{"id":10145,"date":"2014-11-25T14:43:57","date_gmt":"2014-11-25T19:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10145"},"modified":"2014-11-25T14:52:26","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T19:52:26","slug":"dvd-sea-wife-1957","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=10145","title":{"rendered":"DVD: Sea Wife (1957)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"SeaWife1957_s\"<\/a>Film<\/strong>: Very Good<\/p>\n

Transfer<\/strong>: \u00a0Excellent<\/p>\n

Extras<\/strong>: Good<\/p>\n

Label:\u00a0<\/strong>Twentieth Century-Fox<\/p>\n

Region:<\/strong>\u00a01 (NTSC)<\/p>\n

Released:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0July 10, 2007<\/p>\n

Genre:<\/strong>\u00a0 Drama \/ Romance \/ War<\/p>\n

Synopsis:<\/strong>\u00a0A nun struggles to remain faithful while stranded on an island with three men. Can she resist the tropical and sub-epidermal heat?<\/p>\n

Special Features:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>Extras: Audio Commentary by author and film historian Aubrey Solomon \/ Animated Photo Gallery \/ Restoration Comparison \/ Theatrical Trailer \/ Interactive Pressbook \/ Advertising Galler \/ Lobby Card Gallery \/ DVD Slipcase<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on the novel Sea-Wyf<\/strong> by J.M. Scott, Sea Wife<\/strong> is a curious m\u00e9lange of genres \u2013 WWII drama + survival tale + tropical island exotica + romance \u2013 that originally began as a Roberto Rossellini film until Fox had concerns about the script\u2019s sexual content, and to appease censors, opted for a tamer script, causing Rossellini to exit and production manager Bob McNaught to take on the directorial chores.<\/p>\n

McNaught had experience producing, and the film looks lovely \u2013 Ted Scaife\u2019s cinematography is ravishing, exploiting the vistas and radiant sunsets of the tropical island location \u2013 but in downplaying the obvious tension between three men and a young nun, the story just meanders before its framing structure delivers a protracted twist that\u2019s partly bittersweet, partly an appeasement to film censors preferring the preservation of righteous-minded characters over natural emotions.<\/p>\n

The ‘twist’ finale may have been present in Scott\u2019s novel (in the film it doesn\u2019t feel contrived, but a little too convenient), but it\u2019s also in tune with the mores preferred by the era\u2019s censors, as was the case with John Huston\u2019s somewhat similar nun-soldier non-romance in Heaven Knows, Mr, Allison<\/strong><\/a>, released the same year as Sea Wife<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The core story involves four characters \u2013 a racist businessman (Basil Sidney), a traveler (Richard Burton), a ship\u2019s purser (Cy Grant), and a nun (Joan Collins) \u2013 who struggle to survive in a rubber boat after their ship is sunk by a Japanese torpedo during WWII. By the time the quartet land on a remote island, they\u2019re already bickering about trust issues, making a plan to escape by raft worthwhile.<\/p>\n

George Burke\u2019s first and only poke and screenwriting retains the nicknames the characters gave themselves in the raft and continued to use after they returned to London \u2013 Sea Wife (Collins), Biscuit (Burton), Bulldog (Sidney), and Number Four (Grant) \u2013 and the only urgency in the film, beyond the survival scenes in the boat, lies in Biscuit\u2019s attempts to find Sea Wife in London by repeatedly placing newspaper ads in the hope his mystery love will contact him. Only three of the four characters survive the ordeal, so there\u2019s some mystery as to the degree of one character\u2019s guilt and culpability in staging events that led to the other’s demise, but the sexual teasing in the lengthy flashback scenes are so neutral most of the time.<\/p>\n

Number Four is the only man who knows Sea Wife is a nun, and yet that secret is never pushed far since Bulldog is old and therefore has no interest in women; and Number Four is respectful and black (any screen attraction to a white woman, even emotional, would\u2019ve been taboo in 1957). Biscuit does reveal his feelings, but he too keeps an emotional and physical distance, which seems insane when the bulk of the story involves three men in a boat with a hot woman who\u2019s often wet. It\u2019s all very British\u2026 and one suspects Rossellini would\u2019ve accentuated moments of longing with visuals that don\u2019t recap the beauty of the tropical island, but exploit the obvious physical attraction among Biscuit and Number Four, with maybe some leering from Bulldog.<\/p>\n

