Touches You

Excellent adaptation.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Honestly, a very simple movie about love and war in the 1940s, starring Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor, with Ray Walston(My Favorite Martian), France Nuyen (Star Trek: TOS episode "Elan Of Troyius" as the lead character, Elan along with several other guest starring roles on various TV shows), Ron Ely(Tarzan himself), Doug McClure(Checkmate, The Virginian, Maverick - the movie & several "B" sci-fi movies such as The People That Time Forgot & The Land That Time Forgot) and Jack Mullaney(The Absent Minded Professor & several Elvis movies including Tickle Me and Spinout) co-starring!This has some of the most beautiful scenery in any movie at any time, along with just the right amount of humor and a sweet but tragic love story! And really an amazingly thoughtful subject that, for it's time, was completely kept hush-hush(bigotry)!!Some really great, unforgettable music here including: Bloody Mary, There's Nothing Like A Dame, Bali Ha'i, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, Younger Than Springtime, Happy Talk, and the very beautiful Some Enchanted Evening!!The only flaw in the whole movie is that for some strange reason the director decided to film some scenes with a yellow haze which does nothing but detract from the beauty of the islands! Even the director himself admits that "This was the biggest mistake of my career"!! Even still, this is a movie not to miss!!! A+

Positive1. Absolutely beautiful locations (especially compared to the low-budget sound stages of "Oklahoma!", another Rodgers & Hammerstein musical)2. When the story progresses at a steady pace, it's a pleasant experience.Neutral1. Mostly singing, minimal dance numbersNegative1. When the story trudges, harping ad infinitum on one topic such as Emile De Becque's murder of a bully or any of the romantic interludes, the audience screams with frustration, "Move forward!"2. The director employs a cheap tactic of making the frame edges fuzzy and changing the background tint when an emotional scene occurs. Doesn't the director trust the dialog and the actors' skills to convey these emotions?

"South Pacific" would have us believe that it's indicting racism, but it pushes other kinds of racist beliefs. While it condemns bigotry, it still says that the people of the Pacific islands were a bunch of naive, backwards types who needed white people to civilize them. In other words, it was what white people wanted to think that anti-racism was. A real look at the south Pacific would look at how the US army forced the natives off the islands, carried out nuclear tests, and often returned the people to the islands, resulting in high incidences of birth defects and cancers among the Pacific islanders. It's no accident that in 1979, Palau passed the world's first anti-nuclear constitution.Among the cast, the only people who caught my eye were Ray Walston and the recently deceased Tom Laughlin. Ray Walston is known to recent generations as Mr. Hand in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". As a result of Jeff Spicoli's (Sean Penn) repeatedly coming to class stoned, Mr. Hand thinks that EVERYONE is high!* Tom Laughlin is best known as Billy Jack, the half-Indian Vietnam vet is forced to take the law into his own hands to defend the Indians from the ranchers.Point is, "South Pacific" is NOT a realistic representation of that region's history.*The best scene remains the one guy's fantasizing about Phoebe Cates.

*One spoiler in the last paragraph* South Pacific is one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's best. The hit rate with the songs is remarkably high. 'Younger than Springtime' and 'Some Enchanted Evening' have entered many a singer's repertoire, and songs like 'I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair' and 'Honey Bun' add some up-tempo fun.Mitzi Gaynor is adorable as Nellie, the young American nurse who falls in love with charming older Frenchman Emile De Becque, played by Rossano Brazzi. Brazzi is old enough to make the age gap noticeable but he is no OAP. He's your typical cultured 'maturer' man, with good looks. Their romance is believable.John Kerr has been unfairly maligned in reviews. Lt. Cable is a secondary character who exists to contrast this secondary romance with the main one. It's your typical pretty man role and Kerr is sufficiently attractive. He also gets one of the best songs to act (although he doesn't sing it as his singing voice is dubbed): 'You've Got To Be Carefully Taught', a song which argues that it is parents (and on a wider scale,a society) who pass on their racism to their children.It's a long film but with the static camera, it's essentially a night in at the theatre. You can make an evening of it- there's even an intermission. The colour filters are clumsily done. They do add a feeling of strangeness and exoticism but they are overused. You do get used to them eventually though.Back in the fifties and before, musicals were quite innocent entertainment. There is a sweet innocence in South Pacific with the relationship between Nellie and Emile but this is still wartime. Both romances would probably never have started if Nellie and Cable weren't on the island and it wasn't wartime. The theme of racism is handled subtly but daringly. Nellie and Cable are not bigots but simply the product of an intolerant society. Luckily the film doesn't sell out and pair Nellie off with Cable, which would be the more conventional romance.