South Pacific - A 1950s Homoerotic Wet Dream

Did Vincent Minnelli direct? Or John Ford? Or Billy Wilder? Or…..

Josh Logan

Too bad the berries are covering up his big twig.

Show it to us, Ken!

I love that movie.

Still, that was a bizarre move to use all those changing colors cinematography lenses.

I had the biggest crush on John Kerr who left the business and became an attorney.

Yeah, the gaudy colors and the weird cloudy look around the camera lens in some of the scenes didn't do the movie any favors.

And yes, John Kerr was a sexy twink.

Even Ray Walston was almost sexy in this!

R3 Studio execs probably saw him in just the Speedo and said, "No way. We gotta cover that thing up."

This is r5.

I know John Kerr managed a pretty decent run as an employed actor.

Still, it's saying something about his appeal in SP that I had a big crush on him even though a wooden 2 X 4 was more animated than him.

R9 He was certainly pretty. Pretty enough that I didn't pay that much attention to his acting.

Hail, Caesar!

Mmm, I’d like to put a stew in his pot.

Yeah I've always had a crush on Kerr in this movie. So sexy in that white bathing suit during Happy Talk. There was a showing of the film shortly before he died and there is a picture of him with Gaynor and Nuyen.

The movie is musically magnificent with that huge orchestra and it all supervised by the great Alfred Newman. My two pet peaves about it are they cut I'm going to Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair(a couple of seconds out of a 3 hour movie!) and those horrible color filters. They make the film look like the film has aged when that's the way it's supposed to look. It played the longest run in a single that I've ever heard of. 4 years in the Dominion of London where Logan said the movie made its cost back.

It's good Melcher asked for too much money I think Gaynor is perfect in the role so young and fresh faced. And she's great in the scene where she finds out Emile's biological children are mixed race. Day might have made it a Doris Day musical instead of a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. She wipes John Raitt off the screen in The Pajama Game.

Sweet

Did Mitzi Gaynor decide to leave Hollywood, or did her career go down the proverbial shitter?

I paused it until my partner could come down to see There Is Nothing Like A Dame and Ken's VPL. It's impressive.

I can't help it. I really don't like Mitzi Gaynor. I'm not fond of her voice and the catch she throws in some of the songs. Day would have perfect. She was the right age and would have acted the shit out of that part.

The filters were beyond annoying. This movie had a lot of wasted potential.

Day would have been perfect ten years before when she hadn't become an American icon. You see in The Pajama Game the year before(it's a terrific film and the bluray is great) she's already maturing. But if you don't like Gaynor then nothing is going to convince you. Mitzi herself in one of her interviews on youtube which shows she's a very self aware fun woman explains why she didn't continue in movies. Though she had a very successful concert and TV career. The last thing I saw her in was a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. She seemed very old and frail. I saw it with Debbie Reynolds as well. For so long even when they are getting older they are so full of youthful energy then it's heartbreaking to see that they are suddenly really old people. I know it's inevitable for all of us but it's especially disconcerting to see in a star who you continue to see forever at their best.

R17 What? There were women in this movie?

The always reliable Poseidon’s Underworld pays tribute to sexy South Pacific actors, leading with Ken Clark.

No berries covering the bulge at link.

When I was growing up clearly a long time ago all homes seemed to have in their LP collections the stereo version of the obc(or so I thought) of My Fair Lady, the soundtrack of South Pacific and the obc of The Sound of Music.

r17 You thought Doris was too old? How do you feel about a 54-year-old Nellie?

R20, the OBC of My Fair Lady was the #1 album of 1958. The film Soundtrack of South Pacific also sold well that year.

We had Brigadoon, R20

R21 That was so ridiculous I didn't even watch it. For God's sake she was too old for Sunset Boulevard!

I never miss a Rade Serbedzija musical.

Late-in-life Doris Day as Norma Desmond in ALWs Sunset Blvd. would have been glorious.

R17 - I'm absolutely sure Mitzi Gaynor was a lovely person. And I'm not being sarcastic. I didn't like her acting. She was a bit cloying. And she wasn't pretty enough; shape of her face made her look kinda jowly. Her singing ranged from very good to annoying. She looked great in the sixties with all the make up etc. I remember her specials and she was great. Wrong for this part.

John Kerr is very sexy as Anne Francis' pimp/boyfriend in "Girl of the Night"

R5 He came back and did Twin Peaks.

I could be wrong but I don't think Mitzi Gaynor ever did a Broadway show or a tour in one of the shows everyone did, like Hello Dolly or Mame. I wonder why?--because I can totally see her in the lead of some show, in a Gwen Verdon type of part. I'm surprised no one wrote a show for her.

I saw her one-woman show once on the Cape and really, she was great. I know it's said about a lot of people but if you didn't see her in person (when she was still young-ish) you missed what she was about as a performer. She really had the audience with her the whole time. The definition of a really good entertainer, and very likeable. I was maybe 18 or 19 at the time. My friends and I waited to meet her later and she was funny and charming.

I don't think Doris Day (except vocally) was particularly right for the part of Nellie Forbush. She wasn't one who could ever play naive very well. I think Nellie describes herself as a little hick, which Doris was not And indeed she was too old. The story used to be (I think I read it in TV Guide), that when Richard Rogers was at a party with her and asked her to sing for him, she replied that she never sang at parties, and he dropped her as an idea for the role at that moment. Elizabeth Taylor auditioned for R&H but was so nervous she couldn't sing.

It was probably a better part for Shirley Jones, or even Jane Powell--though Powell was no longer a movie star by 1957-'58. Still, why not Shirley Jones? She was perfect. Was it because she had starred in both Oklahoma and Carousel, as well?

Mitzi Gaynor had the classic "dead eyes" thing, on screen, when she had to do anything dramatic. She was essentially a comedic actress, great in movies where she could be flippant, cute, and sexy, like There's No Business Like Show Business.

Mitzi was good in two 1957 films--the Joker is Wild, with Frank Sinatra, and Les Girls, with Gene Kelly. She displayed a more mature acting ability. I figure maybe these two roles led to her being cast in South Pacific.

She said she auditioned for Hammerstein in Hollywood because he was in town for the day during the filming of The Joker is Wild. They were shooting a big scene in a casino with hundreds of extras and they needed her. Sinatra had the filming shut down for the day.

As much as everyone hates those filters it was the biggest hit of '58. Go figure. The little of it where there are no filters it is visually stunning.

I'm James Farentino's bare ass at the Vivian Beaumont. Beautiful? I was a fucking Renaissance statue come to life!

