L'homme de Bornéo

If you never thought Rock Hudson was more than a pretty face, you're not alone. A friend of mine chalked him up to "light entertainment," a description I thought was accurate until I saw The Spiral Road. He puts his heart into this movie, and it shows.

Rock stars as an ambitious doctor who specifically requests to be sent to leprosy-ridden Indonesia to study under the legendary Burl Ives. There's more to it than just admiration, and Rock's character is quite complex. His wife, Gena Rowlands, begs him to open up and when he finally does, he delivers an emotional monologue about the difficult relationship he had growing up with his father. He pulls from previously hidden talents several times throughout the film, and he's also called upon for physicality he doesn't normally perform. Within the Indonesian villages, there are strong superstitious beliefs, like what will happen if you find a dead lizard outside your door. Rock winds up being a target, and as he's chased into an endless swamp, he nearly loses his sanity. It's very impressive, and if 1962 weren't such a contentious year full of male talent, he might have received a Rag nomination for his performance.

My only criticism of the film is quite small, so if it doesn't bother you, take it with a grain of salt. Filmed in the 1960s but set in the 1930s, the fashions and hairstyles don't reflect the proper time period. Gena wears a flare cut coat and a skirt suit with a hemline above the knees, for example. If you don't care, you'll be far more interested in seeing Rock in his clean, well-fitting white tank top that he shows off several times.

The main problem with "the spiral road" is that's it's inevitably too long and as the movie moves at a tortoise's pace ,it may repel some well before Gena Rowlands appearance,45 min from the beginning.

One of Rock Hudson's most ambitious movies (along with Sirk's movies and "seconds" )he does not look comfortable in this almost metaphysical tale where God himself plays a prominent part ;many scenes deal with religion and the fact that man can't do without God ,even if he devotes his life to lepers or plague-stricken crowds: there's the drunken doctor who will have a bad end ;Ives' wife ,a martyr who smiles when she learns she will die a horrible death;Ives himself on the boat ,telling his colleague he feels God in the nature,which is not obvious in the city;Hudson's memories (without flashbacks,which is better) when he recalls he told God he did not like Him and he dared Him to kill him right now;Hudson's moments of doubt and fear in the final scenes in which the sorcerer can be looked upon as an equivalent of the Devil.

Some of Mulligan's flair for eerie disturbing atmosphere would emerge again in later works such as " the stalking moon" and its "enemy" as omnipresent as he is almost invisible and "the other" in which he creates terror in the midday sun.

One of Rock Hudson's best dramatic performances is to be found in The Spiral Road. Coming in the midst of all those screen comedies he made with Doris Day and others it's often overlooked. But don't you overlook it.

The Spiral Road casts Rock Hudson back in the day when Indonesia was a colonial possession of the Dutch and called the Dutch East Indies. Rock is a newly minted doctor his education paid for by the Netherlands and he owes them five years of colonial service. But he intends to make it pay for him.

His intention upon arriving in Batavia which is what Jakarta was called way back when is to wangle service with Burl Ives who is a doctor who has a great reputation of treating leprosy. But he also hasn't published in 20 years and his knowledge with a little editing from Rock would land him a top research job.

Ives is a crusty old soul, but a real humanitarian, a kind of Albert Schweitzer wrapped in burlap. They take to each other even after Ives finds out what Hudson's doing and even after Hudson's sweetheart Gena Rowlands comes in from the Netherlands to be with him. They even marry though she stays in Batavia weeks at a time.

Hudson's going through a spiritual crisis and is convinced of the fact that he needs nothing in the way of any kind of faith to help him in life. His father was a bible thumping hypocrite, a modern day Pharisee as he describes him. It's turned him into quite the atheist.

He's going to need something to refuel his psyche when he's caught out in the jungle matching wits with a witch doctor on his own turf. Those last 20 minutes or so when Rock the matinée idol turns into something like Cro-Magnon man are something to see.

The Spiral Road is not a pretty picture of colonialism, in this case the Dutch variety. The scenes of the drunken revelry among the rich planters with Ives even joining in the fun are revealing. One of the best performances in the film is that of Phillip Abbott as another doctor who has totally assumed an air of white supremacy to mask a whole lot of insecurities.

