The least significant entry in Warners' 5-Disc "Burt Lancaster Signature Collection" is this obscure but harmless WWII action comedy that is sufficiently enjoyable without being remotely memorable. The film starts out with Lancaster refusing to defend himself in the court-martial he is facing and the events unfold in flashback as the various witnesses give their testimony: Lancaster is a U.S. marine who (together with his pal Chuck Connors and the latter's fiancée Virginia Mayo) 'deserts' to a tropical island on the eve of the Pearl Harbor sneak attack where they proceed to live it up over there for a while, in the company of local madame (Veola Vonn), her three nieces and assorted beachcombers (including Arthur Shields). However, when a Dutch captain visits the island on his yacht, Lancaster and Co. steal it to go "have a crack at those Japs" – to borrow Errol Flynn's famous last words in Raoul Walsh's DESPERATE JOURNEY (1942); this leads to a rousing action climax in which the renegade band of islanders take on the Japanese fleet and manage to sink one of their ships – with Connors sacrificing his life in the process and leaving the way open for the budding romance between Lancaster and Mayo (reunited here three years after their joint participation in Jacques Tourner's colorful adventure, THE FLAME AND THE ARROW) to bloom. Two final things worthy of note: a young Strother Martin is clearly recognizable sitting next to Mayo in the courtroom and the eventual fate of the seaside dive might well have inspired a similar incident in, of all things, PORKY'S (1982)!!
Review of South Sea Woman