^ Sorry wrong film thread.

Though this film could have used the bare asses of Kerr and Brazzi considering it was 3 hours with Brazzi singing Younger than Springtime to Kerr.

For a second, I thought that the snippet OP posted was from "Querelle".

And the way Josh Logan had the filters applied, it's impossible to remove them.

She was too old for sure, but Nellie was Mary Martin’s creation on Broadway. She is great in the recordings and old film clips.

I've never seen South Pacific, but dayum, Ken Clark is hot.

He looks like a big muscular version of Colin Ferguson / Mark Valley / Joel Gretsch.

I wanted Stew Pot in me, quite deeply.

According to The Judy Room, Judy and her agent at the time, Abe Lastfogel, were in talks in 1950 about Judy taking over the part from Mary Martin on Broadway. Later in the mid-‘50s there was a proposal for Judy and Mario Lanza to appear in a screen version.

[quote]Did Mitzi Gaynor decide to leave Hollywood, or did her career go down the proverbial shitter?

Mitzi was self-aware and pragmatic, r15. She realized she wasn't extraordinary on screen and her strengths were better utilized on stage in solo shows. Anybody that can do Jack Cole is extraordinary in my book.

She was too old for The Sound of Music as well a year later on Broadway but nobody gave a fuck and it was a sold out hit. The distance of the stage is much more forgiving than a Todd AO close up. They wouldn't have used color filters for her they would have had to use as they say linoleum.

Julie Andrews came very close to being fired from MFL. Harrison in front of the entire company wanted her out and Andrews said she was very scared. Even Moss Hart was very discouraged. Her possible firing was very real. But by sheer force of her will and Hart's intense work she was able to hang onto the role. But let's say she was let go she would not have gotten Mary Poppins and Music. Those films were going to be made no matter what and it is interesting to conjecture who would have gotten those roles.

[quote]Those films were going to be made no matter what and it is interesting to conjecture who would have gotten those roles.

Dell's conjecture...

Color filter removal #1

Color filter removal #2

R44 looks like Sheila MacRae…

It looks like Doris.

Later in the mid-‘50s there was a proposal for Judy and Mario Lanza to appear in a screen version.

Judy was in her fat period then.

Shirley MacLaine…if she could sing. Eva Marie Saint…she could sing pretty well (she was in the TV musical of Our Town), but was over 30…Shirley Jones…why not? Caroll Baker, if they could have dubbed her. Debbie Reynolds…

R49 She wasn’t fat in A Star is Born, the period in question.

[quote]Judy was in her fat period then.

And Mario?

Yes I can hear Shirley MacLaine doing it.

Actually, Debbie in 1958 would have been great casting. And she was a pretty big star then as well, almost as big as Doris. Doris was too old by then. Though I honestly have no problem with Mitzi. She's very good in it. I don't even mind the color filters. My biggest problem is with John Kerr's dubbing, as it sounds nothing like him, and is very jarring. Also, hated that they dubbed poor Juanita.

Woth all that available hotness on set how did they wind up with wet noodle John Kerr as Cable, who even had to be dubbed?

Was Doris older than Mitzi, r54?

Doris born April 3, 1922.

Mitzi born September 4, 1931.

Sorry but Debbie is too dykey. She would have preferred Liat.

[quote]But let's say she was let go she would not have gotten Mary Poppins and Music. Those films were going to be made no matter what and it is interesting to conjecture who would have gotten those roles.

My money's on Helen Lawson.

[quote]r5 Still, that was a bizarre move to use all those changing colors cinematography lenses.

Logan says in his autobiography that he was assured the colored filters would take over the images very subtly. He was horrified when he saw the results.

Juanita Hall is an Irish Jersey shore girl. Seriously.

What kind of whore movie is this?

I think the Broadway show was very topical in its day.

The plot is kind of anemic, now.

With the right performer, the material still WOWS!

^^ YouTube comment:

[quote]The lump in her throat she sings about was cancer.

[italic]Which one of you bitches wrote that?

It's score is immortal. Well it was. Now few people care about Rodgers and Hammerstein except a few funded theaters. The only show of theirs that continues to be a money producing machine is The Sound of Music and that's because of the film which seems to have some kind of hold on the national psyche. For some reason those tunes, the alps, nuns, Julie Andrews and Nazis was the greatest show biz combination ever. I mean if Hitler had been a talented painter we wouldn't have had the most popular movie of all time.

R54 Debbie Reynolds didn’t have a strong enough voice for the role. Mary Martin could really sing and the songs were somewhat difficult (Twin Soliloquies). The drama may also have been beyond her.

I have no problem with Mitzi and she could sing the part mostly very well (despite having a kind of blah voice and vocal style and being a much better dancer than singer). But she’s not quite 100% in her wheelhouse. Rossano Brazzi is somewhat dramatically lacking, as well.

I hate how so many people were voice-doubled in later screen musicals, until it became an epidemic. You never, ever, get the dramatic impact you do from someone’s own voice.

There was no reason to dub Juanita Hall. Her own singing was much more appropriate to her own presence —as well as being better for Bloody Mary than the voice of the London cast actress they used. I don’t think John Kerr was particularly well cast. He had something likable despite being a somewhat stiff actor. He didn’t seem to belong in a musical. Would have rather seen Jeffrey Hunter, maybe, or Don Murray. Or a rea singer.

I can’t stand the filters.

*real

The filters remind of the Vietnam smoke in Apocalypse Now.

The filters actually remind me at times of the amber-teal filteres used a lot in movies ten or twenty years ago. I was watching Lords of Dogtown recently and there were those stupid filters for no reason.

South Pacific’s story is kind of a bummer. The Sound of Music is a fairytale in comparison.

Was Josh Logan known to employ the casting couch?

It was a very relevant show that came out only 4 years after the end of the war. Nothing like what had been seen before. Based on a book of interrelated short stories by James Michener that won the Pulitzer Prize. (Tales of the South Pacific.) Some Enchanted Evening became a hit song. The chemistry of Pinza and Martin was unusual, and a sensation. People talk about Mitzi Gaynor but Brazzi didn’t have the charisma of Pinza at all.

Except for his dubbing, I think John Kerr is perfectly cast. He's a kid, thrown into war. He has an inate intelligence that makes him smarter than most of the people around him, but he's out of his element. The best thing that the movie does is put back the cut song, "My Girl Back Home. It connects the two out of place characters and bonds them at a moment when they are overwhelmed by their feelings. In the Broadway revival, it's one of the few missteps putting the song so early in the show.