The opposite of him is Geoffrey Keen who is a member of the Salvation Army and who runs the leper colony. One of the most moving scenes in the film is Keen, Ives, and Hudson at the bedside of Keen's wife who has become a leper. She's never shown because of the curtains around her bed, but it's clear she's in the final stages. Keen is concerned for her, but not much more so than he is for all the people in his charge. Another key scene is when Hudson and Ives discuss his recommendations based on Ives's case study notes. It sounds like a plea for privatization which you hear often these days from folks on the right. Get rid of the ones who are able to fend for themselves and a non-religious run colony is the best way to do it. The problem says Ives is that due to the misconceptions about leprosy these people have no place else to go.

Some viewers might also object to The Spiral Road's overtly Christian message. One of the other characters is a native Moslem doctor who also falls prey to that witch doctor and Hudson's character remarks that his prayer rug wasn't enough to keep him from any harm. Of course atheist, Christian, and Moslem are all not playing in their own ballpark.

Despite the great acting and the wonderful location color cinematography which will remind you a lot of The Mission. It should because The Spiral Road was also shot in Surinam when it was still Dutch Guiana. The Spiral Road's message is not all that clear. It wants to be Christian, but can't quite come to grips with the concept.

I think that Hamlet said it best when he remarked to Horatio that "there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy." That's the message the film gives out.

One of those special films I can watch over and over again, noticing new details on each viewing, "The Spiral Road" hasn't even made it to video--my own copy was taped off the air long ago--yet it seems to have enjoyed a long life on television. Even harder to find than the film is the book on which it's based, written by Jan De Hartog, whose other works are easily found in most libraries.

The book is very Dutch is setting and tone, and this was predictably softened in the film: Dr. Anton Zorgdrager becomes Dr. Anton Drager, Dr. Brzhezinska-Jansen becomes Dr. Brits Jansen, et cetera. Much of the soul-searching in the book is lost, though not all. In particular, the very seamy backstory of Salvation Army Captain Willem Wattereus is completely missing from the film, though Geoffrey Keen is skilled enough to convey, through looks and movement, the suggestion of uncharted depths in a character reduced by the script almost to cardboard.

It is fine performances that make this film work. Rock Hudson has always, I believe, been underrated as a dramatic actor--although this is beginning to change, as new audiences discover his brilliant performance in the video release of "Seconds." Too bad they can't find "Spiral" on video as well. He made it just before "Seconds," and he's just as good, striking the perfect balance of competence and arrogance as an opportunistic and atheistic young doctor who comes to the then-Netherlands East Indies in the late '3O's to fulfill his contract: five years of service in return for a government-financed education--during which he will confront cunning natives (the whites' contempt for them is a subtle undertone carefully controlled by director Robert Mulligan), God and himself.

Other standout performances: Burl Ives as Dr. Brits Jansen, modulating perfectly the rolling transitions of his larger-than-life character from cynicism to wonder, gravity to buffoonery; Gena Rowlands as Els, the "girl" from back home, valiantly overcoming the "fainthearted" stereotyping of her part, the afore-mentioned Keen, the always-reliable Robert F. Simon, and Philip Abbott in a role pivotal to the plot.

UPDATE (12/O6): After forty-four years, this fine film is now available on DVD. What a wonderful surprise--thank you, Universal.

I saw The Spiral Road as a teen-aged boy in 1963. It was the most impactful movie of that period in my life, creating an emotional impression in me that lingers to this day. Indeed, I cannot hear Beethoven's Fifth Symphony without vividly recalling the scratchy recording playing in that remote colonial outpost as the two linked protagonists each struggled with their personal demons.

The plot of The Spiral Road takes the viewer on a journey not unlike that described in Heart of Darkness; thematic elements contained in the plot become metaphors for larger lessons to be learned regarding colonialism, missionary fervor, the hegemony of Western medicine, and the absolutism of good versus evil as understood by Calvinist colonists.

The superb cast easily sustains the epic scope and grandeur of the film while the intelligent and artful script relates a story that is at once compelling and horrifying.

Hollywood moguls; please get a clue. The Spiral Road belongs in the DVD libraries of discerning film viewers the world over!