South Sea Woman ** (1953, Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Chuck Connors) – Classic Movie Review 8553

Between two of his most important movies, Come Back Little Sheba and From Here to Eternity, the great Burt Lancaster went coasting in director Arthur Lubin’s 1953 time-filler adventure South Sea Woman, though Lancaster and Virginia Mayo undoubtedly make a handsome couple frolicking on a South Seas island.

Mayo plays showgal Ginger Martin, who joins two AWOL marines, Master Gunnery Sergeant Jim O’Hearn (Lancaster) and Private Davey White (Chuck Connors), for wartime frolics. Pleasant though Mayo and the other co-stars are, it is Lancaster’s show as he battles Hong Kong bars, German agents and the Japanese navy.

South Sea Woman is harmless, easy-going, passable escapist entertainment, but it is stagey, hardly distinguished and utterly forgettable. You expect more from Lancaster in his glorious prime, and, with Ted D McCord filming in black and white, where the colour this kind of movie needs?

The screenplay by Edwin Blum (screenplay), Earl Baldwin (adaptation) and Stanley Shapiro (adaptation) is based on William M Rankin’s play.

South Sea Woman co-stars Arthur Shields as Jimmy-legs’ Donovan, Barry Kelley as Colonel Hickman, Leon Askin as Pierre Marchand, Paul Burke as Ensign at Court-Martial, Hayden Rorke as Prosecution Lieutenant Fears, Veola Vonn as Lillie Duval, Raymond Greenleaf as Captain at Court-Martial, and Robert [Bob] Sweeney as Defense Lieutenant Miller.

Also in the cast are Cliff Clark, John Alderson, Rudolph Anders, Henri Letondal, Arthur Shields, Paul Bryar, John Alderson, William O’Leary, Strother Martin, Jim Hayward, Alena Awes, Viola Daniels, Violetta Daniels, George Saurel, Noel Cravat, Richard Alexander, Danny Chang, Peter Chong, Joe Connors, John Damler, Guy de Vestel, Jacqueline Duval, Tony Garcen, Gregory Gaye, Sam Harris, Al Hill, Jack Kenney, Robert Kino, Frank Kumagai, Grace Lem, Paul V Liu Keye Luke, Rollin Moriyama, Anthony Radecki and Gisele Verlaine.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8553

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