Just bumping for fun since all the political trolls are back online

Very sexy.I don’t know the story.Why does he have the nick name and why is it on his clothing and bare skin?thanks.

R26- Late in life Lucille Ball as Norma Desmond would have been great but no doubt Gary would have talked her out of it.

Ok fine - different movie entirely, but...

Mitzi Gaynor…they probably had to tone her down, to play Nellie. She is like that girl from the arts high school who is almost too talented. Can do all the accents, can play old or young…can do all the dances. Always on.

Ezio Pinza's thrilling renditions of Some Enchanted Evening and This Nearly Was Mine still send chills down my spine. I realize his looks were comparable to a medieval troll, but that voice was undeniably heart-stopping. So much so that Mary Martin (wisely) refused to sing a duet with him, and R&H accommodated her by coming up with Twin Soliloquies, in which they sing together but never at the same time.

I can't get over the love for limp John Kerr here. Considering they didn't need a singer (as he was dubbed), just think of all the hotties who could have played Cable at the time: Tab Hunter, Jeffrey Hunter, Robert Wagner, and on and on.............

As for Shirley Jones as Nellie, besides the fact that she'd already played 2 R&H heroines, I think she was too pretty, even luscious, for the character. Nellie needs to be a self-doubting All-American Everywoman and Mitzi fit the bill perfectly.

R80 I feel the same re Pinza.

You may be right about Jones. Though R&H did audition Liz Taylor.

Agreed, R20.

What I like about Pinza-Martin is both their emotion and the way they don’t force or push the song. It’s relaxed and nobody (as in current Broadway) is trying to sound perfect or consciously deliver a showstopper..

It's funny but all the guys you mentioned were very pretty heartthrobs but for me completely sexless. Obviously a connoisseur of male pulchritude Josh Logan felt the same as did the straight super duo R & H.

Kerr was perfect. He also would have been perfect as Lindbergh as Wilder wanted but Kerr despised the man. So instead the undoubtedly brilliant Wilder hires the superannuated Stewart which makes no sense at all and was probably one of the reasons it failed. Who wants an old hero when we know the real man was very young?

And then there's the Carnegie Hall concert version, with DL fave Alec Baldwin. (And co-faves Reba and Stokes.)

R20 We had the mono My Fair Lady. Didn’t own a stereo just an RCA High Fi. Did not have the other 2 albums, but did have Oklahoma and The King and I (original cast). (In the 1960s.)

Nice article......I liked Ken Clark - but Richard Harrison as the co-pilot with Tom Laughlin as the pilot is the most stunning guy in the movie. I could only find a small picture of him.....but I couldn't take my eyes off of him during those scenes.

He did a good job pretending to fly that plane!

We also had a 45 single of Bali H’ai and Happy Talk…some orchestra and chorus or other.

Mitzi Gaynor used to bring her show to Starlight Musicals every summer - it was fun....and she sang all the South Pacific songs...and danced up a storm.

A friend told me that once a guy he knew worked at the hotel she stayed in. The guy couldn't believe the hotel didn't provide flowers for Mitzi......so he bought fresh flowers for her every day.

When Mitzi checked out she thanked the clerk and told him how much she loved the flowers.....the clerk said we didn't do that. It took her a few weeks to find out who did.....and she sent the guy a check and an autographed photo......

r84, are you saying that John Kerr turned down the role of Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis because he despised Billy Wilder?

If true, that was a stupid career move.

No no no! He hated Lindbergh.

He knew all about him. A lot of people knew back then.

Now I guess this is a conspiracy theory but more and more people are believing Lindbergh killed his own kid because the child was having developmental problems.

I fear Mitzi is in her final days. She hasn't posted on her Facebook page for 3 years and her last public appearance on TV saw her very low energy. Maybe she was having a bad day but she had lost that Mitzi sparkle. I l know she has been confined to a wheelchair for a while.

That's what I was afraid of.

Lindbergh’s choice to play hm was Tony Perkins. I can’t imagine watching his mannerisms in this role for 2 hours.

R92 Lindbergh’s pro-Hitler leanings weren’t a secret.

The movie wasn’t popuJar and John Kerr wouldn’t have made it more popular.

As difficult as it may be to believe, Lindbergh's Nazi sympathies were not at all well-known in the early 1950s when the film about him was made. Do you really think a brilliant Jewish talent like Billy Wilder would have made the film knowing the whole truth?

R96 That’s interesting because they were known to John Kerr who turned down the roe for that reason.

*role

No mics in those days on stage.

There were hanging mics and floor mics by then, r99.

[quote]R96 Do you really think a brilliant Jewish talent like Billy Wilder would have made the film knowing the whole truth?

Many, many Hollywood professionals have always been fine with sanitizing the truth in exchange for a good paycheck. Informed people knew where Lindbergh stood after he became the face of the America First Committee in 1941 (even if they hadn’t seen him proudly wear the Service Cross of the German Eagle presented to him in Berlin by Hermann Göring!)

And the pilot’s wife Anne Morrow had already published her fascist tome “The Wave of the Future” long before the Wilder film was in development…. it was no secret where the filthy Lindbergh family’s sympathies lay.

No wonder I liked this movie so much as a kid

I think. the Lindbergh baby kidnapped himself.

I was five when I saw South Pacific but I didn't get when Emile's two Asian kids would be a problem for Nellie. I didn't understand why Cable could fall in love with Liat at first sight or why her mothr would pimp her. I also didn't understand why the men would don coconut bras and have a talent show pretending to be women. I thought the songs and the Todd AO color were lovely, and I figured out that it was a WWII movie, but beyond that, it made no fucking sense.

Yeah it doesn’t have kid appeal, like The Sound of Music does.

I watched it again recently and wanted to get Invested in Liat/Cable, but the relationship was too superficial.

(I too saw South Pacific as a kid and was confused by the story)

[quote]R103 I think the Lindbergh baby kidnapped himself.

Maybe! To get away from those AWFUL parents!

the Tiki craze

So, when Nellie learns Emil has illegitimate children is that alone what throws her? Or is she straight up racist and shocked they’re mixed race - feeling she can never be a mother to them?

How does that play in productions today? Not well, I’d imagine.

Straight up racist, I think, so the inclusion of “Carefully Taught.” But earlier, when she learns Emile is only in the South Pacific because he killed a man in France, her reaction is basically a shrug and “I know you must have had your reasons.” Such was 1949, I guess. Of course I never understood “Poor Jud is Dead” either—you know, the comic song where the main lead tries to get the community pariah to commit suicide.

