Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Izzy Adkins The movie is surprisingly subdued in its pacing, its characterizations, and its go-for-broke sensibilities.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

iamyuno2 The Hurricane is a movie all movie buffs need to see. It's great on so many levels that its minor drawbacks or imperfections are entirely forgivable. First of all, you have one of the best hurricane scenes in any film, ever. This is so realistic, intense and prolonged that, even today, you keep wondering: how did they do this? This is what hurricanes do - to people's lives and to the topography of our world. But then you look at the cast. Jon Hall was just OK yet we have Thomas Mitchell, John Carradine, Mary Astor and Raymond Massey - four movie heavyweights who infuse this with its near-greatness, putting in performances that fans of great acting need to see. These are actors who usually have a supporting role, yet when given the chance, they bring a gravitas and realism that rivets the viewer and draws one into the story such that you're bonded to it...entirely invested in the story's outcome, rooting for the much-maligned good characters to "win" in the end, your emotions going up and down with their fortunes. That's the sign of a really really good film. The story, too, speaks of universal truths and injustices done in the name of imperialistic governments, wrongs done native islanders, laws applied unbendingly and cruelly, and the bitter ends that come of political power struggles - all of this plays out along with the more immediate story, the plight of a young couple with a child, victims of circumstance, struggling to find happiness in a mad political situation that's become of their prior idyllic world. So if you don't pick up on the greater picture or care about it, you still care deeply about the lives of these young lovers and their child - as well as their people, the native islanders (played in some instances by real Polynesians). You have to have patience to get beyond the first few moments in the film, where the writing and the acting (primarily because of Jon Hall) was not as great as the rest of the film, because then brilliance takes over as Hall's role greatly diminishes and the story unfolds in all of its horror and wonder, and you'll be hooked...on the edge of your seat to the end. Finally...there's some redemption at the end. This is key to a great film and it happens. Not easy to pull off - in a way that moves you. Here, it's real, and it affects you, rewards you - even though, as in life, the redemption isn't complete or perfect. Like life, lives are ruined in the process - which is a credit to this film. It scrupulously avoids the hackneyed and sugar coats nothing. Dorothy Lamour...fine actress, beautiful as a saronged islander...has a somewhat limited role, though key because she is the angel that makes us really care about the plight of the young family. Her performance, though spare, is, to her credit, always believable and full of appropriate intense emotion. No shallow beauty here. In sum...this is a must-see film!!!!

jjnxn-1 Some parts are terribly corny with dialog handed to the actors in the form of declamations but overall a well directed and enjoyable film. The picture doesn't require any heavy lifting dramatically but Hall is fine in the lead, certainly a dashing protagonist and Dorothy of course looks great in her sarong. It's the supporting cast, a collection of dynamite character actors, that make this memorable. Any movie lucky enough to have Mary Astor, Thomas Mitchell, Jerome Cowan, Raymond Massey and John Carradine contributing their individual presence is worth seeing if only for them but this has good special effects, for the time, and a fun story to boot.

blanche-2 Jon Hall, Dorothy Lamour and an excellent cast are all caught in "The Hurricane," a 1937 film and the first to win a Special Effects Oscar. The original novel was written by Jon Hall's uncle. On the island of Manakoora, Terangi (Hall) and Marama (Lamour) marry amidst a happy celebration, though their happiness will be short-lived. Terangi must deliver cargo to Tahiti, though Marama has a premonition about the trip and warns him not to go. While in Tahiti, he gets into a barroom fight and is sentenced to 6 months in prison. The governor of Manakoora, DeLaage (Raymond Massey), despite the urgings of his friends and his wife (Mary Astor) refuses to ask for Terangi to be brought back to Manakoora and put on parole. Unable to endure a life with no freedom, and desperate to get back home, Terangi continually attempts to escape. Each time he does, 2 years are added to his sentence until he has to serve 16 years. At last, Terangi escapes and makes his way back to his island, where he meets his daughter for the first time. Knowing that DeLaage will capture him and return him to Tahiti, islanders prepare to help the family sail to another island. But a hurricane (actually a typhoon) strikes.Besides those mentioned, "The Hurricane" also stars Thomas Mitchell as the French doctor on Manakoora, C. Aubrey Smith as the local priest, Jerome Cowan as Terangi's captain, and John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard.The effects are astounding and are a no-miss, particularly considering it is 1937! The tremendous winds, the rising waters, the trees falling, buildings collapsing - all magnificent. John Ford did an excellent job of directing this film, which has racism as its underpinning - the prison sentence was the result of a so-called dark man hitting a white man; and DeLaage's patrician and cruel attitude has racism at the base of it. I disagree with one of the comments that states that Hall was a white-skinned movie star trying to pass himself off as a dark man; Hall's mother was Tahitian.Dorothy Lamour, exotic and beautiful, has very little to do in this film except look frightened and lovely - you can count her lines on one hand. Hall, a total hunk if there ever was one, has more to say and do but one is so distracted by his face and physique that it becomes difficult to pay attention to anything else. The acting burden falls to Mitchell, Massey, Astor, Carradine, and Cowan, who are terrific.Ford isn't known for his tales of the sea, but obviously he was good at everything. He wouldn't see water again until the 1950s. Lamour carried on the sarong tradition in better roles, and Hall worked into the mid-'60s; at the age of 65, dying of cancer and in excruciating pain, he shot himself.Highly recommended as a feast of skin and brilliant special effects.

windjammer777-1 The Director Jon Hall gave the audience a glimpse of how the French dominated the locals in this island paradise with imposition of very unjust legal punishment for misdemeanors. In one instance, a white patron in an island bar ordered Terengi, who sat there first, to get up an move "when a white man tells him". Terengi, believing he was an "equal" stood his ground, "Golden Gloved" this white patron and and knocked him out cold. The patron was hospitalized. Terengi was charged with assault and imprisoned for 6 months with hard labor, despite his captain's plea to the island governor to have Terengi's sentence commuted. One can infer a "what if" and say...."if this had been a white man", would his sentence been commuted? Or another scenario, "what if a white man or (woman) had have assaulted an islander? One can wager a slap in the wrist, if that, would have been in order. Overall, an entertaining and romantic sea island adventure from an an islander's (even if it's white Hollywood actors painted like islanders) point of view. (smiling)