L'épouse de la mer

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.

"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.

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.

To me, the second best part of this movie was the lack of imagination used in the story. It provided me with so much inspiration—for days afterwards, I kept coming up with ways the story could have been better, and that was quite fun! The best part, of course, was watching Richard Burton, scruffy, sweaty, and shipwrecked.

Sea Wife starts out as a mystery. Richard Burton, cleaned up and in a suit, takes out a newspaper advertisement, looking for "Sea Wife" and signing it "Biscuit". The audience has no idea what he's talking about, but he continues to place personal ads, with no response. The movie goes back in time and becomes a shipwreck adventure! Four people are stranded in a lifeboat, each earning a nickname instead of sharing personal details. Richard Burton becomes "Biscuit" because he finds the food in the life raft, and Joan Collins become "Sea Wife" because she looks like a mermaid when she swims in the ocean.

Before the shipwreck, we see all four characters on the boat. Joan Collins is a nun, but her garments are torn off during the disaster, so Richard Burton is unaware of her religious calling when he meets her. Wouldn't it have been an infinitely better story if we didn't see her as a nun in the opening scene? Then, as the romance progresses, we wouldn't understand why she's exercising such willpower. There would be so much more tension if we didn't know her secret. Maybe the only way we'd believe she'd resist Richard Burton in a torn shirt is if we knew she was a nun.

Unless you really don't like shipwreck movies, I'd recommend watching this romantic adventure. There's plenty of eye candy, and parts of the story are really thrilling. Plus, it'll keep you talking afterwards about how you could have written a better story!

Facile dramatics about four disparate characters--three men and one woman (Joan Collins)--shipwrecked off the coast of Singapore in 1942. One of the men grows very fond of the lady, who is secretly a nun. The nun's curious reluctance to divulge her vocation unnecessarily drags out these proceedings (and makes Sister Collins out to be something of a tease, which is touched upon fleetingly). Film verges on camp but is saved from silliness by an adept, surface-pretty production, also by Richard Burton's fiery emoting (predictably, he's colorful and mercurial as ever). Shallow, but certainly entertaining on a minor scale. **1/2 from ****