Green Dolphin Street

[Skull]

An epic story from 1947 set in England yet mainly in New Zealand. Life, love, marriage, duty, friendship & Divine guidance - fine cast. The earthquake scenes won a Special Effects Oscar. The memorable character studies are fullly fledged!
Green Dolphin Street is a novel by Elizabeth Goudge, first published by Hodder & Stoughton under the title Green Dolphin Country in 1944.

 

[Flopper]

An epic story from 1947 set in England yet mainly in New Zealand. Life, love, marriage, duty, friendship & Divine guidance - fine cast. The earthquake scenes won a Special Effects Oscar. The memorable character studies are fullly fledged!
Green Dolphin Street is a novel by Elizabeth Goudge, first published by Hodder & Stoughton under the title Green Dolphin Country in 1944.

I saw this movie years ago but I didn't remember it. Last year, I saw if again on TCM. It has a very good story, great cast, and certainly better than average direction and acting.

In 1840 in the Channel Islands, two sisters fall in love with the same man. He emigrates to New Zealand, and writes home asking the one he loves to join him and become his wife, but by a slip of the pen he names the wrong sister. I think it's worth watching to see how this story unfolds.

 

[Zavulon]

And what accents do they speak in this movie?

 

[Flopper]

And what accents do they speak in this movie?

100% 20th century English.

 

[Zavulon]

100% 20th century English.

British English, American English, New Zealand English? What accent and what dialect?

 

[Flopper]

British English, American English, New Zealand English? What accent and what dialect?

The leading cast members were American and they did not have an English or New Zealand accents. Almost all the film that was not shot on a sound stage was shot in California. Getting an entire film crew and cast form LA to New Zealand would be quite an undertaking. It would take 3 to 5 days travel time and unlike today, anything you might need you had to take with you. Jack Warner did not allow any films to be shot on location.

 

[Zavulon]

The leading cast members were American and they did not have an English or New Zealand accents. Almost all the film that was not shot on a sound stage was shot in California. Getting an entire film crew and cast form LA to New Zealand would be quite an undertaking. It would take 3 to 5 days travel time and unlike today, anything you might need you had to take with you. Jack Warner did not allow any films to be shot on location.

Thank you. It makes the movie less educative, but I'll watch it anyway.

 

[Zavulon]

