Genre Guesstimation – South Pacific (1958)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s Genre has been chosen by Audrey of 1001 Movies and Beyond and she has chosen the genre of Movie Musicals.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of June by sending them to MusicalAudrey@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice Audrey!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Movie Musicals.…

“When all you care about is here, this is a good place to be. ” – Emile

Number of Times Seen – 1 (7 Jun 2017)

Brief Synopsis – During the middle of World War II a young American nurse falls in love with an exiled Frenchman while they are both on an Island surrounded by warfare.

My Take on it – This is one of mother’s favorite musicals and I had seen bits and pieces of it over the years but never really sat down and watched it all from start to finish.

Since Audrey chose Musicals for this months genre, I was quite happy to finally get a chance to see the whole thing.

I really knew very little about the storyline itself and found the whole concept quite interesting to watch.

The first half was much stronger than the second half and I liked the way that they started by developing the characters around the atmosphere of the war.

The songs are extremely memorable and some of them are still banging around in my head 2 days after having seen it.

I also really found it to be great that many of themes discussed here are still quite relevant over 70 years after this film supposedly takes place.

The cast was great and I was surprised that some of them were actually able to sing and dance and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Ray Walston was among the cats because he is one of my favorite actors.

What surprised me was the fact that he also played his role in the play which means that he started out as a musicla performer instead of the dramatic actor I always knew him as.

Bottom Line – The first half of this film is much stronger than the second one. It works much better on the buildup to the story than in the actual execution of it all. The songs are quite memorable and it’s fun to see the way that the characters act is still relateable today.  Great cast but the standout for me was Walston.  Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The film, “South Pacific,” ran for just under 4 years and 6 months at the Dominion Theatre in London. It opened on April 21st, 1958 and closed on September 30th, 1962, for an unbroken, record run that will probably never be equaled. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Close. The songs are quite memorable, but the second half was much weaker than the first one was.

Rating – Globe Worthy

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