R109 “Straight up racist”…she’s from Arkansas and this is the 1940s, she’s never been anywhere before, WWII has thrust her into a new environment “so far away” from home as the song says.

She has the prejudices of her region and upbringing.

A big part of the resolution of the story is about how she overcomes those prejudices.

In the short story she thinks about how DeBecque’s kids are “n*****s.”

Cable has to deal with his background (as an upper class Philadelphian) as well, being in love with a Tonkinese girl.

Why wouldn’t this pay well, though? It was at the time that it didn't always play well — people wanted R&H and Logan to cut “Carefully Taught,” which they wouldn’t.

People today can’t accept that someone has prejudices and they can’t have the patience to watch a character overcome those pejudices? What a strangely simple-minded world it has become.

R110 Doesn’t Emile explain why he killed a man?

By the way, WWII and its aftermath (occupation of Japan) saw many Americans (most white, some black) falling in love with and marrying Japanese. And marrying Polynesians. Some of these people probably went to war with racial prejudices.

R101 Okay, that’s good, thanks for the info.

My parents saw SP on tour maybe 1951 (?)…approximately. Because it was so popular it was booked into the largest theater in the city (that I think was being used at the time as a movie theater, usually). They saw it from balcony seats and always said they had difficulty hearing it. So just saying the miking must have been in a primitive state.

The Lindburgh film was made in the late 50s. Kerr knew enough that he did not want to play the man. Wilder knew as well. And Wilder was at a point where he could make any film he wanted to. It is lost on us today what a great emotional moment for so many people this was in history though we know it's importance.

R111 gives a good summation of the themes of South Pacific. Of course the glorious powerful score brings the story to a whole new level making the themes more visceral hitting people in the gut in the late 40s. To say Bloody Mary is nothing but a pimp does her a great injustice. I don't know her role in the original story but in the musical she sees Cable falling in love with her daughter and her daughter marrying a white man would be a step up for her. Mary a very ambitious person of color has her own prejudices. But she wants Cable to stay that's why she would work so hard to keep her daughter close to her and to shield her daughter from the bigotries she would find in the States.

I hate when I do this. 'its importance.' Why do I only see it after I enter it?

[quote]The movie wasn’t popular and John Kerr wouldn’t have made it more popular.

It was the top=grossing movie of 1958.

Also Mary's reaction to Cable rejecting her daughter is not heartbreak for her daughter it is enormous anger. The same anger Cable's parents would have if he married a woman of color. Nellie's reaction to Cable's death and of Liat's loss is of heartbreak due to her youth and her changing attitude.

R110 here, yes, Emile explains (“he was a very bad man”—uh, okay?) but Nellie sticks around to give him a chance to explain. When she meets his children, she flees in horror and refuses to see him, and I would have thought, even in 1949, the disparity between the two reactions (possibly the point) seems off. I don’t think it is just “simple-minded” to look at past works with a contemporary sensibility and have a hard time enjoying Nellie’s knockabout rendition of “Honey Bun” after we have seen this side of her, even if true to her time and upbringing. What to do with Curly prompting Jud to kill himself?—just say “well, that’s the way they were back then.”

Billy Bigelow beating up Julie…but when you love someone, it doesn’t hurt…

It isn't a reaction of horror. It is one of great confusion and upsetment. She is on the verge of tears.

[quote] Nice try.

R115 I was talking about The Spirit of St. Louis (1957). Kerr WAS in South Pacific, he was not in TSOSL.

Kerr would not have made it a bigger hit, was my point. He was not a big box office draw. Stewart was (and despite being in his mid-40s he does give a great performance that holds the interest. The age is a problem, of course).

General point: Wilder said he was fascinated by Lindbergh’s flight. He was in Europe at the time (maybe in Paris). What Lindbergh did captured his imagination. TSOSL was a best selling book in the mid-‘50s, and he became enamored of making a film of it. He was very much on the fence about casting Stewart but Stewart was also obsessed with Lindbergh and portraying him, and he worked on Wider quite a bit.

Also, Lindbergh did support the US once we went to war. FDR I believe had taken away his military commission due to his America First activities but he was involved in the war as a civilian flyer.

Wilder was of course working to some extent with Lindbergh on the film so to say he had no historical knowledge of the man’s politics is ridiculous. Wilder was a smart, sophisticated man of the world.

The only somewhat younger stars who were tall enough to play Lindy at the time, that I can think of, were Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson — both too beefy. Tab Hunter might have been great, but I don’t think he was taken seriously at the time.

[Quote] Did Mitzi Gaynor decide to leave Hollywood,

She left the business and became an attorney.

R199 Upsetment?

John Kerr aged into a silver fox

R117 Why would she stick around to give hm a chance to explain? Someone you know and like says he killed someone once, and you should just cancel him w/out even letting him explain? Al I can say to that is: “Interesting.” Because it makes no sense to me.

And yes I guess you are supposed to grasp that a young, somewhat naive and inexperienced girl who grew up in the South at that time and is encountering new people and social customs halfway around the world would react the way she did. You’re not required to think like her. Just observe her, and identify in the sense that we all have cultural prejudices and judgments to overcome.

Today it seems like racism has become the cardinal sin in our culture to the exclusion of anything else, so that people can’t even understand how it happens, or forgive people who overcome their racism.

I wonder if Mitzi ever bitched with Joshua Logan about Marilyn Monroe. He had done Bus Stop with Marilyn and Mitzi resented how Fox gave Marilyn more attention on There's No Business.

People in certain regions and cultures are CONDITIONED to have deep-seated prejudices, including racial. Hence the song, “You’ve got to be carefully taught.” It’s the whole theme of the show (that won a Pulitzer Prize for drama, btw—very unusual for a musical, then). You are supposed to hate the culture that created the prejudice, not hate all the people in that culture.

I love those '50s studs. You know they were getting sucked off left and right by all the studio queens.

[quote]“Straight up racist”…she’s from Arkansas and this is the 1940s, she’s never been anywhere before, WWII has thrust her into a new environment “so far away” from home as the song says.

Harder to accept when Nellie is a 54-year-old played by G.

Btw I think they made this movie too big, gorgeous and spectacular (And they used those stupid filters that take you out of the story). It takes pace in the Hebrides, it was filmed in Hawaii and the Caribbean in the most gorgeous locations they could find. Emile’s plantation is overly lush-looking. The rather small story tends to get lost. The orchestrations are also too lush and big. It should have been more intimate. Logan was a good director and his opening-up of a story worked for Picnic, a little less for Bus Stop. Then much less for SP and everything he did after it.

