Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

mark.waltz This is a gorgeous film to look at, and like the previous decade's "San Francisco", is best remembered for a powerful earthquake sequence. But the soap opera storyline has got to be seen to be believed, and it all surrounds the children of former lovers Frank Morgan and Gladys Cooper, reunited years later as neighbors, he a widower with a grown son and she married (to Edmund Gwenn) with two daughters. The two girls both fall in love with the son (Richard Hart), a brooding young man who thanks to Gwenn becomes an officer in the Imperial Navy and an accidental deserter thanks apparently to some rice wine given to him by a Eurasian girl he meets while in China. Now a drunk like his father, he settles in New Zealand, and sends a letter to his love, accidentally putting in her sister's name. When she shows up ready for marriage, he feels guilty and goes through with it, causing a situation he will have to face years later when the sisters are reunited.This is almost a "Gone With the Wind" of the south of the equator as two completely different women, one willful (Lana Turner), the other sweet (Donna Reed, seeming very much like Olivia de Havilland) love the same man and go through tons of heartache. Reed is ready to do what her mother once almost did, jump off a cliff, but the Mother Superior (Dame May Witty) who once prevented Cooper from doing the same thing steps in once again, giving Reed a book that will change her life. In New Zealand, a pregnant Turner goes through one of the wildest on-screen earthquakes, later deals with her husband's partner (Van Heflin) who obviously loves her, and stands tall through a rebellion by native New Zealanders who are not about to be ruled by the British.Everybody does their best to help this film rise above it silly over-the-top story, which will keep your attention because of its delightful attention to detail. The earthquake itself is one of the boldest sequences ever in film, and the flood that follows devastating, especially considering recent events with tidal waves and tsunamis which have caused world devastation. Still, there is a feeling of too much of a good thing as it strives too hard to cover too much territory, pretty much a retread of "The Rains Came" which ironically was remade by Turner as "The Rains of Ranchipur".

edwagreen Simply marvelous picture with Richard Hart writing down the wrong name of two sisters. As a result, he is literally forced to marry the one who showed up.This film had about everything. A superlative cast with the likes of Lana Turner, Donna Reed, Frank Morgan, Dame May Witty, Gladys Cooper, Edmund Gwenn and Van Heflin.Gwenn acts and looks as he did as Mr. Bonnyfeather in the memorable 1936 film "Anthony Adverse." Turner is bright, conniving, but in the end, she is true to her convictions. Reed has her usual vulnerability character, and Cooper is her usual erudite self, but brought down to confession as her life ends. Witty is effective as Mother Superior; perhaps, Peggy Wood emulated her years later in "The Sound of Music." Heflin really undergoes a change of character as the picture progresses. From a drunk, he is appealing, kind and earnest as the movie goes on. Morgan reminds me here of his professor role 8 years before in 'Wizard of Oz,' but at a much more serious level.The general theme of the film is that fate will invariably lead one to redemption and finding a positive life for one self under the circumstances one originally never wanted.The earthquake scene is on par with the one from 1936's "San Francisco."A wonderful film not to be missed.

moonspinner55 Lana Turner, playing 'bad sister' to Donna Reed's 'wholesome sister' in 19th century New Zealand, looks great in her period costumes but gives yet another of her plastic performances permeated with frantic unease. She and sibling Reed are both vying for the new man in town, with romantic complications sending the sisters on wildly divergent paths. Adapted from Elizabeth Goudge's novel "Green Dolphin Country", the film has some memorable set-pieces: a fabulous earthquake (undermined, unfortunately, with campy hysterics), a ferocious tidal wave, and a haunting, beautiful moment in which Reed scales a steep tunnel on the inside of a mountain and is taken in by the nuns. Relative balderdash is nonetheless an entertaining piece of work; pure Hollywood, though a first-rate example. Director Victor Saville shows a great deal of style, and the time and place of the story are vividly captured. **1/2 from ****

dbdumonteil Overlong story which should appeal to melodrama buffs.It has almost everything a good melodrama should :love,hatred,romanticism,exoticism,adventures and voyages ,and even an earthquake -the special effects are not bad for the time-:and whereas the disaster movies of the seventies would revolve around the catastrophe and put filler aplenty (cardboard characters played by the stars) ,this one has little affect on the plot ,aside from showing Marianne Uncle Ti's courage and devotion.You will have forgotten it when the movie has ended.The same story happens twice:on his deathbed,Octavius's wife tells her husband she did not love him when she married him,then it was respect ,then little by little,something great began to grow ;just before Marguerite's religious vows,William tells the same story to Marianne .The nun's convent looks like a Mont Saint Michel in miniature.Well acted.