It is a nice movie, worth the time to watch, but, as for me, barely more (at least for the first sight). Jorge Luis Borges wrote once that there were only four archetypal tales - The Siege of the City, the Return Home, the Quest, and the Sacrifice of a God. And the movie, seems tried to make a bit of all of them. Another good man said, that Americans, generally saying, tell only four stories - about war, about love, about Indians and about Christmas. And this fits the movie much more and I'm going to tell about my impressions from those four points of view.
1) The war. The story starts in 1847, between two Opium wars (four years since the first and six year before second one). The Chinese market opened for English drug dealers, England were swimming in the Chinese silver. Cotton factories and railways were intensively built, and there was speculation in shares of railway companies. Last year, the corn laws were abolished and free competition flourished as well as urban population's power increased. Cheap loans – up to three quarters of a percent per annum. And then there's the money crisis. The minimum loan rate has increased to ten percent. Universal suspension of payments, the result is massive bankruptcies and move of power from tellurocratic elites to tallasocratic ones. Yes, this was one of those milestones which marked transformation of England from more or less self-sufficient state into the world's parasite. While England itself is full of dirty Opium money and of cheap import wheat, her first colony, Ireland is starving. The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—and hence the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as an Drochshaol, which literally translates to "the bad life" and loosely translates to "the hard times". The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as "Black '47". During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million more fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% (in some towns, populations fell as much as 67%) between 1841 and 1871. Between 1845 and 1855, at least 2.1 million people left Ireland, primarily on packet ships but also on steamboats and barques—one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history. It's quite remarkable how Catholic population of the St. Pier island, especially quite rich Patourels ignore intentional English genocide of their Irish brothers. Another moment is a corruption in the Royal Navy, allowed "to settle down" the case of deserting. The Maori people's liberation fighting for their rights and their land almost wasn't shown, just marked.
2) The love. What can I say about it? Ok. "Green Dolphin Street" is pretty much straight up soap opera, but it does flirt with some serious themes about gender equality that make it a rather bold statement for 1947, a time when women were being told to resume their rightful places as mothers and wives and relinquish more important matters back to men. I can't tell if it was "progressive" or "reactionistic" (women should know their place), for I don't know much about the main American trends in time, but I hope to learn more. The story is not just about a mistaken identity. Green Dolphin Street takes a close look at how human beings play the cards dealt to them and how they grasp the mysterious interplay between what they propose and what God disposes and it try to demonstrate (twice) that "true love" (tm) is not necessary for a successful marriage. NY-Times wrote: "Don't expect reason and temperance in this plush and romantic masquerade. Don't expect any resemblance to anything but an ingenious novelist's dreams. For Miss Goudge arranged on paper—and Mr. Wilson has arranged on the screen—a purely mechanical criss-cross of windy emotional episodes, of bravely fantastic adventures and overpowering acts of God, all quite as glib and fortuitous as that fateful "slip of the pen."All sorts of terrible things happen when clever and willful Marianne goes out to New Zealand to marry the lad whom her gentle sister loves. There's an earthquake so violent and noisy that it literally shakes the theatre, in the midst of which Marianne gives birth to a child with but primitive aid. There's a bloody Maori uprising and a ticklish escape from brutal death. And, back home in the Channel island, there is Marguerite with a sorely anguished heart, a dying mother and father and a troubled yearning to become a nun. In fact, pretty much of the novel has been telescoped into the film, with a slight elaboration of a minor character and a noticeable switch at the end. Not until the fade-out is it determined that Marguerite will be a nun and that Marianne has finally got her fellow with "all the warmth and glory—all the passion—" of true love. But long before that inevitability, it is obvious that "Green Dolphin Street" is just a glamorized illustration of a turgid adventure yarn, dressed up in stiff, expensive costumes and spangled with scenic effects. And it is performed, under Victor Saville's direction, in a manner consistent with the type. Significantly, Lana Turner, who plays the arrogant sister in the piece, changes her costumes much more frequently than the expression on her immature face. And, despite earthquake, childbirth and bereavements, not to mention the passage of time, not a line mars her artificial radiance, not a gray hair appears in her head. Donna Reed is similarly durable as the sister who grows sad and spiritual, and Van Heflin does a fine job of scowling as a fellow who loves Lana in vain. Richard Hart, as the weakling suitor, not only looks like Laurence Olivier but has so obviously aped the voice inflections and the mannerisms of that gentleman, that its a crime. Apparently he was so attentive to that accomplishment that he muffed the role. Edmund Gwenn, Reginald Owen and Frank Morgan bombast capably as other characters. But for all their hot air—and for all its propping—the picture is a dead weight, by and large." And who am I to disagree?
3) There are two types of "Indians" in the movie. The vile and cunning Chinamen, and spiritual and primitive Maoris. I can't say much about Maories, except that most of them (may be all of them) are not Maoris at all. But the joke of unknown Chinese (intentional or unintentional) , who wrote the sign with the Orion's departure made me LOL. The problem of transcription of foreign names by Chinese hieroglyphs is old, and it usually leave a lot of space for imagination and practical jokes. So, instead of traditional transcription of "Orion" - 俄里翁 (élǐ wēng) this joker painted 歐利安 (ōulìān) which sounds, may be, a bit better but means something like "European Profit Order/Established", and for "midnight" he wrote, instead of conventional 午夜 ("midnight" as a point of time) - 中夜 ("the middle of the night", with more connotations with Buddhism, or as likely in this case, with a name of a cheap motel or brothel). As for me, it looks like dogwhistling but deliberate insult. Five points to Griffindor.
4) The story litterally ends at Christmas with long but touchy scenes of truth revealing, declaration of love to God, to each other, about difference between what do we want and what do we really need, about miracles, and, as NYT already wrote about "bravely fantastic adventures and overpowering acts of God", I don't need to repeat it. I know, I have to read a lot of books and to watch a lot of movies about Christmas miracles in American culture, but, right now, I'm not in mood. I feel an odd reluctance about mass murderers and poisoners, and portraying them as good Christians smells like a fetor of hypocrisy to me.

