Saturday, September 13, 2014

1957 - HEAVEN KNOWS MR ALLISON, World War II drama from John Huston.

This could have been one icky film.  On remote Pacific Ocean island during World War II, a marine meets up with a nun who has been left behind during the Japanese invasion of that island.  Robert Mitchum is the marine in all his manliness.  Deborah Kerr is the nun who looks pretty good even completely covered in her habit.

Even though the film was shot in the 1950's there was still plenty of room for some subtle lascivious moments.  However the director John Huston and his writer John Lee Mahin were a couple of pros who knew how to navigate around any potential tastelessness.

The acting is very good.  Robert Mitchum was an actor with a strong presence who was known to put down the acting profession with such statements as "Look, I have two kinds of acting. One on a horse and one off a horse. That's it." gave a very good performance as the marine.  Deborah Kerr, was an English actor who was usually cast as some kind of upper class Anglo lady.  However Kerr was always game to take on challenging roles.  Mitchum payed her the ultimate complement by stating that she was the only leading lady he worked with that he didn't also sleep with.



The film was directed by old school filmmaker John Huston who kept the whole thing interesting and very entertaining.

106 minutes.

No comments: