Review of SOUTH SEAS ADVENTURE:
This was the fifth and final Cinerama travelogue produced in the USA. There were to be only three more films in the process: WINDJAMMER, released the same year, from Norway in a process called Cinemiracle, which was just a new name for Cinerama; and the two MGM narratives: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM (1962) and HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1963).
As with all of the five USA-produced Cinerama travelogues, there are two acts, each an hour, not counting the Overture, Intermission Music and Exit Music.
The film consists of five fictional tales, involving non-actors and in some cases, narration voices are supplied by others than the characters themselves. Orson Welles provides the over-all narration and each of the five stories has its own narrator, the leading character in each segment.
The film begins with full wide screen from the start. No title card until five minutes into the film itself, after the three-minute overture. This is in contrast to the four prior films, which began with a small center screen prologue; then after seven minutes or so, the full screen kicked in.
The first involves Kay Johnson visiting as a tourist. She is romanced and given the grand tour by Ted Hunter, brother of a woman she meets on the boat going over. We see Hawaii and the other islands. Most memorable is a surfing sequence, where the camera keeps right along with the surfers, and an aerial tour of the islands.
The second involves a French painter, Jean-Louis Martin, supposedly playing himself, wanting to get to Tahiti, as he admires Gauguin. There is an embarrassingly bad sequence where the ship captain and mates dress in costume of Neptune and companions to haze him when crossing the equator.
The third segment involves a skipper, who supposedly hails from New England but hasn't been back since 1917, under the name of Amos Dorn. We travel with him from Fidji to the New Hebrides. We see a 200 year old tortoise, supposedly a gift from Captain Cook, a Polynesian chorus singing a segment of Handel's Messiah in Polynesian, native dances, and the Lord's Prayer spoken in pidgin English. The sequence and Act One ends with natives jumping from a tower with ropes tied to their ankles. Ooooh! That must have smarted re the backbone and ankles.
Act Two delivers the fourth segment, covering a returning G.I. (named Jim Perry) to New Zealand. We see lushness, but also the snow-covered heights of the South Island. There are sheep, Maoris canoe and war dances.
For the fifth and final segment we visit Australia. Here the writers and Welles commit a major gaffe in announcing Australia as the "oldest continent," when in reality it is the youngest, the last formed after the great land mass of Jurassic times split up. The southern part of Africa moved south to form Antarctica, the eastern portions moved further east, one to smack into Asia to become India and the other to drift further eastward to become Australia.
This segment involves Stefan Koschek, wife Betty and son Bobby, welcoming exiled brother David and daughter Anna from Europe to begin a new life with them on their Outback sheep farm. We have a tour of Sidney by air and land, a terrorizing ride in an amusement park ride, and then on to the Outback.
Much is made of radio communication to keep the continent together. The School of the Air educates the children and the Flying Doctor Service makes certain that medical help is quickly available.
The School of the Air sequence is embarrassingly pathetic, especially when the screen splits to reveal children in frog outfits performing a play. None of these kids had a chance in hell of coming out of this alive. A fabricated fall for son Bobby and medical help arriving by air (in the second split screen sequence) completes the tribute to Australia's radio communication system.
Welles' narration sums up the five stories: Martin is content to marry and live on Tahiti, painting away; Captain Dorn is content to continue to sail the South Pacific; Perry has had a happy reunion with New Zealand; and the Koschek family has integrated their European family into their own. The previously unresolved story of Kay Johnson and Ted Hunter ends happily with their marriage and flight away to their honeymoon – where we wonder when they were already in paradise???
Music is by Alex North and is serviceable.
In summary, this is full of the innocent, naïve belief systems of Eisenhower 1950s America, simple sometimes to the point of seeming idiocy by our sophisticated 21st century standards. It is gentle, unassuming and educational for children and simple-minded adults. A time capsule of what it was like to go to the movies in the 1950s. These films gave Americans the chance to travel – most had never left the country in their lifetimes – and as such might have fostered a love for travel. It is one of the better Cinerama travelogues and worth a viewing at least once.
