Posted on 09/21/2024 3:51:29 PM PDT by Twotone
When John Huston's crew arrived on the island of Tobago in September of 1956 to begin filming his new picture, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, 20th Century Fox were hoping that it would repeat the massive success of The African Queen – another story about a mismatched couple stranded in the wilderness, pitted against a well-armed enemy in a backwater of a global war.
It was a war picture, but a decade since World War Two had ended these had gone from propaganda pictures (Bataan, Destination Tokyo) to gritty dramas full of battle scenes (Battleground, 12 O'Clock High) to adventure pictures with a wartime setting (The Desert Rats, The Colditz Story) to whatever Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison was supposed to be. Like The Caine Mutiny or The Man Who Never Was, it was a drama whose stakes were raised by wartime, but more about characters than victory in any campaign or the success of any mission.
And at a time when you could count on your audience containing at least a few veterans of the last war, it was the sort of serious picture a generation who had lived through that war wanted to see and show to their families. And it was the kind of film that won Oscars – like The Bridge on the River Kwai, released the same year as Huston's film. Its star, Robert Mitchum was making his bread and butter appearing in war films like The Enemy Below, The Hunters, The Angry Hills and The Longest Day over the next five years.
The film begins, after telling us that it's 1944 and that we're "somewhere in the South Pacific", with Mitchum, alone and adrift on a rubber raft, being slowly washed ashore on an isolated island.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
One of my Mom’s Favorite flicks!
I’ve always enjoyed it. And I’d rather watch it than “The African Queen.”
Robert Mitchum was a fantastic actor, and a Republican to boot.
Focused admirably on winning overseas, but once they got back, had huge, gaping blind spots that allowed the leftists to start their slow but unstoppable march through the American institutions (starting with the universities), and raised a clueless, selfish generation of hippie progressives that started the decline of Western civilization.
Sorry, total failure in hindsight. With the West on its knees, the victory in WWII does not mean much any more.
Mitchum “ended up on a chain gang after being arrested for vagrancy”
I used to despise the vagrancy law and questioned its constitutionality, but it was effective, and I acknowledged that even as it was a problem for me.
Robert Mitchum was a fantastic actor, and a Republican to boot.
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Because of or in spite of his decades long pot smoking habit.
Great movie, should be more well-known! Mitchum does this awesome double-take where he says “I think so...”
Outstanding movie, watched it many times over the years.
Wife had never seen it and liked it.
Mitchum plays to his apparently natural demeanor.
Deborah Kerr was a really pretty lady, my favorite film of hers is Black Narcissus.
I pretty much agree. The bad policies of the 1960s were not put into place by Baby Boomers but by WWII veterans who had fought fascism abroad and then came home to vote for LBJ’s Great Society. Some elements of the Baby Boomers should be blamed for the bad policies of the 70s and 90s but the “Greatest Generation” started the world rolling to the Left.
Not sure, but he was a Goldwater, and Reagan Supporter.
Loved Robert Mitchum. Watched winds of war and I’m listening to war and remembrance now.
*Mitchum “ended up on a chain gang after being arrested for vagrancy”*
So did Jack London in “The Road”. 200 pages-good read.
The naval bombardment saved Mr. Allison in the end.
Was Deborah Kerr the one in the King and I?
WW II had a number of ill effects on the US.
It extended FDR’s tenure by probably 2 and at least 1 administration.
It exposed a couple million American men to European culture.
It shifted a huge portion of the US economy to producing war goods.
Many of those companies were not large enough to do both peace time goods and war time goods and then shift back to purely peace time goods when peace was declared.
Much is made of the Marshal Plan which helped rebuild Europe after after the war. But how much of those loans were ever repaid?
Not much.
In my opinion WW I led to WW II which led to a Socialist America.
Well he did die of lung cancer being a “life long heavy smoker”.
Back in those days I’ll bet the quality of weed was just that - weed.
“Don’t sit under the apple tree, with anyone else but me....”
The WW II generation did not elect FDR for his first 2 terms.
Who elected Wilson the first socialist president?
The US was on the socialist road well before the WW II generation could vote.
The final fatal test of a nation which endured affliction and adversity, is affluence. Which God wants redeemed man to overcome by surrender and consecration to the risen Lord Jesus.
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