In any event, the politeness of the drama means Collins looks pretty; the men are gentlemen near and far; and Sea Wife\u2019s spiritual purity remains staid due to regular prayer, and her unwavering commitment to \u2018another man.\u2019<\/p>\n

At least Burton\u2019s character remains frustrated in the bookending London scenes, but there’s one bonus to Biscuit being so respectful: besides one explosive Burtonian outburst, the actor gives a fairly quiet performance that expresses conflict through subtle gestures. More over, Burton never looks bored \u2013 a problem that occasionally popped up in his later work.<\/p>\n

Sidney\u2019s Bulldog doesn\u2019t change his racist ways \u2013 years after the ordeal, he’s merely tempered his hatred because of age and a small germ of guilt \u2013 while Grant plays Number Four as a second class sailor and citizen who remains dignified, although his possessiveness with a newfound machete on the island is odd: it\u2019s fuzzy as to whether his stance is due to mounting mistrust; savouring a sudden injection of power among the group; or the big knife is his sexual substitute for Sea Wife, whom he knows favours Biscuit.<\/p>\n

Neither silly nor inept, Sea Wife<\/strong> is just tepid, but it\u2019s a solid production with an energetic evacuation sequence, and lifeboat survival scenes that are reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock Lifeboat<\/strong>, the classic WWII drama which Fox released in 1944. Most of the rubber boat night shots look like they were shot in a tank (the painted backdrops just don\u2019t work), and there are gaping continuities between distant and shore shots of the boat when it starts to approach the island.<\/p>\n

Fox\u2019 DVD is billed as having a commentary track by Aubrey Solomon, but it\u2019s just a handful of fleeting observations, often running less than a few minutes, with little details of the film\u2019s production. More like a distillation from rudimentary liner notes, the commentary is accessible only through selection from the Special Features menu, which even prompts one to skip ahead when Solomon stops talking. This is perhaps the second worst track on a Fox disc, after The Final Conflict<\/strong> (1983).<\/p>\n

Allegedly released in 4-track Perspecta sourround sound, Fox\u2019 DVD transfer contains both dry mono and phony stereo tracks, both of which are adequate, and composers Kenneth V. Jones and Leonard Salzedo managed to interpolate decent variations of the film\u2019s truly terrible theme song.<\/p>\n

The casting of Fox starlet Joan Collins works extremely well – she has genuine screen chemistry with Burton – but the latter\u2019s involvement seems odd, as though Fox was sensing their Robe<\/strong> (1953) star was fading, so the next logic was to drop Burton into smaller B-level films, if not a British production to make use of locked-up sterling pounds. Collins had also co-starred in a Biblical-ish film \u2013 the beautifully garish Land of the Pharaohs<\/strong> (1955) \u2013 but she wasn\u2019t gaining much ground at Fox, often being cast in small sexpot roles, with The Wayward Bus<\/strong><\/a> (1957) offering a rare dramatic turn.<\/p>\n

Cy Grant\u2019s performance is very natural, and it\u2019s a shame he didn\u2019t make many films in his career, whereas veteran character actor Basil Sydney co-starred with Collins in the tropical island potboiler Island in the Sun<\/strong> that same year (making one wonder if Fox scheduled the two tropical productions simultaneously).<\/p>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 2014 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References:<\/strong>
\nEditor’s Blog<\/a> — IMDB \u00a0<\/a>— \u00a0Soundtrack Album<\/a> —Album Review <\/a>— Composer Filmography<\/a>
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nVendor Search Links:<\/strong>
\nAmazon.ca<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.com<\/a>\"\" \"\" —\u00a0<\/span> Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on the novel Sea-Wyf by J.M. Scott, Sea Wife is a curious m\u00e9lange of genres \u2013 WWII drama + survival tale + tropical island exotica + romance \u2013 that originally began as a Roberto Rossellini film until Fox had concerns about the script\u2019s sexual content, and to appease censors opted for a tamer script, causing Rossellini to exit and production manager Bob McNaught to take on the directorial chores…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[3152,1516,3153,775,3154],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-2DD","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10160,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10145\/revisions\/10160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}