Anna et les Maoris

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.

This is actually quite a complex movie. Not the fragile plot of a school teacher desperate for love, the complexity comes in the characters themselves. Shirley MacLaine as the stressed teacher desperately tries to juggle with looking after her children, mentoring the teenage assistant and fighting her conscience which is constantly being sexually challenged. Laurence Harvey comes across as barking mad, but there's one short scene in the movie which explains the torture he's going through, a scene vital to be seen for the whole film to make sense. Jack Hawkins, trapped in an unhappy marriage is probably mis-cast although he is a good contrast to Harvey. Not a typical depiction of New Zealand but an unusual movie, great for discussion & debate.

Shirley MacLaine is Anna, a spinster schoolteacher, American born but teaching Maori children in New Zealand. She is devoted to her work and loves the children.

Two men come into her life. One is a drunkard (Laurence Harvey) who comes on strong, though Anna resists him, wanting to wait until marriage to have sex. The other (Jack Hawkins) is an administrator at the school, married but separated from his wife. Both men are in love with her.

Part of the story concerns her assistant, Whareparita, who becomes pregnant with twins, and will not reveal the identity of the father. The Maori tribe is happy about it and will all help to raise the children. This is very different from Anna's own ideas and culture.

The film is based on a novel, Spinster, which I haven't read. Virginity is treated here as if it's an incurable disease. Also, for a movie supposedly set in New Zealand, I didn't see much (including people) that indicated the location. No accents. I guess Hollywood thought it was interchangeable with England.

Anna does come to grips with what and who she wants finally. But it's a strange film and it's hard to warm up to the characters. It's also extremely talky. Talky is fine - I don't need action every second - but the dialogue needs to be scintillating. This wasn't.

MacLaine comes off like a scatterbrain; Harvey acts like a demented nut; and Hawkins is very serious. I would have perhaps cast someone else in Hawkins' role. It needed someone a tad younger and more charm or personality.

Disappointing though not awful, just kind of blah.

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.

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 ****