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SOUTH PACIFIC (1 Viewer)

trajan

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lar
I was only nine years young when SOUTH PACIFIC came to the United Artists Theater in Detroit, so I was a little young to see it. I saw it in total for the first time on bluray last night. Wow-What a musical sight and sound show! What a beautiful love story. The only problem I had with it was I thought the color filters were over used. They did work well part of the time. I wonder if there were some problems in what the correct color filter should look like during the transfer. It seemed like the color filters should of been a deeper color in some scences. Alfred Newman should of won an oscar for his music scoring. Anyway I enjoyed another great looking TODD-AO feature from Fox.
 

Jim*Tod

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One of the best blu ray transfers I own. I have some problems with the movie in terms of casting and direction, but there is no doubt that visually and soncially the blu ray is a treat.
 

Panavision70

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Alfred Newman lost to Andre Previn's work on "Gigi," which was perfection. Of course Newman's work was also perfection. The critics and the Academy went with "Gigi," but "South Pacific" won the popular vote selling many more tickets and soundtrack albums.
 

AnthonyClarke

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It was an outstanding presentation on DVD and the Blu ray moved it up several more notches.

It's a sublime movie .. though clunky here and there. Oscar Hammerstein's social consciousness shines through as a beacon in this often gloomy world, and Richard Rodgers' music is just sensational.

I saw this movie in Melbourne on its first big-screen release (in glorious Todd-AO) ... I must have been 15 or 15 .. and of course fell in love with France Nuyen. Nowadays I tend to go more for Mitzi Gaynor .. what legs! I often watch that beach scene and revel in its uninhibited joy.

The colour filters which annoy so many people never really upset me .. they are perhaps too intense at times, certainly more intense than intended by the director .. but they can't take away from the overall splendour of the film.
 

RolandL

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I also saw it on its first release in Hartford, CT at the Colonial theatre, I was only 7. I remember it because we used to get together with my aunts and uncles on Thanksgiving in Hartford. After dinner the children would always go out to a movie. We could all walk to the Colonial. In 1961 is was converted to a Cinerama theatre.
 

Vic Pardo

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The color filters would have completely ruined the movie for me--if it hadn't already been utterly ruined by the awful script, misguided direction, terrible acting, etc. With the possible exception of THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, I consider SOUTH PACIFIC the single worst big-budget mainstream Hollywood film from the Golden Age of Hollywood.


Full disclosure: I saw the film for the first time a few years ago. I sought out the film after reading James Michener's book, "Tales of the South Pacific," a war novel comprised of short stories about life among a variety of servicemen and women participating in the war effort in the Pacific during the final year of the war. It's an excellent book and Rodgers & Hammerstein took two of the least interesting stories from it and combined them to make the musical. Michener apparently signed off on it--I guess the dollar signs overruled authorial integrity--which caused me to lose some respect for him. A straight film version of the book would have been far more preferable, to me.


Fans of the musical and fans of R&H have tried to make the case to me that it was a groundbreaking treatment of racial discrimination and that "You've Gotta Be Taught to Hate" was a bold and courageous statement to make to audiences when the Broadway show first opened after the war. Maybe so, but so what? The movie's so awful I simply don't care.
 

john a hunter

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Vic Pardo said:
Fans of the musical and fans of R&H have tried to make the case to me that it was a groundbreaking treatment of racial discrimination and that "You've Gotta Be Taught to Hate" was a bold and courageous statement to make to audiences when the Broadway show first opened after the war. Maybe so, but so what? The movie's so awful I simply don't care.
You should always care about racial and other types of discrimination.

Everyone to his own taste but to me South Pacific is just great.

Of course seeing in my early teens in Todd AO at the Dominion in London where it ran for nearly 5 years helped!
 