But anyway, this movie is both educative and entertaining, and thanks for your recommendations.

 

[Flopper]

It is a nice movie, worth the time to watch, but, as for me, barely more (at least for the first sight). Jorge Luis Borges wrote once that there were only four archetypal tales - The Siege of the City, the Return Home, the Quest, and the Sacrifice of a God. And the movie, seems tried to make a bit of all of them. Another good man said, that Americans, generally saying, tell only four stories - about war, about love, about Indians and about Christmas. And this fits the movie much more and I'm going to tell about my impressions from those four points of view.
1) The war. The story starts in 1847, between two Opium wars (four years since the first and six year before second one). The Chinese market opened for English drug dealers, England were swimming in the Chinese silver. Cotton factories and railways were intensively built, and there was speculation in shares of railway companies. Last year, the corn laws were abolished and free competition flourished as well as urban population's power increased. Cheap loans – up to three quarters of a percent per annum. And then there's the money crisis. The minimum loan rate has increased to ten percent. Universal suspension of payments, the result is massive bankruptcies and move of power from tellurocratic elites to tallasocratic ones. Yes, this was one of those milestones which marked transformation of England from more or less self-sufficient state into the world's parasite. While England itself is full of dirty Opium money and of cheap import wheat, her first colony, Ireland is starving. The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger was a period of starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and subsequently had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—and hence the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as an Drochshaol, which literally translates to "the bad life" and loosely translates to "the hard times". The worst year of the famine was 1847, which became known as "Black '47". During the Great Hunger, roughly 1 million people died and more than 1 million more fled the country, causing the country's population to fall by 20–25% (in some towns, populations fell as much as 67%) between 1841 and 1871. Between 1845 and 1855, at least 2.1 million people left Ireland, primarily on packet ships but also on steamboats and barques—one of the greatest exoduses from a single island in history. It's quite remarkable how Catholic population of the St. Pier island, especially quite rich Patourels ignore intentional English genocide of their Irish brothers. Another moment is a corruption in the Royal Navy, allowed "to settle down" the case of deserting. The Maori people's liberation fighting for their rights and their land almost wasn't shown, just marked.
2) The love. What can I say about it? Ok. "Green Dolphin Street" is pretty much straight up soap opera, but it does flirt with some serious themes about gender equality that make it a rather bold statement for 1947, a time when women were being told to resume their rightful places as mothers and wives and relinquish more important matters back to men. I can't tell if it was "progressive" or "reactionistic" (women should know their place), for I don't know much about the main American trends in time, but I hope to learn more. The story is not just about a mistaken identity. Green Dolphin Street takes a close look at how human beings play the cards dealt to them and how they grasp the mysterious interplay between what they propose and what God disposes and it try to demonstrate (twice) that "true love" (tm) is not necessary for a successful marriage. NY-Times wrote: "Don't expect reason and temperance in this plush and romantic masquerade. Don't expect any resemblance to anything but an ingenious novelist's dreams. For Miss Goudge arranged on paper—and Mr. Wilson has arranged on the screen—a purely mechanical criss-cross of windy emotional episodes, of bravely fantastic adventures and overpowering acts of God, all quite as glib and fortuitous as that fateful "slip of the pen."All sorts of terrible things happen when clever and willful Marianne goes out to New Zealand to marry the lad whom her gentle sister loves. There's an earthquake so violent and noisy that it literally shakes the theatre, in the midst of which Marianne gives birth to a child with but primitive aid. There's a bloody Maori uprising and a ticklish escape from brutal death. And, back home in the Channel island, there is Marguerite with a sorely anguished heart, a dying mother and father and a troubled yearning to become a nun. In fact, pretty much of the novel has been telescoped into the film, with a slight elaboration of a minor character and a noticeable switch at the end. Not until the fade-out is it determined that Marguerite will be a nun and that Marianne has finally got her fellow with "all the warmth and glory—all the passion—" of true love. But long before that inevitability, it is obvious that "Green Dolphin Street" is just a glamorized illustration of a turgid adventure yarn, dressed up in stiff, expensive costumes and spangled with scenic effects. And it is performed, under Victor Saville's direction, in a manner consistent with the type. Significantly, Lana Turner, who plays the arrogant sister in the piece, changes her costumes much more frequently than the expression on her immature face. And, despite earthquake, childbirth and bereavements, not to mention the passage of time, not a line mars her artificial radiance, not a gray hair appears in her head. Donna Reed is similarly durable as the sister who grows sad and spiritual, and Van Heflin does a fine job of scowling as a fellow who loves Lana in vain. Richard Hart, as the weakling suitor, not only looks like Laurence Olivier but has so obviously aped the voice inflections and the mannerisms of that gentleman, that its a crime. Apparently he was so attentive to that accomplishment that he muffed the role. Edmund Gwenn, Reginald Owen and Frank Morgan bombast capably as other characters. But for all their hot air—and for all its propping—the picture is a dead weight, by and large." And who am I to disagree?
3) There are two types of "Indians" in the movie. The vile and cunning Chinamen, and spiritual and primitive Maoris. I can't say much about Maories, except that most of them (may be all of them) are not Maoris at all. But the joke of unknown Chinese (intentional or unintentional) , who wrote the sign with the Orion's departure made me LOL. The problem of transcription of foreign names by Chinese hieroglyphs is old, and it usually leave a lot of space for imagination and practical jokes. So, instead of traditional transcription of "Orion" - 俄里翁 (élǐ wēng) this joker painted 歐利安 (ōulìān) which sounds, may be, a bit better but means something like "European Profit Order/Established", and for "midnight" he wrote, instead of conventional 午夜 ("midnight" as a point of time) - 中夜 ("the middle of the night", with more connotations with Buddhism, or as likely in this case, with a name of a cheap motel or brothel). As for me, it looks like dogwhistling but deliberate insult. Five points to Griffindor.
4) The story litterally ends at Christmas with long but touchy scenes of truth revealing, declaration of love to God, to each other, about difference between what do we want and what do we really need, about miracles, and, as NYT already wrote about "bravely fantastic adventures and overpowering acts of God", I don't need to repeat it. I know, I have to read a lot of books and to watch a lot of movies about Christmas miracles in American culture, but, right now, I'm not in mood. I feel an odd reluctance about mass murderers and poisoners, and portraying them as good Christians smells like a fetor of hypocrisy to me.

