Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

2freensel I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

Billie Morin This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

startrekfan-4 Honestly, a very simple movie about love and war in the 1940s, starring Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor, with Ray Walston(My Favorite Martian), France Nuyen (Star Trek: TOS episode "Elan Of Troyius" as the lead character, Elan along with several other guest starring roles on various TV shows), Ron Ely(Tarzan himself), Doug McClure(Checkmate, The Virginian, Maverick - the movie & several "B" sci-fi movies such as The People That Time Forgot & The Land That Time Forgot) and Jack Mullaney(The Absent Minded Professor & several Elvis movies including Tickle Me and Spinout) co-starring!This has some of the most beautiful scenery in any movie at any time, along with just the right amount of humor and a sweet but tragic love story! And really an amazingly thoughtful subject that, for it's time, was completely kept hush-hush(bigotry)!!Some really great, unforgettable music here including: Bloody Mary, There's Nothing Like A Dame, Bali Ha'i, I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair, Younger Than Springtime, Happy Talk, and the very beautiful Some Enchanted Evening!!The only flaw in the whole movie is that for some strange reason the director decided to film some scenes with a yellow haze which does nothing but detract from the beauty of the islands! Even the director himself admits that "This was the biggest mistake of my career"!! Even still, this is a movie not to miss!!! A+

mark.waltz Strange colors in this movie have often perplexed those who saw it on video, not to mention the big screen back in its original release. As a video store clerk, I had to explain to a few customers that the video wasn't defective; That's how the movie was made. But in retrospect, it is very bizarre, although in hindsight, I can see why it was done the way it was. Certain mood elements required perhaps different colors, and if "The King and I" could have a 3-D look about it in some scenes without requiring glasses, why couldn't gels or certain soft color focus give "South Pacific" the mood it needed to get its emotions across? By 1958 with three Rodgers and Hammerstein smash hit shows produced as hit films, "South Pacific" was ready to go through Magna Pictures, and with Mary Martin still youthful but 10 years older, the decision to re-cast Nellie Forbush with already popular Mitzi Gaynor became an obvious one, especially that outside of TV and Broadway audiences, Mary Martin's brief career in films in the early 1940's had not been a spectacular one, even if to many, she was ageless as Peter Pan. As the handsome Emile de Becque, Rossano Brazzi, who had recently co-starred with divas Katharine Hepburn in "Summertime" and Joan Crawford in "The Story of Esther Costello" was dashing enough and the right age to take over the role created by Ezio Pinza, known to opera fans and another example of how movies were not for all performers. But original Broadway star Juanita Hall did get to recreate her role as Bloody Mary, while a replacement Luther (Ray Walston) from the stage got to recreate his role on film, having just scored with "Damn Yankees" both on Broadway and on the big screen.The story of "South Pacific" is one that takes war, adds romance, drama, light comedy and a most serious subject matter, racism, into its plot purse. In this case, it's not about blacks in the sense of Africans, but dark skinned Pacific Islanders, particularly Tonkinese. Hall, a light skinned black singer and actress, looked perfect for the part of the vivacious Bloody Mary, a peddler, matchmaker and advise giver, attracted to pretty boy John Kerr as a potential mate for her daughter (Frances Nuyen), quite different looking than her friendly but hard looking mother, and instantly in love with the blonde Kerr. But Kerr can't escape from his own upbringing, and as he sings, "You've Got to Be Taught", indicating that prejudices are something that is drummed into your dear little ear, and it basically takes over one's soul as a disease would a body. He is definitely attracted to the gorgeous Nuyen, but something in his spirit keeps his love for her from going to the next step that ultimately offends Bloody Mary down to the core of her being. Obviously, she's not after just a pretty boy husband for her daughter to make pretty babies, but she sees Kerr as a step to something better outside her pathetic existence, making her a dark character within her soul, let alone her skin. When she goes off on Kerr for the offense of admittedly not able to marry Nuyen, it is with the ugliest of motivations being revealed, and her change from happy go lucky to cruel is very jarring, especially after pairing them up with her quest for "Happy Talk".That is the supporting story that guides the moral of the story, with the leads surrounding Arkansas native Nellie Forbush (Gaynor), the happy go lucky nurse who falls instantly in love with the handsome Brazzi but shocked by the revelation that he once had a Polynesian wife and has two children who don't look anything like him. They may be cute enough for her to duet a French nursery rhyme with, but for her to be stepmother to is another matter. This musical took the dramatic themes of "Show Boat", "Oklahoma!" and "Carousel" and made them even more serious, and "South Pacific" became the show that one had to wait years to get tickets to, or shell out the big bucks, like rich folks do today with "Hamilton". The score is picture perfect, and the story the most seriously dramatic of all musical dramas. The photography, while stunning, might perplex some when it comes down to the color filters, but something tells me that on a big Cinemascope style screen, the impact really worked. Of course, this being a war story, there are tragedies to be taken, yet a sense of triumph as one person's loss ends up being the heroine's big lesson in life. Like that saying, "When you love somebody and must let them go, when they return, love them forever", this is as profound and yet simple, something human beings need to remember as we deal with our own individual prejudices that really have no place in the human condition as we all fight the same battles and yearn for the same peace.

