Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, glossy soap operas were among Hollywood's most popular offerings before such melodramatic stuff became standard TV fare, a status which holds up to this day. These are hardly my kind of genre picture which, perhaps, explains why I've yet to sit through efforts even as acclaimed as PEYTON PLACE (1957)!
Incidentally, given the title's similarity to another Charlton Heston vehicle (which actually preceded this viewing) namely the Western ARROWHEAD (1953) it's no wonder that this isn't a reference to anything in particular, and certainly doesn't come up at all in the script! Anyway, while the film doesn't have much of a reputation especially since it came at the height of Heston's epic phase I found it surprisingly tolerable (apart from some impossibly corny dance routines from the locals: the narrative is set in Hawaii, to which the star would return for the aptly-named THE HAWAIIANS [1970], which I hopefully also intend to check out in time for this ongoing Heston marathon).
Interestingly, good ol' Chuck is perhaps at his most unsympathetic here playing someone who can only be described as selfish, pig-headed and a hypocrite! Besides, given the actor's controversial latter-day political activity (and which seems to have received undue attention at the time of his passing), it's worth noting that his character in the film is persuaded to run for a place in the Senate because of his influence in the community but the eventual campaign is botched due to personal scandals (having forbidden his kid sister Yvette Mimieux to marry local boy James Darren, is implicated in the latter's violent death, and himself impregnates Hawaiian France Nuyen!).
The cast features a number of current 'stars', whose allure would basically vanish by the end of the decade: apart from the afore-mentioned Mimieux, Darren (best-remembered for the blockbuster THE GUNS OF NAVARONE [1961], he would go on to play the bewildered protagonist in Jess Franco's erotic/cerebral masterpiece VENUS IN FURS [1968]) and Nuyen (she was often paired with Hollywood leading men in such Asian-set romantic dramas), there are George Chakiris (as Darren's half-brother, who also gets in Heston's hair by falling for Mimieux himself) and Elizabeth Allen (appearing here as the glamorous sister of Heston's late wife, and naturally secretly harboring emotions for him, she would later graduate to leading lady for another Hawaiian flick the John Ford/John Wayne comic romp DONOVAN'S REEF [1963]). An important supporting role, however, is that of veteran Aline MacMahon as the typically indomitable mother figure (of Chakiris and Darren's characters).
If handled properly, such histrionic stuff can be reasonably entertaining (especially given their predilection for confrontation scenes): this one's well enough done under the circumstances (with Darren's untimely demise being handled in a particularly inventive manner) but, for good measure, includes a Freudian dream sequence towards the end! Guy Green was a Brit who, after a career as a cinematographer (winning an Oscar for David Lean's classic adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS [1946]), graduated to directing: he seemed to specialize in just this type of slick 'entertainment' one of these, LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (1962; also with Mimieux), is being shown on Cable TV for the nth time this very week-end and which I intend to record though his work could also go from Oscar-worthy 'message pictures' such as THE MARK (1961) and A PATCH OF BLUE (1965), perhaps his most popular effort but which I've yet to watch (I do own a recording of it, though), to the notorious gimmicky-yet-indecipherable puzzle THE MAGUS (1968)
Incidentally, given the title's similarity to another Charlton Heston vehicle (which actually preceded this viewing) namely the Western ARROWHEAD (1953) it's no wonder that this isn't a reference to anything in particular, and certainly doesn't come up at all in the script! Anyway, while the film doesn't have much of a reputation especially since it came at the height of Heston's epic phase I found it surprisingly tolerable (apart from some impossibly corny dance routines from the locals: the narrative is set in Hawaii, to which the star would return for the aptly-named THE HAWAIIANS [1970], which I hopefully also intend to check out in time for this ongoing Heston marathon).
Interestingly, good ol' Chuck is perhaps at his most unsympathetic here playing someone who can only be described as selfish, pig-headed and a hypocrite! Besides, given the actor's controversial latter-day political activity (and which seems to have received undue attention at the time of his passing), it's worth noting that his character in the film is persuaded to run for a place in the Senate because of his influence in the community but the eventual campaign is botched due to personal scandals (having forbidden his kid sister Yvette Mimieux to marry local boy James Darren, is implicated in the latter's violent death, and himself impregnates Hawaiian France Nuyen!).
The cast features a number of current 'stars', whose allure would basically vanish by the end of the decade: apart from the afore-mentioned Mimieux, Darren (best-remembered for the blockbuster THE GUNS OF NAVARONE [1961], he would go on to play the bewildered protagonist in Jess Franco's erotic/cerebral masterpiece VENUS IN FURS [1968]) and Nuyen (she was often paired with Hollywood leading men in such Asian-set romantic dramas), there are George Chakiris (as Darren's half-brother, who also gets in Heston's hair by falling for Mimieux himself) and Elizabeth Allen (appearing here as the glamorous sister of Heston's late wife, and naturally secretly harboring emotions for him, she would later graduate to leading lady for another Hawaiian flick the John Ford/John Wayne comic romp DONOVAN'S REEF [1963]). An important supporting role, however, is that of veteran Aline MacMahon as the typically indomitable mother figure (of Chakiris and Darren's characters).
If handled properly, such histrionic stuff can be reasonably entertaining (especially given their predilection for confrontation scenes): this one's well enough done under the circumstances (with Darren's untimely demise being handled in a particularly inventive manner) but, for good measure, includes a Freudian dream sequence towards the end! Guy Green was a Brit who, after a career as a cinematographer (winning an Oscar for David Lean's classic adaptation of GREAT EXPECTATIONS [1946]), graduated to directing: he seemed to specialize in just this type of slick 'entertainment' one of these, LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA (1962; also with Mimieux), is being shown on Cable TV for the nth time this very week-end and which I intend to record though his work could also go from Oscar-worthy 'message pictures' such as THE MARK (1961) and A PATCH OF BLUE (1965), perhaps his most popular effort but which I've yet to watch (I do own a recording of it, though), to the notorious gimmicky-yet-indecipherable puzzle THE MAGUS (1968)