South Pacific ***** (1958, Mitzi Gaynor, Rossano Brazzi, John Kerr, France Nuyen, Juanita Hall, Ray Walston) – Classic Movie Review 2181

South Pacific (1958) is certainly some enchanted evening in the cinema, as original theatre director Joshua Logan brings Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (score)’s classic 1949 Broadway musical to the screen with its glorious score intact, encased in a gorgeous-looking production in 1958.

The movie is graced with a spunky, ultra-charismatic performance by Mitzi Gaynor in her finest, best remembered screen role as the cute young American nurse American nurse called Nellie Forbush who falls for a mature, older French plantation owner, widower Emile de Becque (Rossano Brazzi) on an island in the South Pacific during World War Two. The secretive Frenchman is being courted for a dangerous military mission.

Other huge casting assets are Juanita Hall as an oddly alluring, earthy Bloody Mary (‘Bali Ha’i’) and Ray Walston’s funny comedy relief as the wacky US Navy sailor Luther Billis. Bloody Mary is the island’s cynical guru and the mother of Liat (France Nuyen), who has easily captured the heart of the romantically inclined, sensitive, callow American Lieutenant Joseph Cable USMC (John Kerr), despite him having a girl back home. 

Gaynor and Brazzi look just right together and share the right, passionate on-screen chemistry, and Kerr and Nuyen look a very handsome, attractive young couple. Even if Kerr and Nuyen make for a rather bloodless pair of screen lovers (it’s not their fault, it’s how the roles are written) and director Logan’s colour experiments with the images don’t really work too well, this is still a hugely entertaining movie musical.

It certainly helps that it is beautifully filmed on marvellous Kaua’i, Hawaii, locations in TODD-AO widescreen and Technicolor in images that look breath-taking in the cinema. The vibrant location shooting is integrated with the typically artificial-looking studio filming which took place on Stage 8, 20th Century Fox Studios, Pico Blvd., Century City, LA.

Brazzi’s singing was dubbed by opera singer Giorgio Tozzi and Kerr’s by Bill Lee, while Hall, the only original Broadway cast member, was unnecessarily dubbed for vocals by Muriel Smith.

However, it’s brilliant that those great evergreen show tune hits just keep coming at you, making it lovely to listen to: Bali Ha’i, Some Enchanted Evening, Happy Talk, Bloody Mary, There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame, A Cock Eyed Optimist. I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, Younger Than Springtime, Honey Bun, You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught, I’m In Love with a Wonderful Guy, My Girl Back Home and the haunting This Nearly Was Mine. There are very few musicals indeed with so many great hit numbers. 

Mitzi Gaynor was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical at the 1959 Golden Globe awards.

John Kerr died on February 2 2013, aged 81.

Mitzi Gaynor (born Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber)

Mitzi Gaynor’s biggest international fame came in her starring role as Ensign Nellie Forbush in the 1958 film version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific.

Chicago-born Mitzi Gaynor (aka Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber) made her last movie in 1963 (For Love or Money) but hosted a string of successful annual musical TV specials in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her one-woman show, Razzle Dazzle: My Life Behind the Sequins, toured from 2009 to 2014. She was born on 4 September 1931.

Mitzi Gaynor died from natural causes in Los Angeles on October 17, 2024, aged 93.

Her notable films included We’re Not Married! (1952), There’s No Business Like Show Business (1954), The Birds and the Bees (1956), and South Pacific (1958).

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2181

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