Rick Thompson

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Full disclosure: I saw the film for the first time a few years ago. I sought out the film after reading James Michener's book, "Tales of the South Pacific," a war novel comprised of short stories about life among a variety of servicemen and women participating in the war effort in the Pacific during the final year of the war. It's an excellent book and Rodgers & Hammerstein took two of the least interesting stories from it and combined them to make the musical. Michener apparently signed off on it--I guess the dollar signs overruled authorial integrity--which caused me to lose some respect for him. A straight film version of the book would have been far more preferable, to me.
You feel that Rodgers & Hammerstein used "two of the least interesting stories from it"? Well, fair enough. I don't agree, but your opinion is as valid as mine. What isn't fair is saying of Michener that "dollar signs overruled authorial integrity." Two reasons:

1. "Tales of the South Pacific" is not so much a novel as it is a collection of short stories. Any adaptation of a collection of short stories was going to use one or two stories to make the main plot and then takes bits and pieces from the others as needed.

2. Books, plays and musicals are routinely changed when moved to another art form. The new authors get a free hand when doing the adaptation. Songs can be dropped or added, making the film seem like an entirely different animal. The textbook case is The Sound of Music. The changes made a very sunny, some say sugary, film out of a stage musical that is a much darker piece. In two cases (Fanny and Irma La Douce), the entire score was reduced to just background music. No singing at all! Rodgers and Hammerstein made big changes in turning Green Grow the Lilacs into Oklahoma! and Liliom into Carousel. The film of The Caine Mutiny eliminated the last section of the book, which goes on for another 60 pages after the court martial. And don't even mention all the cutting needed to make Gone With the Wind!

The point is, the author(s) of the work being adapted have no say in it. In this case, Michener gets all the credit (and blame) you care to dish out for "Tales of the South Pacific." The same for Rodgers and Hammerstein when it comes to "South Pacific." In the musical, blaming them for using what you think were the wrong stories is fair game. Blaming Michener for it is not.
 

AnthonyClarke

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I also loved Michener's 'Tales of the South Pacific', which I read as a teenager around the same time that I saw the movie. I don't think the movie did Michener's stories a disservice at all, although of course most everyone agrees that the movie adaptation of the stage musical could have been a lot better .. I love the music despite all its flaws. But each to his or her own ... there are enough movies out there to serve everyone.

I am by the way, crazy about 'Carousel' too .. another movie many many people, including my wife, totally hate! I won't leave her for that .....
 

John Maher_289910

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I always felt the direction and musical staging of the film, SOUTH PACIFIC, to be among the worst in musical film history. Also, I have some issues with the casting, and the abysmal color filters. What I have no issue with, are the orchestrations (the best for any musical film, imo). However, by comparison to the freak show that is the TV version of the musical, the theatrical film seems flawless. The Blu-ray is tops, though.
 

marsnkc

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AnthonyClarke said:
.. and of course fell in love with France Nuyen.

She was my first crush! Surreal meeting her in the early '90s with this in mind. Didn't mention it, of course. Mitzi is adorable.

Love every millimeter of every frame. Have yet to meet anyone who feels the same, but I also love the filters. For me, they add to the magical element attributed to the 'special island.' Far and away my favorite film musical, with all due respect to MFL.
 

avroman

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"South Pacific : was the first 70mm release in Australia. BOY ! Was I impressed when I saw TODD-AO ! I had a huge crush on Mitzi Gaynor in "There's no Business Like Show Business ", and it was even increased by "South Pacific ".

It's always been a favourite of mine.

I recall decorating the Foyer of my Theatre like a Tropical Island for the Opening.

At that time, prior to my installation of 70mm gear, I ran it in 35mm Anamorphic with 4 Track Magnetic Sound.

Later , I had a return season with 70mm. That made an astronomical difference. It looked and sounded gorgeous.

These days, I can recall the splendour any time I want, watching the BD in my HT.
 

rsmithjr

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My favorite musical (on stage or film). Love everything about it, actors, story, songs, underlying ideas.


The film version is quite special in ToddAO. The Oscar-winning sound still beast about anything else.


Yes, I love the color filters.
 

Dick

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Vic Pardo said:
The color filters would have completely ruined the movie for me--if it hadn't already been utterly ruined by the awful script, misguided direction, terrible acting, etc. With the possible exception of THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH, I consider SOUTH PACIFIC the single worst big-budget mainstream Hollywood film from the Golden Age of Hollywood.


