Sea Wife ** (1957, Joan Collins, Richard Burton, Basil Sydney, Cy Grant) – Classic Movie Review 7318

‘One of the Most Challenging Stories of Faith Ever Told!’ Well, that was the plan, but things did not quite turn out like that. Director Bob McNaught’s 1957 British romantic drama Sea Wife stars Richard Burton as airman Biscuit, who, adrift in a small lifeboat after a shipwreck, is smitten by the beautiful Sea Wife (Joan Collins), who fails to reveal to him her vocation as a nun.

It is 1942, and the Japanese have sunk a ship with British evacuees from Singapore. On board the lifeboat are four survivors, the Sea Wife, airman Biscuit, a bigoted administrator, Bulldog (Basil Sydney), and a black seaman, Number Four (Cy Grant), who knows the woman is a nun.

Based on the novel Sea-Wyf and Biscuit by J M Scott, with a screenplay by George K Burke constructed as a long flashback, this predictable, campy weepie is much improved by the magic worked by its glamorous stars, who bring a certain electricity to what is otherwise a humdrum plod through familiar territory.

Director McNaught deserves a special award for the genius casting of Collins as the celibate nun. It is not quite as entertaining as Collins’s Land of the Pharaohs, but nearly. As a further attraction, it is only 81 minutes.

Also in the cast are Basil Sydney, Cy Grant, Ronald Squire, Harold Goodwin, Joan Hickson, Gibb McLaughlin, Roddy Hughes, Nora Nicholson, Edith Saville, Lloyd Lamble, John Wood, Ronald Adam, Nicholas Hannen, Eileen Way, Vilma Ann Leslie, Sandra Caron, Beatrice Varley, Yvette Wyatt, Tenji Takagi and Otokichi Ikeda.

Associate producer McNaught replaced Roberto Rossellini as director. You can kind of see why Rossellini bailed. The studio publicity put a cheery gloss on it: ‘Rossellini decided at almost the last minute that Sea Wife was not his cup of minestrone.’

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7318

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