***SPOILERS*** Never ending soap opera that takes place on the fictional Caribbean island of Santa Marta involving arrogant white plantation,of coffee beans and sugar cane, owner the insecure and high strung Maxwell Fleury, James Mason. Maxwell always felt that he was considered by his late father as a second stringer, in the Fleury clan, to his dead older brother, killed in WWII, the highly respected and looked up to Arthur.
Maxwell's insecurity starts to get the best of him when he suspects his wife Sylvia, Patricia Owens, of having a secret affair with roving British diplomat and adventure Hilary Carson, Michael Rennie, when he spotted him leaving the Fleury Mansion in a huff while leaving a clue to him being there behind: A half smoked Egyptian cigarette something that only Carson, and no one else on Santa Marta, smokes. Maxwell is also worried about black labor leader David Boyeur, Harry Belafonte, who's stirring up trouble at his plantation by demanding that the native workers get their fair share of the profits, in labor costs, as well respect from their white, Maxwell Fleury, overlord.
Meanwhile while this is all going on there's a number of mixed, between blacks and whites, love affairs spinning out of control notably with handsome British embassy worker Denis Archer, John Justin, and pretty half-breed island native Margot Seaton, Dorothy Dandridge, who works as a cashier at the local Santa Marta drug store. What makes things even worse is that Margot just happens to be labor leader Boyeur's girlfriend! And to complicate things even more Boyeur is starting to get it on with royally bread and lily white, she seems to glow in the dark, British socialite Mavis Norman, Joan Fontaine, who's just nuts about him while he's, in not trying to stray from his people and heritage, trying like hell not to fall in love with her! We of course can't overlook the hot and steamy affair going on between Maxwell's younger sister Jocelyn and war hero and British Aristocratic Euan Tempelton, Stephen Boyd, who's old man is a major maker and shaker back in Jolly Old England and a good friend of the Royal Family.
****SPOILER ALERT**** All this fooling, as well as horsing, around comes to a sudden and tragic end when the truth-through an exclusive newspaper article-comes out about Maxwell, as well as Jocelyn's, genetic backgrounds that involves their dad Julian's, Basil Sydney, real mother who's identity, or racial background, he had hidden all these years. This sets off a number of ugly events that leads Maxwell to go completely bananas as well as, in the case of poor Hilary Carson, homicidal. It also has Julian's wife, Diana Wynyard, reveal to her distraught daughter Jocelyn, in order to keep her upcoming marriage to Euan from being deep sixth-ed, that she isn't really her father's daughter! What a Relief!
Well anyway in the end everybody-in the cast-is happy the way the movie "Island in the Sun" turned out with both love, in the case of Euan Denis and their girlfriends Jocelyn & Margot, winning out over ignorance and prejudice. In the case of the by now ready for the funny farm Maxwell Fleury he finally saw the light in what he did, to the drunk on his feet Hilary Carson, and gladly accepted the consequences. As for David & Mavis they went their separate ways knowing full well that fate would not be kind to them if they didn't.
Maxwell's insecurity starts to get the best of him when he suspects his wife Sylvia, Patricia Owens, of having a secret affair with roving British diplomat and adventure Hilary Carson, Michael Rennie, when he spotted him leaving the Fleury Mansion in a huff while leaving a clue to him being there behind: A half smoked Egyptian cigarette something that only Carson, and no one else on Santa Marta, smokes. Maxwell is also worried about black labor leader David Boyeur, Harry Belafonte, who's stirring up trouble at his plantation by demanding that the native workers get their fair share of the profits, in labor costs, as well respect from their white, Maxwell Fleury, overlord.
Meanwhile while this is all going on there's a number of mixed, between blacks and whites, love affairs spinning out of control notably with handsome British embassy worker Denis Archer, John Justin, and pretty half-breed island native Margot Seaton, Dorothy Dandridge, who works as a cashier at the local Santa Marta drug store. What makes things even worse is that Margot just happens to be labor leader Boyeur's girlfriend! And to complicate things even more Boyeur is starting to get it on with royally bread and lily white, she seems to glow in the dark, British socialite Mavis Norman, Joan Fontaine, who's just nuts about him while he's, in not trying to stray from his people and heritage, trying like hell not to fall in love with her! We of course can't overlook the hot and steamy affair going on between Maxwell's younger sister Jocelyn and war hero and British Aristocratic Euan Tempelton, Stephen Boyd, who's old man is a major maker and shaker back in Jolly Old England and a good friend of the Royal Family.
****SPOILER ALERT**** All this fooling, as well as horsing, around comes to a sudden and tragic end when the truth-through an exclusive newspaper article-comes out about Maxwell, as well as Jocelyn's, genetic backgrounds that involves their dad Julian's, Basil Sydney, real mother who's identity, or racial background, he had hidden all these years. This sets off a number of ugly events that leads Maxwell to go completely bananas as well as, in the case of poor Hilary Carson, homicidal. It also has Julian's wife, Diana Wynyard, reveal to her distraught daughter Jocelyn, in order to keep her upcoming marriage to Euan from being deep sixth-ed, that she isn't really her father's daughter! What a Relief!
Well anyway in the end everybody-in the cast-is happy the way the movie "Island in the Sun" turned out with both love, in the case of Euan Denis and their girlfriends Jocelyn & Margot, winning out over ignorance and prejudice. In the case of the by now ready for the funny farm Maxwell Fleury he finally saw the light in what he did, to the drunk on his feet Hilary Carson, and gladly accepted the consequences. As for David & Mavis they went their separate ways knowing full well that fate would not be kind to them if they didn't.