I never understood (until just now, actually) that Bloody Mary and her daughter were themselves immigrants to the islands

[quote] It takes pace in the Hebrides

I think you meant NEW Hebrides. The Hebrides are in Scotland.

R131 You are correct, yes. Sorry.

R131 Isn't that where Barbra said her friends were visiting from when she tried to check into the Hotel Bristol in "What's Up, Doc?"

It isn't just people today who can't handle people being prejudiced.. As a five year old seeing the movie, I couldn't see why two absolutely adorable Asian children would be a deal killer. I thought they were cool. I wished I was them. The sailors doing the Bloody Mary dance were scary and I think my mother explained that sailors needed to blow off steam. My relatives in WWIi liberated concentration camps and dodged Rommel the Desert Fox so I don't think they did a lot of drag. But who knows?

It wasn't the kids exactly - it was that Emile had stuck his dick in a native woman.....they were just the result of his escapades.

Racism doesn’t make sense to kids

I mean to the viewer who watched as a kid. I remember watching Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and not getting it either

Stew Pot has MOOBS

I don't think R138 knows what "moobs" are.

This isn’t a movie made for 5 year olds. The show had adult themes, for the time. By 1958 —9 years later in a rapidly-changing world—movies and shows had become even moe adult and maybe SP was even a little behind the times.

But anyway, it isn’t a kids’ movie so while I think these opinions based on “five year old me” are interesting, and all, what’s the point? You were 5. Not the target audience of a movie about a war that people at the time remembered or the adult relationships involved. Not all musicals are children’s movies.

It was most definitely seen as a film for families. Color movies were still an event. Back then, people loved Broadway musicals and played the cast albums until the vinyl was threadbare. Disney films were released every few years. Pixar did not exist. For children's fare, kids stayed home and watched cartoons--generally the same ones over and over.

My parents also took me to see Gigi, which was about a teen prostitute being readied for an older man. People were not precious about children as they are today. I guess they thought we were too dumb to pick up on this stuff. We were all steeped in WWiI lore as the great war so while they might not have taken us to "The Naked and The Dead," "South Pacific"s was seen as harmless.

The five-year-old me stuff is not an attempt to be precious but to accurately relay the experience of the film in its day. I'm sure prejudiced people got a life lesson, which was a constant theme after Brown v Board and well into the 60s. We had these lessons drilled in via school and religious education as well, but there was less crap to override than in my parents' generation.

Now back to talking about how hot these guys were.

[quote]I don't think they did a lot of drag. But who knows?

I'm fascinated by this whole John Kerr/Charles Lindbergh thing.

First of all, that Kerr would be offered the role in 1957 when all he'd really done in Hollywood was play the lead in Tea and Sympathy, a young man, because of his soft demeanor, who was suspected of being homosexual. Hardly a crowd pleaser nor the sort of image, I would think, the studio and Billy Wilder would want to portray a famous all-American hero.

And then secondly, that Kerr would turn down such an important role so early in his Hollywood career. Surely by reading the screenplay it would be clear that Lindbergh would be portrayed with the utmost sympathy and reverence and with no mention of Nazi or right-wing leanings. I'd think, just the opportunity to work with Billy Wilder, at the height of his powers, would be enough incentive to accept the offer.

I'm not doubting any of this. I just find it really curious and wonder if there's more documentation, interviews, etc, about all of it.

Well Kerr was as they say a hot actor at that moment in time. The play of Tea was a big hit and he got cast in the movie and then SP so though not tall he had that lanky look about him. Remember Andrews had made three films before one had been released. If Stewart was in his 40s he looks like he was in his 50s. It totally took me out of the film. Though the take-off is a stunning piece of film making.

Upsetment is a word.

[quote]R138 Stew Pot has MOOBS

This aside, why is he called Stew Pot? Does he work in the kitchen and soup is his specialty? Does he sit silently in corners, stewing over grievances? Is he a wide mix of nationalities - a cultural stew?

I am strangely upset by this unexplained [italic]stew-pidity.

Except South Pacific was shot after The Spirit of Saint Louis so Kerr's casting in the former would have had no impact on his casting in the latter, r146. And was Kerr really that hot a property after a film (and stage play) like Tea & Sympathy? Sorry, but I don't buy it.

Though, apparently, he was offered the Lindbergh role so what I think doesn't matter.

Connie Stevens was for some reason desperate to play Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady.

I wonder if she badgered the South Pacific producers, too.

Connie was one of few young female stars under contract to Warner Bros. who produced MFL. So, of course, she thought she was entitled to be considered. I'm actually old enough to remember the big story in one of those mid-60s movie magazines that carried the article in which she made her case.

But she was only just getting started in 1958 so even she wouldn't have felt Nellie Forbush was due her.

Well clearly for that moment in time he was very hot. Logan, R&H, Minnelli and Wilder all wanted him Though it was admittedly short lived.

I wish he had made more movies. I found him very appealing.

[quote] And then secondly, that Kerr would turn down such an important role so early in his Hollywood career. Surely by reading the screenplay it would be clear that Lindbergh would be portrayed with the utmost sympathy and reverence and with no mention of Nazi or right-wing leanings.

The point seems to have gone over your head. He didn't want to play Lindbergh because of the man's pro-Nazi sympathies. He objected to Lindbergh as a person. It didn't matter how he was portrayed in the film.

[quote]Lindbergh was a consultant on the picture, which necessitated spending time with the director. They flew together on a commercial flight from L.A. to Washington where the flyer wanted to show the director his plane, on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution. When the airliner hit some turbulence, according to Ed Sikov: "Wilder leaned over to his seat mate and said 'Mr. Lindbergh, would it not be embarrassing if we crashed and the headlines said, 'Lone Eagle and Jewish Friend in Plane Crash?' He just smiled. He knew exactly what I had in mind.'"

"Kerr declined to play the role of Charles Lindbergh in The Spirit of St. Louis because he did not respect Lindbergh's early alleged support of the Nazi regime in Germany before America's entry into World War II. 'I don't admire the ideals of the hero,' Mr. Kerr told The New York Post." --Wikipedia

I was going to post this earlier but didn't know if anyone would be interested, but his mother was June Walker, who was a Broadway star and co-starred with Henry Fonda in his first major play, The Farmer Takes a Wife (which he repeated on screen, but with Janet Gaynor).