This was the fifth and final Cinerama travelogue produced in the USA. There were to be only three more films in the process: WINDJAMMER, released the same year, from Norway in a process called Cinemiracle, which was just a new name for Cinerama; and the two MGM narratives: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM (1962) and HOW THE WEST WAS WON (1963).
As with all of the five USA-produced Cinerama travelogues, there are two acts, each an hour, not counting the Overture, Intermission Music and Exit Music.
The film consists of five fictional tales, involving non-actors and in some cases, narration voices are supplied by others than the characters themselves. Orson Welles provides the over-all narration and each of the five stories has its own narrator, the leading character in each segment.
The film begins with full wide screen from the start. No title card until five minutes into the film itself, after the three-minute overture. This is in contrast to the four prior films, which began with a small center screen prologue; then after seven minutes or so, the full screen kicked in.
The first involves Kay Johnson visiting as a tourist. She is romanced and given the grand tour by Ted Hunter, brother of a woman she meets on the boat going over. We see Hawaii and the other islands. Most memorable is a surfing sequence, where the camera keeps right along with the surfers, and an aerial tour of the islands.
The second involves a French painter, Jean-Louis Martin, supposedly playing himself, wanting to get to Tahiti, as he admires Gauguin. There is an embarrassingly bad sequence where the ship captain and mates dress in costume of Neptune and companions to haze him when crossing the equator.
The third segment involves a skipper, who supposedly hails from New England but hasn't been back since 1917, under the name of Amos Dorn. We travel with him from Fidji to the New Hebrides. We see a 200 year old tortoise, supposedly a gift from Captain Cook, a Polynesian chorus singing a segment of Handel's Messiah in Polynesian, native dances, and the Lord's Prayer spoken in pidgin English. The sequence and Act One ends with natives jumping from a tower with ropes tied to their ankles. Ooooh! That must have smarted re the backbone and ankles.
Act Two delivers the fourth segment, covering a returning G.I. (named Jim Perry) to New Zealand. We see lushness, but also the snow-covered heights of the South Island. There are sheep, Maoris canoe and war dances.
For the fifth and final segment we visit Australia. Here the writers and Welles commit a major gaffe in announcing Australia as the "oldest continent," when in reality it is the youngest, the last formed after the great land mass of Jurassic times split up. The southern part of Africa moved south to form Antarctica, the eastern portions moved further east, one to smack into Asia to become India and the other to drift further eastward to become Australia.
This segment involves Stefan Koschek, wife Betty and son Bobby, welcoming exiled brother David and daughter Anna from Europe to begin a new life with them on their Outback sheep farm. We have a tour of Sidney by air and land, a terrorizing ride in an amusement park ride, and then on to the Outback.
Much is made of radio communication to keep the continent together. The School of the Air educates the children and the Flying Doctor Service makes certain that medical help is quickly available.
The School of the Air sequence is embarrassingly pathetic, especially when the screen splits to reveal children in frog outfits performing a play. None of these kids had a chance in hell of coming out of this alive. A fabricated fall for son Bobby and medical help arriving by air (in the second split screen sequence) completes the tribute to Australia's radio communication system.
Welles' narration sums up the five stories: Martin is content to marry and live on Tahiti, painting away; Captain Dorn is content to continue to sail the South Pacific; Perry has had a happy reunion with New Zealand; and the Koschek family has integrated their European family into their own. The previously unresolved story of Kay Johnson and Ted Hunter ends happily with their marriage and flight away to their honeymoon – where we wonder when they were already in paradise???
Music is by Alex North and is serviceable.
In summary, this is full of the innocent, naïve belief systems of Eisenhower 1950s America, simple sometimes to the point of seeming idiocy by our sophisticated 21st century standards. It is gentle, unassuming and educational for children and simple-minded adults. A time capsule of what it was like to go to the movies in the 1950s. These films gave Americans the chance to travel – most had never left the country in their lifetimes – and as such might have fostered a love for travel. It is one of the better Cinerama travelogues and worth a viewing at least once.