South Sea Woman

I don't know if the term war oater exixts but I don't care, I have no other word to describe this film, very watchable but worth only for movie buffs like me, from time to time nostalgic of the Hollywood golden years, the last ones, the fifties. Arthur Lubin was guilty of this comedy, after all comedy was his domain, with the exception of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA of course, his best movie. Not the Francis talking mule movie nor Abott and Costello's series. Exotic cinema charm lovers won't be deceived.

Sergeant James O'Hearn is standing on trial for a number of serious misdemeanours, refusing to testify or even state his defence, the outlook is very bleak. Much against his wishes, good time girl Ginger Martin takes to the stand and the whole case against O'Hearn is going to be seen in a very different light. A tale of loves, friendships, rivalry's, bad luck, but most of all, heroism in the line of duty.

The genre police have tagged this picture as an action/comedy/romance set just prior to the Pacific hostilities in WWII. That it's a multi genre piece is a given, that it's also an odd bit of cinema is also very much understandable. That's the only real complaint with South Sea Woman, it's so jaunty and full of fun that when we get to the wonderful, bold and tough last quarter, you are not exactly sure how to feel. It's like entering a fancy dress party and winning first prize but then suddenly being told the prize is for worst costume of the night!

Anyway, the cast seem to be having a right laugh with it, Burt Lancaster (0'Hearn) and Chuck Connors (Davey White) are constantly at loggerheads about their participation in the conflict, and the direction they should be taking (humouressly so), because right in between them is Virginia Mayo (Ginger), sparklingly pretty she's all set to marry White, but O'Hearn is doing his hardest to ensure that that doesn't happen. This is the mainstay of the film, we (they) lurch from one fight to another, from one daft encounter to the next, bad luck and sheer bravado constantly zipping around with our protagonists, and then the shift to full blown drama. It ties up all the loose ends, and it in no way is a cop out ending, in fact far from it, but it does take some getting used to and even some time after the credits have rolled I personally was a bit bemused.

It's a recommended film, if only for the sparky cast it is worth it, but just go into it expecting a whisk in the blender and you will be OK. 6/10

South Sea Woman is a fun, entertaining, and sadly to say, forgotten old movie. Burt Lancaster hand-picked Chuck Connors for the supporting role; what a compliment, and what a debut to the movies! It's a court-martial drama, with Burt facing over one hundred years in prison. Despite having his reputation tarnished and serving the rest of his life in jail, he refuses to give a plea or testify in his defense. Ladies, this will be a fun treat for you. Not only is Burt playing a tough marine, but his strong, silent type is sure to make you love him even more!

Virginia Mayo, in the titular role, can't stand Burt's silence. She takes the stand when he won't and tells the true story. It's a very exciting story that shows so much of his character: strength, loyalty, courage, and selflessness. I would definitely recommend this military drama if you like these types of stories (a defendant refusing to talk is a common story element), if you like Burt, or if you want to see Chuck's film debut. I was a bit skeptical, since Virginia Mayo is no Susan Hayward, but she didn't detract from the drama. For a double feature, you can watch Burt in the same year's From Here to Eternity!

In 1944 U.S. Marine Master Gunnery Sergeant James O'Hearn is facing a court martial for desertion, theft, scandalous conduct and destruction of property, charges which in time of war carry the death penalty. ("Scandalous conduct" in this context means sex outside marriage; if that were to be regarded as a capital offence under military law I suspect that the fighting strength of most of the world's armies would be drastically reduced overnight).

The above might suggest that this is a serious courtroom drama along the lines of "The Caine Mutiny". Admittedly, the film starts off in serious vein, but as soon as Ginger Martin (she with whom O'Hearn allegedly conducted himself scandalously) takes the stand seriousness goes out of the window and it descends into ridiculous comedy.

Ginger is presumably the "South Sea Woman" of the title, but she is actually a white American rather than a Polynesian and only finds herself in the South Seas by chance. When O'Hearn first meets her she is working as a showgirl at a nightclub in Shanghai, where his regiment is stationed, and is the girlfriend of his friend Private Davy White. An attempt by White to slip away to marry Ginger leads to the three finding themselves adrift at sea on a small motor boat. In a series of increasingly farcical misadventures, in the course of which they inadvertently commit the acts which will form the basis of the charges against O'Hearn, they are rescued by a Chinese junk and eventually cast away on the French-ruled island of Namou. As the Governor of Namou is pro-Vichy, and as the attack on Pearl Harbor has now brought America into the war, the two Marines have to pretend to be deserters in order to avoid being interned. White and Ginger attempt to marry several times, but are always frustrated.

It is at this point that the film changes direction again, largely abandoning comedy and turning into a patriotic wartime adventure as O'Hearn and White discover a fiendish Nazi plot and decide to take action to thwart it, to seize a boat and to rejoin the Marines who are fighting the Japanese at Guadalcanal.

Mixing genres in this way is often a risky business, the risk being that the resulting film can end up as neither fish nor flesh nor fowl nor good red herring, or in this case neither drama nor comedy nor action. I don't think there was ever any possibility of this film being a sort of "Caine Mutiny Court Martial", but it could certainly have been made either as a comedy about the adventures of a pair of bungling Marines and a girl or as a standard gung-ho action war film about two heroic Marines with a sub-plot about their love-interest.

The attempt to make the film as a combination of these two approaches simply results in a misbegotten dog's breakfast, a film which is not very amusing when it tries to be a comedy and not very exciting when it tries to be a wartime adventure. About all one can say for it is that Virginia Mayo looks lovely, as she normally did.

This is not quite Burt Lancaster's worst movie; he normally saved his worst for those occasions, mostly in the sixties and seventies, when he allowed his political judgement to overcome his artistic judgement and ended up playing a villainous right-wing fanatic in turgid, paranoid left-wing thrillers like "Executive Action" or "The Cassandra Crossing". It is not, however, one of his better ones, and is one that is probably best forgotten by all but the most obsessive Lancaster fans. 4/10

In a recent biography of Burt Lancaster the only two things that were mentioned about South Sea Woman was that it enabled him to fulfill a commitment to Warner Brothers on a three picture deal and that he was instrumental in getting Chuck Connors the part of his fellow Marine in hijinks. Other than that this one is strictly minor league Lancaster.

The title role of South Sea Woman is played by Virginia Mayo who the two have a rivalry over. The story is narrated from several perspectives at a court martial that Lancaster is undergoing. These two manage to miss the withdrawal of Marines from Shanghai which occurred a few weeks before Pearl Harbor. Lancaster wants to get back to the outfit especially when they get news of the Japanese attack, but Connors has Mayo on his mind, he wants to get married.

Not since the Errol Flynn film Desperate Journey also by Warner Brothers was there ever a more lighthearted approach to war. These two guys also manage to liberate a Vichy governed French colony and turn it over to the Free French and from said island recruit a crew to get to Guadalcanal where they do distinguish themselves in their own private action. All this related to a rather incredulous court martial board.

What was interesting was that Burt Lancaster did two films at once. While this was shooting Lancaster went over to the set of Three Sailors And A Girl and did a small walk-on role in his Marine uniform costume in that musical. With that he fulfilled a three picture commitment the other being The Flame And The Arrow in which he also co-starred with Virginia Mayo.

The comedy was kind of forced and while it had a few laughs in it South Sea Woman is clearly a film that Lancaster wanted to get off his plate and move on. That year of 1953 he also did From Here To Eternity a much better film about the start of the Pacific War.