His father was Geoffrey Kerr, an actor, and his grandfather was Frederick Kerr, who played the father of the hero (Douglass Montgomery) and the hero's sister (Bette Davis) in the original film version of Waterloo Bridge (1931).

Acc. to Wikipedia, He went to Phillips Exeter for prep school, graduated from Harvard, and did graduate work at Columbia. In 1953–1954, he received critical acclaim as a troubled prep school student in Robert Anderson's play Tea and Sympathy. In 1954, he won a Tony Award, New York Drama Critics Award, and Donaldson Award for his performance.

He didn't make that many movies but he did a lot of stage work in California and also was involved in presenting theater. Then he went to UCLA law school and became a practicing lawyer, still acting on occasion.

And he was chosen by KAZAN at the height of his importance and powers to be the male Lead in Tea. How can you say he wasn't hot?

Actually, it's common knowledge that Kerr was actually the son of Franchot Tone, who June Walker was performing opposite in the play "Green Grow the Lilacs," the source material for Oklahoma. The two were having an affair. Kerr looks just like him.

I think John Kerr was very sought-after for a while but how long did it last?

By the way, the year before SP was released he was in The Vintage (with Pier Angeli and Mel Ferrer) which was directed by Eva Marie Saint's husband, Jeffrey Hayden. I tried watching it once. Hayden was a TV director. After that MGM movie he went back to TV (where he was successful for many years). Other than Tea and Sympathy and South Pacific, J. K. didn't make many good movies. Also I think he was on the dull side. After all, how many actors end up becoming lawyers in their 40s?

Elia Kazan made his stage debut as an actor in 1932 with "Pure in Heart," which starred June Walker.

I remember John Kerr on TV's "Peyton Place." I hadn't yet seen "South Pacific" and was surprised when I found out he played Cable.

R156 I don't think it's common knowledge in 2024. But yes, that has always been the rumor. I never saw the resemblance, but it's been noted that Kerr's speech is similar to Tone's, which I definitely have noticed. I think he looked like his mother, though.

Here's a photo from Green Grow The Lilacs where Tone does look exactly like Kerr

(With old battleaxe Helen Westley as Aunt Eller.)

I remember reading in Logan's memoir that thy cast William Tabbert (who had previously played the lead in the semi-flop R&H show, Allegro) as Lt. Cable. They tried to get him to be sexier in the role, to little avail. Then Logan had the idea to have his pants tightened. They tightened the pants so much he suddenly had a great ass and the women patrons started to find him very sexy. Of course Logan would think of this.

*they

Mr. Tabbert

Funny that Ed Sullivan says Younger Than Springtime hasn't had the acclaim it deserves (at that time). It certainly did eventually.

Someone explain why there are so many Broadway singers today who have extraordinary voices. It seems very common. Tabbert has a lot of character in his voice and has a good voice (he can hit the notes), and there's something moving about his rendition of this number and You Are Never Away in Allegro, but most male ingenues today in musicals have stronger voices.

Kerr clearly didn’t have the killer instinct to be a big star, if he would turn down the opportunity to play an American “hero” for Billy Wilder. He had that thing…what’s it called again….oh yeah - integrity.

R157 Girl of the Night is a good film, Anne Francis should have been nominated

I like the scene in the Tea and Sympathy movie when Darryl Hickman is trying to teach John Kerr how to walk like a man.....and he ends up with a blob of shaving cream on the fly of his pants.....it looks like cum....of course in the next shot - it's gone......

I think it's in Kazan's autobio where when performances of Tea began the final line got laughs. 'And you will be kind.' They were completely baffled as to why people were laughing and they didn't know what to do. Then as performances continued the laughter just stopped.

Actually, r170...

[quote]Years from now when you talk about this - and you will - be kind.

Punctuation matters, R170.

John Kerr is a fine actor, but the voice they used to dub him when he sang always sounds so artificial.

What always surprises me about this movie is that Mitzi Gaynor, who never otherwise gave any evidence she could act or do anything but look adorable, is actually quite fine in the seasons where she's anguished about her ethical choices.

Stew Pot always looks like the station's male whore. I hugely appreciate him for that.

No matter the punctuation the line is still hilarious.

Kazan had also known Broadway co-star Leif Ericson from his Group Theatre days with Ericson's wife Frances Farmer.

R170 Years from now, when you talk about this--and you will--be kind.

R173 What station?

I've told this story before but Mitzi is a client of the company I work for. She used to come to the office to conduct her business and she would tell stories of the gay orgies that went on during filming on that remote Hawaiian island. She wasn't being judgmental cause "What the fuck else are they going to do in that remote place other than drink and fuck" what a hoot she was!

R180 - do you know how she is these days?

.....

R173 Hollywood got attached to a few voices and used them interchangeably. Bill Lee was a great match for Christopher Plummer, but not John Kerr. Ditto Marni Nixon, blended perfectly with Deborah Kerr in The King and I, but laid an egg for Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood

Bali Ha'i is the first thing that comes to my mind about the movie.

[quote].Ditto Marni Nixon, blended perfectly with Deborah Kerr in The King and I, but laid an egg for Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood.

Marni also dubbed Deborah Kerr's singing in "An Affair to Remember."

Bill Lee also dubbed dancer Matt Mattox in Seven Brides For Seven Brothers, when his own voice was fine. In fact better for the character. Bill Lee sounded too polished and "Broadway/Hollywood."

It's sort of like the weird thing that happened with Ava Gardner on Show Boat (1951). She recorded the vocals and the film was going to be released with them, then she was post-dubbed with Anita Warren at the last minute. The soundtrack album already had Ava's vocals on it and it went out that way. Nobody complained. It sold well. Similarly, Lux Radio Theater did a broadcast of Show Boat and most of the cast participated. Ava sang her own vocals and sounded fine.

I honestly wish they would still dub the vocals in film's today. I still don't understand what LaLa Land was all about because the singing by both leads was so mediocre, not terrible, just not very good. It was supposed to be a celebration of the old Hollywood musical and yet in the old Hollywood musical the leads could either sing or were dubbed by someone who could, either way, the content was excellent. Not the case in LaLa Land.

I have the Collectors Edition on DVD. I think it's a wonderful movie and score. No complaints here but I was introduced to it as a child, my parents loved it.

R188 Rather than dubbing, how about casting musical performers who can sing and dance going in, not Ryan Gosling?

Ryan Gosling started as a singer and a dancer, hon. He's not the strongest singer in the world, but he can absolutely dance.

