it just doesn't dig deep enough into any of the four main characters development. That's unfortunate because the setting kinds of lends itself to that type of exploration but it was just not forthcoming. I also feel the direction, while competent, was not particularly interesting. Despite some major shortcomings I did fine Sea Wolf kind of interesting.

Enjoyed viewing this classic film from 1957 starring Joan Collins, (Sea Wife) and Richard Burton, (Biscuit). This film opens up with Biscuit running an ad in most of the London papers trying to locate Sea Wife and at first you think this must be some undercover agent trying to locate their partner. However, it turns out to be a love story which occurred during WW II when their ship was sunk by a Japanese Submarine and this couple wound up on a raft together. Biscuit fell in love with Sea Wife, however, she always turned down his sexual advances towards her and refused to give him a civil answer as to why she felt this way towards him. This is a hidden gem of a picture and worth your time to view and enjoy this great classic with great actors.