HEFILM The film seems quite mature in many ways, it avoids showing anything of the war itself--instead keeping us in the "seats" so to speak of the women left behind, who can only learn about the war on the radio and who chart it on a map on the wall with pins for their husbands.The film opens like a courtroom movie--it's not. It's also not really Paul Newman's film, he is off screen for a good part of the movie. It's the sisters story and principally Jean Simmons who is very good in the film as is Newman and both of them together have chemistry, once that finally happens.Director Wise has a smooth moving camera style here that keeps things moving and to see a film about women cheating on their wartime husbands with foreign soldiers is still unusual--as the woman aren't demonized. The romantic and human elements ring true and the film seems like it was made more recently than it was. The photography is beautiful in 2:35 as well.The only real soap opera element to the way the film is handled is in a really poor dated music score, especially the cheesy opening song and that theme then plays repeatedly during the film. Every time the score kicks in the film almost sinks, but never does, to the level of romance melodrama. The studio may have demanded a song, but regardless it kicks off the film on the wrong foot. Luckily the score does stop and is not wall to wall or it would do more damage.The U.S. service men are not portrayed as unrealistic heroes either--again keeping with the viewpoint of the town's people being forced to house the friendly temporary invaders and deal with their crude foreign customs. And it's interesting to see Newman's character who has the job of trying to control what happens between the love and sex starved men and woman they may want to marry.Only other real weakness is in the scene that finally brings us back to the trial that opened the film. The scene kind of comes out of nowhere, feels like a forced dramatic conflict and really should be longer and set up better to be totally convincing and as harrowing as it could be.And yes this is a Hollywood movie so there aren't authentic accents. Mostly there are no accents which is better than a bunch of studio trained actors "doing" accents. In fact though good location footage was shot the bulk of it was shot on the back lot at 20th Century fox. The two blend seamlessly.

secondtake Until They Sail (1957)In some ways this is a terrific movie about women at home as their soldier men fought in World War II. The setting is New Zealand, and the women are four sisters there. The men are mostly American soldiers, seen not as invaders but still as aliens who are not quite welcome, The filming in wide screen (Cinemascope, really wide) black and white is fabulous. And the acting, including key roles by Paul Newman and Jean Simmons, is great.The movie is patient, which is not quite the same as slow, though I think a lot of people will find there are too many pauses and lulls. Instead it feels immersive and dramatic. But what gets in the way a little is more elusive—pertinence. The problem it portrays is over a decade old, so it has lost the really hammerhead wham it would have had in 1946. Yes, the heartstrings are pulled no matter what—it's an eternal and cinematic problem, love and loss—but it's now a separated kind of drama on its own terms.Oddly, the way it was filmed, with old school gorgeousness in black and white, might have kept it in a nostalgic zone as well. Lucky for us, this is what makes it have a classic feel. It sneaks up on you. It avoids hyperbole. It's really fine!And it sheds important light on another aspect of WWII that fits in nicely with the battle films and the other films on the home front, like "The Best Years of our Lives" and other melodramas. There isn't a stick of actual fighting here, if you want that kind of movie. Instead it's an interwoven tale of women trying to survive lost husbands in the war, and finding love, or not, in the mixed up world of war time New Zealand.

SHAWFAN Having spent six years living in New Zealand I was especially gratified to see some of my old haunts and gorgeous scenery up there on the screen. When I was there 1986-1992 the people were still very upset about the goings-on between their native daughters and the visiting Americans despite 40 years having gone by. I was struck, in reading the reviews, both external and internal, by the insufferable condescension shown by the reviewers toward the finely nuanced shades of human emotion they had just been privileged to witness as created by author James Michener and director Robert Wise. Some of these people wouldn't know an authentic emotion if it shouted "Boo" at them. The clichéd use of the terms "women's movie" and "soap opera" ought to be finally banned from any attempt at serious criticism. Such marvelous performances by all concerned (both English and American) are to be treasured and appreciated rather than sneered at from some vantage point of aesthetic superiority on high. The emotional melting of the uptight moralistic Joan Fontaine and the pained, cynical Paul Newman are both heartbreakingly beautiful moments in this film. And the cottage pre-departure embrace between Newman and Peters reminded me of the similar moment on the beach between Lancaster and Kerr in From Here to Eternity of four years before. I think Until They Sail is one of the most wonderful movies I've ever seen.

17268 For a "woman's picture," "Until They Sail" is surprisingly effective. The acting is generally first-rate, but Piper Laurie is a stand-out. This was possibly the first time she was able to overcome that silly flower-eating publicity gimmick that Universal foisted on her and then proceeded to condemn her to swashbucklers and other junk while she was under contract to them. It's too bad that she couldn't have started with a studio that would have known what to do with her and was interested in filming more than mindless fluff. Jean Simmons was also great in a somewhat rare opportunity at a role with some depth--anyone remember most of the dreck she miraculously survived in her RKO period?Even Joan Fontaine was less arch than she usually was in her later films (even the shark was better in "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea").