Who the hell was Richard Hart? Some sappy faced dude who MGM obviously thought had the Right Stuff and shoved in some big movies before turfing him. Here he pretty much has the lead, mooned over by sisters Lana Turner and Donna Reed, as they adventure from Guernsey to New Zealand.
Too much time is spent on Hart's character who is weak and dim.Did MGM have no one else suitable that was cheaper (Turner's fee would've been a lot)? I suppose Peter Lawford - Hart gives off Lawford vibes. Someone like John Hodiak would've been better. I think Louis B Mayer's star spotting talent was less sure after the war. (Mind you he still promoted Mario Lanza, so...)
Van Heflin is probably not hot enough to play the swashbuckling moody dude but he livens up his scenes. He's got the best part - he's in love with Turner, he's on the run, he gets along with Maoris. Hart is so dumb he signs a letter of proposal to the wrong woman (Reed not Turner).(This is contrived - really he needed to have knocked her up to make this hold but I guess the censor wouldn't allow it.)
This has Gainsborugh Melodrama vibes with its four heroes - I can imagine Margret Lockwood as Turner, Phyllis Calvert as Reed, Stewart Granger as Hart, James Mason as Van Heflin.
Turner is good in a solid part. She's in love with Hart, which is a stretch but that's not her fault, and she's got stuff to do - move to New Zealand, get stuck in an earthquake, run a timber business.
This is a good solid historical melodrama with nuns, sisters, black sheep, drunks, family secrets, earthquakes and native uprisings. Director Victor Saville as a fondness for scenes of people emoting in the shadows.
The film loses its bearings towards the end admittedly. It just throws away the Heflin Turner story (he just leaves when he needed to perish gloriously or something) and can't reconcile the Turner-Hart story - I think she finds out about the letter too late and he needs to redeem himself.
Still, I thought this was better than its reputation.
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