R191, but he can't sing well enough to be the lead in a musical or at least in the kind of musical LaLa Land attempted to be.

R190, I would love for them to cast performers who can sing and dance, but if they insist on casting 'stars' as they did in LaLa Land than I'd prefer that they just dub their vocals. Unless the point of LaLa Land was to celebrate mediocrity (and maybe it was) I really didn't understand why they allowed Gosling and Stone to sing their own songs.

R192 I disagree. As I've seen more musicals over the years I've started appreciating that I'm hearing a good singer - like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (for ex.) --it stars Howard Keel and Jane Powell and you get to appreciate these two being the actor-singers they are. I wouldn't want to have to see Charlton Heston or Burt Lancaster play Howard Keel's part, dubbed by somebody else--or Janet Leigh. or Grace Kelly in Jane's role, but dubbed. It takes you out of the movie. I hate what I call the "Marnie Nixon musicals."

[quote]R193 I hate what I call the "Marnie Nixon musicals."

YES! All that dubbing is so completely fake/homogenized sounding, and immediately distancing. It’s hard enough for actors to appear natural when singing to playback of their own voice, let alone when someone else’s is layered on top.

Marilyn Monroe sang live in BUS STOP. The director just thought it would have more immediate reactions from her if she didn’t have to worry about matching a playback machine vocal. I think the studio was very against this and insisted it couldn’t be done… and he was genuinely like, “Why on Earth NOT?”

He also wrote it was shot with two cameras at once (one closer to her face, one showing her full body) so she wouldn’t have to go back and recreate anything for a second camera setup.

I don't mind if the dubbing is really good, like Marni doing King and I or Betty Wand doing Gigi. When I saw them as a kid, I had no idea they were dubbed. Most of the time, though, I agree.

Musical dubbing throughout Hollywood history is about as uneven and puzzling as wig design.

I guess the problem was in the 50s and 60s they were still doing big musical adaptations from Broadway, but there wasn't that 30s/40s ecosystem of Hollywood musicals supporting stars who could actually sing and dance. So they had to cast with dramatic stars, with a mixed bag of results.

R195 I guess Betty Wand did a good job because Leslie Caron was no singer (though didn't she eventually sing in a stage musical (perhaps Grand Hotel)? But this is recreated from Leslie's demo (hence the piano heard on the recording along with the orchestra) and once again I prefer hearing her voice coming out of her, It has more poignance than the Betty Wand vocal and also her voice matches her facial expressions.

They used Leslie's real voice in her other songs so this dubbed scene really takes me out.

R199 I don't think they used her real voice on the other songs. just here and there when she spoke-sang.

Caron was definitely dubbed on The Night They Invented Champagne. But very well-matched.

Interestingly Jourdan's own voice is used in Gigi and he sings those wonderful Lerner and Loewe songs extremely well. Yet Lane had him fired from Clear Day because he didn't like his voice. It's unfortunate because Harris needed a star power to match her own which Cullum could not. It probably would have been a more successful musical. Jourdan would have even been better than Montand in the film of Clear Day if they had to use a Frenchman. Of course the perfect casting in that one would have been Streisand and Sinatra. But who would have gotten star billing? And when they were both complaining about the other who could have dealt with that?

James Stewart in some MGM musical(Born to Dance?) introduces the Cole Porter classic Easy to Love. Why Porter and Mayer agreed to this I have no idea. Maybe they thought people would find it charming. I guess people did though I don't. To me it is simply painful. Like Henry Fonda singing Beguin the Beguine.

I, for one, have always loved Jimmy Stewart's version of Easy to Love and think dubbing him, with his very distinctive speaking voice, would have been ridiculous. And maybe they tried and realized it didn't work and they didn't need the dubbing.

OTOH I've always found it puzzling that a studio like MGM in the 1930s didn't have a handsome young male singing star under contract to fill roles like the one Stewart played in that film (where his true talents were largely wasted). Not Nelson Eddy but someone young and sexy like Tony Martin, who they only seemed to employ occasionally.

Please.

Mitzi is such a dick wilter in that movie one wants to feed her to the volcano.

Having seen On a Clear Day.... I can tell you that Barbara Haris was so fabulous she didn't need Louis Jourdan, who would have seemed like someone from another era, getting in the way of her brilliant performance.

John Cullum sang his songs gorgeously and handsome Clifford David supplied all the sex appeal necessary in the Melinda scenes.

I can't imagine Jourdan singing those songs with any sort of passion or authority, no matter what he may have accomplished in Gigi.

Oh for chrissakes, it was MGM. They *all* had to do a musical number.

R204 the story is that up-and-coming young actor Jimmy Stewart showed up one night at Cole Porter's door. After that, Cole insisted he sing the number.

R205 MGM also had young and sexy Dennis Morgan in the late 30s, but let him go.

But they didn't use Morgan much in musicals, did they? Is he the one who sang on the staircase in The Great Ziegfeld but was dubbed by someone else?

That personification of youth and beauty and joy and happiness...

R211 yes he sang A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody but was dubbed by Allan Jones.

R205 Tony Martin was under contract to Fox in the late 30s

But yes they could have borrowed him

Bob Taylor

Robert Young

Greer

Joan

Tony Martin was in MGM's Ziegfeld Girl in 1940 and sang You Stepped Out of a Dream. I don't understand why they didn't keep him around.

R205 They had Allan Jones. I don't think there were all that many young male singing stars to choose from. Young male singers may have been common (or not), I don't know, but not singing movie stars. Jimmy Stewart had star quality and could carry a movie.

MGM tried out Kenny Baker (from The Jack Benny Program) in the Marx Bros, movie, At The Circus. They tried Douglas McPhail. The only other male singing stars at other studios I can think of were Bing Crosby (Paramount) and Dick Powell (Warner Bros.).

We'll just throw some tinsel on Judy.

R220 he went into the Navy after Ziegfeld Girl and The Big Store in 1941, and didn't make another film until 1946.

'55

Tony Martin and Lana Turner lived together during the time they were making Ziegfeld Girl

Did she come out of a dream, r225?

The real star of that scene is the curtain. Wonder how many takes it took to get the fall right.

Cullum is wooden next to Harris no matter how good his voice and Montand is I don't know what but he is not comfortable. But he has some beautiful music to sing. Streisand needed somebody much better in that musical. When you have Melinda, On a Clear Day and Come Back to Me to sing it is not simply a one woman show.

