Le pays du dauphin vert

A good film which will satisfy all tastes. Geographical diversions from France to New Zealand certainly add to the movies scenic appeal. Splendid action via the earthquake and flood scenes in New Zealand plus the tense atmosphere when the natives threaten to attack. The female viewers will enjoy the emotional aspects especially the final 10

minutes. The romance is gentle and restrained unlike the slop which we are assailed with in the modern trash movies. Another nice wrinkle...... no profane language. If you can see it I think you,ll find it very entertaining.

Is there really a Plan at work in the strange twists and turns of our lives? Green Dolphin Street makes the case that there is--that things happen for good reasons, which can't be understood during the heartbreak of the moment. We see a meaningful design woven in the lives of three people as the movie reaches its strongly crafted and truly moving conclusion. This is a story with a long-range view, taking us through the intertwined lives of two sisters and the man they love. It even reaches back to reveal secrets from the past, from their parents. And it moves forward with exciting scenes of the dangers of pioneer life in New Zealand in contrast to the peaceful world of the Chanel Islands where it all begins.

Intriguingly, another man, a fugitive from British justice, plays a key role in ensuring the happiness and safety of one sister, Marianne. In this role, Van Heflin has one of the best parts of his career and makes the most of it. Even here, the theme of a Plan at work is expressed when he suggests to her that they must be old souls who have known one another a very long time. For me, he greatly overshadowed her husband--in fact, would have made a much more suitable husband for her--and perhaps that was intended as another example of the ironies of life.

The role of Marianne, played by Lana Turner, is pivotal to the story. While she gives this part her very best, another actress with a stronger face and more range could have done better. Somehow, Lana still looked and sounded like a Hollywood glamour girl. Yet, at times, I was moved to tears during her scenes. Donna Reed in the role of her sister Marguerite seemed more comfortable with her assignment and developed a strength and radiant beauty in the course of the film. No one who has seen this movie could forget her scene as she climbs the cliff. Other memorable moments take place in New Zealand with the earthquake and tidal wave or the attack of the Maoris. But the best is saved for the last. The ending of Green Dolphin Street conveys a transcendence that lifts it far above the ordinary Hollywood costume period movie.

Individual performances in this romantic epic are excellent--Lana Turner, Van Heflin, Donna Reed and Richard Hart do some fine work. Even more impressive are three of the supporting players involved in a sub-plot of their own: Frank Morgan, Edmund Gwenn and Gladys Cooper. Basically a love story depicting two sisters in love with the same man (Richard Hart) and what happens when, in a drunken stupor, he sends for the wrong woman to join him at an outpost in New Zealand. Plot complications thicken and the rest of the story is told against a backdrop of native uprisings, tidal waves and earthquakes that are all realistically depicted. No wonder the film won an Oscar for its startling Special Effects.

Lana Turner does a wonderful job as the spirited heroine on an emotional roller-coaster and Van Heflin gives his usual impressive performance as the only man who knows the truth about her relationship with Richard Hart. Donna Reed is sincere as the good sister and has a gripping scene where she is stranded on an island as the tide closes in and must climb an inner cave wall to the safety of a monastery. She also has an extraordinary moment at her mother's deathbed when confessions of a personal sort are made to her and her grieving father.

Edmund Gwenn and Gladys Cooper do an outstanding job of conveying their emotions here. Richly satisfying as a romantic drama, its high production values give it that special MGM gloss worthy of an epic film. It's a lengthy film and by the time it's all over, you feel as though you've experienced a lifetime of personal events.

'Green Dolphin Street' is set in the early Victorian era and features two unusual backgrounds for Hollywood films, New Zealand and the Channel Islands. (Contrary to what some have thought, 'St Pierre' is not in France, but rather in the British-ruled Channel Islands, although the model for the offshore nunnery was clearly Mont-St-Michel in Normandy). The plot centers around two sisters, Marianne and Marguerite, who are both in love with the same man, William. (An added complication is that the girls' mother, in her youth, was in love with William's father, but they were prevented from marrying by the opposition of her parents).

William himself loves Marguerite; indeed, he seems to be unaware that Marianne is in love with him. He persuades the girls' wealthy and influential father to help him to obtain a commission in the Royal Navy. He is, however, a feckless young man and a heavy drinker, and, after getting drunk and missing his ship while in China, deserts from the navy and flees to New Zealand. He meets Timothy, another Channel Islander and fellow-fugitive from justice who has killed a man in a brawl. Timothy is now running a logging business in a remote area of the North Island with the help of Maori workers, and invites William to assist him in his business. The business prospers, and William writes to Marguerite's father, asking for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Unfortunately, he is drunk at the time he writes the letter, and inadvertently writes 'Marianne' rather than 'Marguerite'. Marianne, delighted to think her love is returned, sets off for New Zealand to marry him.

In some respects, 'Green Dolphin Street' is a standard costume drama of its period, a combination of a Jane Austen-style drawing-room romance and an epic of the British Empire. The acting is neither particularly distinguished nor particularly bad. Nevertheless, it has a few interesting features. An earthquake hits the logging camp, and this scene can still generate tension even today, as the special effects are surprisingly well done for a film of this period. The characters are well-drawn and undergo genuine development; the feckless William becomes a more responsible character and comes to appreciate the finer qualities of the wife he has married by mistake. Timothy, a wild character in his youth, also matures. He is himself secretly in love with Marianne, but keeps this a secret as he believes she will be happier with William. (Unlike many of the white settlers, he admires the native Maori population and befriends them rather than treating them with contempt). Marianne, headstrong and determined but capable of sincere love, plays an important role in her husband's success. Back in St Pierre, Marguerite, originally a rather spoiled young woman, develops a religious vocation and enters a nunnery. (The film has a strong, specifically Catholic, religious atmosphere). This is a film that has stayed watchable. 6/10.

There are a couple of errors that I spotted. The ship's captain talks of having seen a flightless bird larger than an ostrich in New Zealand. This is presumably a reference to the moa, but this bird was already extinct before Europeans first landed in the country. It seems strange that William and Timothy, both fugitives from British justice, should think themselves safe in New Zealand, where they live quite openly under their real names. The country was, after all, a British colony at the time, and they could presumably have been arrested by the local authorities and extradited to Britain.

I saw this movie when it was first shown on a Los Angeles TV station that had licensed a number of big-budget MGM movies for a once-a-week event. I was in my mid-teens at the time and had a part-time job at a supermarket in Pacific Palisades, where my family lived. Gladys Cooper, who had a supporting role in "Green Dolphin Street" and who gave her usual British-sterling performance (as a French matriarch), was a frequent customer at that store and she seemed to always choose the checkout line where I was working. (Must have liked the careful way I packed her groceries!) I usually helped her out with her purchases to her top-down 1956 Thunderbird roadster. On the afternoon after "Green Dolphin Street" had been shown the previous evening, I did more than exchange the usual pleasantries with Ms. Cooper and mentioned having enjoyed the film and, in particular, the eloquence of her deathbed scene. She graciously thanked me and admitted to watching the film, too (for the first time, by the way), and that she had also enjoyed it. "It really wasn't bad!" she said, as she started up her convertible and waved goodbye. When weather permitted, and it did rather frequently in that southern California town, she usually looked like she'd come in to do her grocery shopping, in tennis shorts and a sleeveless blouse, after spending an afternoon gardening in what, no doubt, was as much of a showstopper as the many roles in which she had excelled. For a woman who was in her late sixties at the time, she radiated a most charismatic energy. A great lady whom I shall always remember most fondly.