Full disclosure: I saw the film for the first time a few years ago. I sought out the film after reading James Michener's book, "Tales of the South Pacific," a war novel comprised of short stories about life among a variety of servicemen and women participating in the war effort in the Pacific during the final year of the war. It's an excellent book and Rodgers & Hammerstein took two of the least interesting stories from it and combined them to make the musical. Michener apparently signed off on it--I guess the dollar signs overruled authorial integrity--which caused me to lose some respect for him. A straight film version of the book would have been far more preferable, to me.


Fans of the musical and fans of R&H have tried to make the case to me that it was a groundbreaking treatment of racial discrimination and that "You've Gotta Be Taught to Hate" was a bold and courageous statement to make to audiences when the Broadway show first opened after the war. Maybe so, but so what? The movie's so awful I simply don't care.
So glad to meet a kindred spirit! I am not a fan of this film, either, but I own it as part of the box set. The filters, whether a directorial artistic choice or something imposed by the studio, leave me angry every time I try to sit through this (I keep wanting to like it)...here the director had some of the most gorgeous, richly-colorful vistas in the world for his backgrounds, and onto them he throws these often sickening (but in every case very distorting) colors over the musical numbers as if he was Jason Pollock with a paintbrush. I want to see Bali Hai in all its natural tropical-paradise glory, not as though I was viewing it through the window of a house that had been smoked in (cigar smoke, mind you) for fifty years.


However, I loved the musical (I saw it on Broadway, but not with the original cast), and some of the songs are among my favorite show tunes. Boy, did Joshua Logan and company drop the ball on this adaptation! Too bad, it could have been another SOUND OF MUSIC or THE KING AND I.


The Blu-ray transfer from Fox is, however, exemplary. I wish this had been the case with a few of the other titles in the set that I really do like (THE KING AND I, CAROUSEL).
 

robbiesreels

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The 2001 Television version of South Pacific directed by Richard Pearce with Glenn Close and Harry Connick Jr. and probably the worse performance of Bloody Mary "ever" by an actress (Lori Tan Chinn), makes the 58 version look like "Singin In The Rain" in comparison.
 

MatthewA

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robbiesreels said:
The 2001 Television version of South Pacific directed by Richard Pearce with Glenn Close and Harry Connick Jr. and probably the worse performance of Bloody Mary "ever" by an actress (Lori Tan Chinn), makes the 58 version look like "Singin In The Rain" in comparison.

Talk about throwing out the baby with the color-filtered bathwater. Disney* managed to foul that one up even without Zadan and Meron's assistance, which is why I don't trust that studio with musicals whose scores they didn't commission themselves. Glenn Close could have been a good Nellie...if this had been done in the 1970s. But by 2001, she was old enough to be her mother. Despite not needing to be dubbed, Harry Connick, Jr. managed to make Joe Cable even more of a stiff than John Kerr did. And they managed to drain every last bit of comedy from the piece, thus wasting Robert Pastorelli as Luther Billis. And the last shot of that version was practically lifted straight from the movie, basically an admission that Josh Logan and Leon Shamroy got that ending shot right.


After that sorry spectacle, I'll never say anything against the original film again. Not a thing. If you don't like the filters, you would have liked it a lot less if you saw the sky changing from clear to overcast from shot-to-shot. Years ago, someone posted color-corrected stills that revealed that the skies weren't exactly a bright canary yellow.

*These were the twilight years of the Eisner era, where we were subjected to Miss Hannigan as a bipolar teetotaler, a callow, unenthusiastic Harold Hill, and a production of "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella" that adds Rodgers and Hart songs as well as "The Sweetest Sounds," which Rodgers wrote alone, so now it's basically "Richard Rodgers' Cinderella." And as for the likes of the likes of Meet the Deedles, Max Keeble's Big Move, Mr. Magoo, The Country Bears, The Haunted Mansion (basically every theme park ride-inspired movie without Johnny Depp), 102 Dalmatians, Snow Dogs and The Pacifier: all those I could forgive if they had not gutted the animation department the way they did. 80 years of artistic innovation and tradition thrown out on a whim. That is unforgivable. This was what we wanted to Save Disney from.
 

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