Gable is very funny and charming singing the already well established Puttin on the Ritz. I believe the Stewart charming the pants off of Porter story. It's the worst rendition of a Porter song in a movie.

Until At Long Last Love.

Some people are simply good enough to get away with it and are charming like Sharif in Funny Girl.

Jimmy Stewart used to sing at Princeton. I don't know if you've heard a lot of recordings from that particular time, but he sounds like singers from that era.

Same vocal, better sound. At 7:25.

I believe Jose Ferrer also sang in Triangle shows and there are recordings of him.

Sorry, wrong link. This is it, at 7:25.

R227 Two according to imbd:

[quote]The sequence "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody" was filmed in two lengthy takes after several weeks of rehearsals and filming (a definite cut is made when moving to a close-up on the singer dressed as Pagliacci, presumably to effect a change of camera position, necessary to start the inexorable move up the huge staircase). It features 180 performers and cost $220,000; 4,300 yards of rayon silk were used for the curtains in the scene.

R232 - that is very confusingly written - it says “two takes”, but also “several weeks of rehearsal and filming.” I think it should have been worded “the entire scene is covered in only two lengthy, complex camera moves.”

Realistically, on elaborate shots like that, the actual film stock is the least expensive component. And even if the first take of the staircase / crane / curtain shot had gone off perfectly, there is no way in hell they wouldn’t have shot a few more back-ups for safety.

The sequence actually runs for eight minutes so wonder it took so much preparation. The curtain goes up for Rhapsody in Blue and then come down again for the end.

That sequence is presented as an example of the excellence in detail achieved by MGM in its heyday. For some reason I find it quite moving.

So much knowledge in this thread.

MGM was not noted for making great musicals in the '30s. They did make gargantuan ones, sometimes, like Great Ziegfeld, and Rosalie. But they didn't have Busby Berkeley, or (at least in the 1930's) Astaire (just one time - his film debut). MGM brought Clifton Webb to the studio partly because they wanted an Astaire of their own, and he was a Broadway dancer-singer-actor. They kept him around for a year in th mid-'30s and never used him in a movie. The biggest musical triumphs of the '30s for MGM other than the Eleanor Powell movies were the Nelson Eddy-Jeannette MacDonald operettas. (The Wizard of Oz was almost 1940 so I'm not including it.)

The forgotten stud of the island, Floyd Simmons as Bill

More about the gay orgies please.

R238 Never married, quit Hollywood and became an accomplished artist.

Nuff said.

More Floyd

R241 My favorite Martian seems interested in what's below Floyd's belt.

[quote] Nuff said

Are you implying he was gay, r240? This butch man? Don’t be silly…

R243 He's a little teapot.

Fine. He looks fine in a uniform, R243. But what about earrings and a caftan?

(Knowing I will regret this question)

[quote]Fine. He looks fine in a uniform, [R243]. But what about earrings and a caftan?

Does anyone look good in earrings and a caftan?

Ken Clark and Ed Fury could have done whatever they wanted with me. Even Ray Walston looked hot in the coconut bra and grass skirt.

Montserrat Caballé

^^^^ Was she in the film too? I must've blinked. 😉

It's been decades since I've seen the film of South Pacific, but this thread has piqued my interest.

The bluray is supposed to be very good though I haven't opened my copy yet. I did have the opportunity to see it once in the long gone Cinerama theater in Times Square in a Todd AO print and it was a helluva lot better than the bore it always appeared to be on TV. I enjoyed it a lot. The restored bluray version is the 2 and a half hour version and not the complete 3 hour roadshow(first run)version. Though they include the 3 hour version unrestored. Kind of odd. Maybe it would have cost too much money.

R251 -- They may not have had been able to track down negative for the 3 hour version, so they probably just transferred whatever print they found.

You would be shocked at what a state of disarray and neglect much of Hollywood's back catalogue is in -- proper archival care costs money and current management (at any time over the last 60 years) almost never wants to spend it on things from before their reign.

Hell, the original A & B rolls for the three hour version were most likely destroyed when they cut the film down, and why preserve inter-negs on a version that had finished it's run.

Yes it’s tragic R252. So many films in a terrible state or lost to fires. So much raw masculinity from men who were really men.

[quote]r246 Does anyone look good in earrings and a caftan?

Does anyone. Still wear. A caftan?

Half the films made before 1950 are lost forever.

R46, the color filters were literally the only visually interesting thing going on in those scenes. Who the fuck did the blocking and choreography and direction? Just static shots of a singer and static reaction shots of slack-jawed guys just staring. BORING. The "color corrected" version is barely better (and in some moments, worse), imho.

That said, nothing could really save that scene. LOVE the song, but damn.

[quote] Logan was a good director

We beg to differ

^Wagon

This is so funny. I mean people's reaction to films. I was listening to the soundtrack of Paint Your Wagon in my car last night which I love just for the men's chorus. After I got home I had to sit in my car and listen to Wandrin Star again. Yeah Barton on the obc is a better and more moving singer but he doesn't have that chorus behind him and Lerner wrote the best lyrics for the song for the film.

I got the film on 4K and put the soundtrack through my stereo system. So much fun.

Even Camelot which I thought was terrible decades ago doesn't come across as badly in bluray. And it has the great Alfred Newman doing the glorious conducting. Both films have John Truscott as production designer. He alone for me makes the films entertaining. Only movies he ever did. Redgrave's wedding dress in Camelot is one of the great costumes. And it's made of like pumpkin seeds?

[quote]r259 Redgrave's wedding dress in Camelot is one of the great costumes. And it's made of like pumpkin seeds?

Yes, the back of that garment is embroidered with hanging pumpkin seeds : )

——————- [italic]”The exquisite wedding gown arrives in the movie, lit by candlelight, shimmering out of the darkness. It is designed with a bateau neckline, long sleeves, in an a-line shape with an attached cape that flows over the shoulders and arms and then drops into a large circular train. The overdress is composed of a gown crocheted from fine wool to resemble airy spider webs that had tiny shells sewed into the center of each one. It is open at the side for easy removal and tied with cords.

“Underneath is a shimmery kirtle (or cote-hardie) made of something resembling distressed velvet. The third and most dramatic element of the dress, the train, is made from fine mesh embroidered with another loose cobweb design in silver. Along this design, the fabric is embellished with bleached pumpkin seeds tied and hanging every few inches from the design, much like one would expect pearls on a couture gown.”

R257

Well, I wrote:

[quote] Logan was a good director and his opening-up of a story worked for Picnic, a little less for Bus Stop. Then much less for SP and everything he did after it.