Lee Eisenberg "South Pacific" would have us believe that it's indicting racism, but it pushes other kinds of racist beliefs. While it condemns bigotry, it still says that the people of the Pacific islands were a bunch of naive, backwards types who needed white people to civilize them. In other words, it was what white people wanted to think that anti-racism was. A real look at the south Pacific would look at how the US army forced the natives off the islands, carried out nuclear tests, and often returned the people to the islands, resulting in high incidences of birth defects and cancers among the Pacific islanders. It's no accident that in 1979, Palau passed the world's first anti-nuclear constitution.Among the cast, the only people who caught my eye were Ray Walston and the recently deceased Tom Laughlin. Ray Walston is known to recent generations as Mr. Hand in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High". As a result of Jeff Spicoli's (Sean Penn) repeatedly coming to class stoned, Mr. Hand thinks that EVERYONE is high!* Tom Laughlin is best known as Billy Jack, the half-Indian Vietnam vet is forced to take the law into his own hands to defend the Indians from the ranchers.Point is, "South Pacific" is NOT a realistic representation of that region's history.*The best scene remains the one guy's fantasizing about Phoebe Cates.

Scott Amundsen I have always considered SOUTH PACIFIC to be Rodgers and Hammerstein's finest work: a musical drama in an era when musical dramas were rare, it was probably the most innovative and controversial of all their shows, with its anti-racism story line (epitomized in the great song "You've Got to Be Taught"), and its willingness to combine the cheeriness of the traditional musical comedy with the dark realities of the subject matter (World War II).Unfortunately, the film version, despite being directed by the legendary Joshua Logan and scripted not only by Logan and Rodgers and Hammerstein, but James A Michener, author of the source novel, is just not all that wonderful. Rodgers and Hammerstein knew how to write musicals, and all of their works, even the lesser ones, are at least interesting.I don't know what happened in the transition, but this movie is an over-produced, bloated, dreadfully photographed (the color palette is just awful) piece of work, clumsily assembled and poorly cast. Mitzi Gaynor is way too young-looking for the role of Nellie Forbush, and lacks the star power that Mary Martin brought to the role on the stage. Rossano Brazzi and John Kerr are okay, but WHY did Hollywood insist on casting actors in musicals who could not do their own singing? At least Gaynor does her own vocals; Brazzi and Kerr are both dubbed, and so, inexplicably, is Juanita Hall as Bloody Mary. Hall was more than capable of singing the role herself: she created the character on Broadway, but for some reason the filmmakers decided to use Muriel Smith's voice, throwing all credibility out the window because Muriel Smith's singing and Juanita Hall's talking did not bear the SLIGHTEST resemblance to each other.About the best thing I can say about this film is that the show is presented pretty much intact (the made-for-TV remake, while improving on some things, inexplicably excised the song "Happy Talk" on the grounds that it was too "politically incorrect. Oh please.). But of all the R&H shows, this one needed singing actors; it did not, for the most part, get them, and even one player who could sing was saddled with a bad overdub job. Thankfully, Ray Walston as Billis gets to do his own vocals, but that character is the one role in the show that does not require a great voice.Plus the thing goes on too long (some cuts run almost three hours); an egregious fault that one would not have expected from Logan, who should have had a better sense of pace than is shown here.I have seen regional theatre productions of this show that put the film to shame. Watching this film, I cannot help but ask why so much went so wrong.