secondtake Green Dolphin Street (1947)What a perfect cast for a heavy drama. Even as the MGM lion roars, the orchestra announces deep doom. Lana Turner is a sultry and often ambiguous leading woman. Van Heflin is that great star who doesn't steal all the women. And then Donna Reed of course must be the "good" woman. It all adds up. The one weak link, if we have to start there, is the director, Victor Seville, a product of the routine British film industry of the 1930s, competent but stiff, especially for 1947.Green Dolphin Street, the street, is fictional, though meant to be set in New Zealand. Hence the British coattails. The famous song, "On Green Dophin Street," comes from the movie, and led to a famous Miles Davis and Bill Evans versions, which outstrip the movie. The movie is the only case, as far as I know, that joins the two actors who played legendary characters; the Wizard of Oz (Frank Morgan) and Santa Claus (Edmund Gwenn, from "Miracle on 34th Street"). Morgan, in particular, plays the same sort of charmed character as the famous wizard—or more accurately the charlatan in the wagon at the start of that 1939 MGM movie.I say all this to point out the limitations of the this post-war oddity. The previous roles of the actors intrude on their performances here. (Even the appearance of Gladys Cooper made me think more of "The Bishop's Wife" than this movie. Maybe it's me.) Blame Seville, I think. Mostly there is an attempt to be "epic" and create a huge, sweeping drama that seems limited and invented for the screen. Everything is fine, but fine is just what it is. Oh, the disasters make it exciting, and the acting is rather nice. You won't be disappointed as long as you keep your perspective in handcuffs.So what works best? Actually, Van Heflin is terrific, playing a role a bit more exaggerated than he usually goes for—a pirate, of sorts (a sailor and stowaway). And when you get to the huge plot twist (halfway through) you might even laugh. It's so tragic and improbable—purely the product of a writer's imagination—you have to at least sit up and say, oh dear! (That 1947-speak for NFW!) Anway, it does spice things up, and so the partying takes on a certain desperation, at least in the background. Anyway, there are the special effects, which won an Oscar, and the generally high level of production, an MGM style very visible. But even if it was truly popular on its release, I think it's too dated now to make much of a dent on most us in the 21st Century. Watch warily.

Robert J. Maxwell Nice catchy musical theme, above average special effects during earthquake scene. Story familiar.Two beautiful sisters (Turner and Reed) belong to the richest family on St. Pierre. Turner is materialistic, manipulative, and Donna Reed is warm and pure. They're both interested in the young and handsome Richard Hart but he comes from a lower class. Turner doesn't care about that. She can kick him around until he becomes rich. Reed just plain doesn't care.Now, no story like this can get by for very long without periodic tragedies, preferably equidistant from one another in the plot line. Bingo. We meet three elderly people. I reckoned only one of them to be toast, but no. In an excess of misery, all three give up the ghost. There's another death, the lovable and outspoken Captain O'Hara, of the clipper Green Dolphin, but his demise is saved for much later and is mentioned in passing, an amuse-bouche of a death.The hero, Hart, is not exactly flawless. He gets in trouble and flees the Chanel Islands to exotic New Zealand. If Hart is lower class, the Maoris we see are even lower. They fall into two types: the compliant, hard working lumberjacks and the nasty tribe from the north who are probably cannibals, never having enjoyed the benefits of the enlightenment that comes with civilization, like Christianity and slavery. Hart joins the lumber company of the buckskin-clad Van Heflin, also a refugee from St. Pierre, who has loved Turner from afar since childhood. We feel his pain.Hart write a letter from New Zealand to Donna Reed, confessing his love and asking her to join him in marriage and live in the boondocks. But, inebriated, he addresses the letter to Turner instead of Reed, driving Reed to a nunnery perched on a hill that looks like Mount St. Michel.Turner, of course, joins him and, in Hart's absence, must give birth while their primitive hut is shaking and falling down around her. Births are never easy in these kinds of movies. Fortunately, Van Heflin is in attendance and asks Turner to trust him because he knows what he's doing. He never claims that he "don't know nothing about birthing babies." Well, why go on with it. It fits a formula. It's a sprawling drama of mixed loves and adventures in an exotic setting. As in a Russian novel, everybody seems to marry the wrong person. It induces a Niagara of tears. I cried like a baby and found myself sobbing, "Let it end; let it END." It finally ended. It must have, because when I woke up it was over. I vaguely remember seeing it as a child and found the earthquake thrilling. I still do.

stellarbiz This is 141 minutes of time wasted in my life that I cannot get back! It surprises me that it is ONLY 141 minutes long because it felt like 4 HOURS to me! It is also a waste of great talent. How many MORE disasters could strike in ONE movie? The odds of such things are incredible! You'd have better odds of winning the lottery! Murder? Dissertion? Drunkenness? Not to mention an earthquake, tidal wave, and an uprising by the "natives!" WOW! It has more plot twists than Lombard Street! A great cast is swallowed up by a monstrous plot. Since I first saw it, I have warned people away from this lugubrious mediocrity forever! MY humble opinion... don't waste your time, because you will never get it back and you will feel cheated.

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.