There's no question about Deboarah Kerr's beauty. It has an ethereal quality, as if she weren't made of flesh at all but wisps of rose-scented smoke. Her appearance is enhanced by a certain wistful quality. Her voice has a mild but constant tentative tremor, even when she's P'd off.
But Noumea and Guadalcanal in 1943 is no place for a girl like this. She's enlisted and comes to Noumea in search of someone who knew the circumstances of her husband's death, killed on Guadalcanal. He was and officer with an elite group of paratroopers in the Marines. (They're never buck privates.) Yet no one seems to remember him. And here she is, at the primitive but combat-free base on Noumea, impelled to greet the wounded debarking from a ship from Guadalcanal. She feels helpless. What can she do -- offer a stick of gum to a soldier who has just had an arm amputated? And at her first encounter with a victim of combat fatigue, she runs off and pukes.
The driving force behind Kerr is Thelma Ritter as the seasoned veteran, nurse, guru, mentor, wisecracking New Yorker. Every scene she's in belongs to her.
But -- cherchez l'homme. William Holden is some kind of commanding officer with the returning troops. The first shot of him, with military mustache, shows us a stern, frowning, hard charger holding a swagger stick. And we know this is one highly principled and dedicated Marine officer. We know he's tough and has little room for romance. We know, too, that there will be romance anyway because William Holden is a star and so is Deborah Kerr.
It helps to know that the story is from a novel by Lucy Herndon Crockett. We can anticipate almost everything that takes place -- the growing attraction, the doubt, the open conflict of sensibilities, the tears, the resolution. Not just because Lucy Herndon Crockett is a woman novelist but because she has three names. And, after all, if the delicate Deborah Kerr could turn into a slut at the first whiff of Burt Lancaster's pheromones three years earlier in "From Here to Eternity", why not do it again? Holden strides purposefully down the gangway and Thelma Ritter stops him, asking "Colonel, is there anything more we can do for your boys." He brusquely replies, "Yes, don't call them boys and leave them alone." Then he marches away without another word.
Not for long though. After the usual preliminaries, Kerr finds herself preggers and when she tells Holden, he accidentally knocks her down and the baby is lost. He's disturbed. She's almost destroyed. She won't forgive him. He humbles himself. She forgives him.
Not much new here but it's enjoyable to see the stereotypes animated again: horsey, aristocratic, haughty woman; part-Indian slum kid who advances through the Marine stratosphere because of hate. Both of them too full of pride because they've been hurt, but both come together at the end as the love theme swells in the background and the image of Kerr's face, radiant with hope, fades and we see the Paramount Studios mountain.
But Noumea and Guadalcanal in 1943 is no place for a girl like this. She's enlisted and comes to Noumea in search of someone who knew the circumstances of her husband's death, killed on Guadalcanal. He was and officer with an elite group of paratroopers in the Marines. (They're never buck privates.) Yet no one seems to remember him. And here she is, at the primitive but combat-free base on Noumea, impelled to greet the wounded debarking from a ship from Guadalcanal. She feels helpless. What can she do -- offer a stick of gum to a soldier who has just had an arm amputated? And at her first encounter with a victim of combat fatigue, she runs off and pukes.
The driving force behind Kerr is Thelma Ritter as the seasoned veteran, nurse, guru, mentor, wisecracking New Yorker. Every scene she's in belongs to her.
But -- cherchez l'homme. William Holden is some kind of commanding officer with the returning troops. The first shot of him, with military mustache, shows us a stern, frowning, hard charger holding a swagger stick. And we know this is one highly principled and dedicated Marine officer. We know he's tough and has little room for romance. We know, too, that there will be romance anyway because William Holden is a star and so is Deborah Kerr.
It helps to know that the story is from a novel by Lucy Herndon Crockett. We can anticipate almost everything that takes place -- the growing attraction, the doubt, the open conflict of sensibilities, the tears, the resolution. Not just because Lucy Herndon Crockett is a woman novelist but because she has three names. And, after all, if the delicate Deborah Kerr could turn into a slut at the first whiff of Burt Lancaster's pheromones three years earlier in "From Here to Eternity", why not do it again? Holden strides purposefully down the gangway and Thelma Ritter stops him, asking "Colonel, is there anything more we can do for your boys." He brusquely replies, "Yes, don't call them boys and leave them alone." Then he marches away without another word.
Not for long though. After the usual preliminaries, Kerr finds herself preggers and when she tells Holden, he accidentally knocks her down and the baby is lost. He's disturbed. She's almost destroyed. She won't forgive him. He humbles himself. She forgives him.
Not much new here but it's enjoyable to see the stereotypes animated again: horsey, aristocratic, haughty woman; part-Indian slum kid who advances through the Marine stratosphere because of hate. Both of them too full of pride because they've been hurt, but both come together at the end as the love theme swells in the background and the image of Kerr's face, radiant with hope, fades and we see the Paramount Studios mountain.