But anyway, this movie is both educative and entertaining, and thanks for your recommendations.

I can't say I learn much from the movie but it was enjoyable. The entertainment value of most movies far exceeds the educational value because movies goer pay money to be entertained not to be educated. When there were blunders in a scene, they were often ignored. A good example is a Howard Hawks movie filmed in the 30's, The name escapes me but I remember the story took place in the Brazilian jungle. There was a scene with the good guys being chased by the natives. They got to their plane and took off. As the plane left the ground the audience sees a mountain range in the distance with a smoking volcano. After the scene was shot, one of the crew told Hawks, there are no active volcanos in Brazil. Hawks replied, There are now.

I find it amazing that 90% of what you see in movies in the 30's and 40's was created on a sound stage. The rest was shot on a backlot. In the late 40's, the studios started shooting some scenes in LA, San Francisco, and New York. Problems in major studio lead to creation of many small production companies. Having no Studio, they had to do a lot of their filming on location. .

Filming on location creates an air of realism that does not exist on a sound stage. For the first time, movie makers started to look at all the details, wardrobes, props, signs, vehicles, terrain, buildings, etc. And of course plots, scripts and the acting. By the 1960's, movie makers began seeing their work as taking what is unrealistic, implausible, and even impossible and turning it into something that seems real to audiences.

 

[Zavulon]

Yes, movies goer pay his money for being entertained, but, movie makers are payed (directly or indirectly) by movies goer, but, also by other people, trying to sell some goods or some ideas. Advertisement, if it the right word.
And when someone is trying to sell me something, I try, at least, understand what exactly they try to sell me, and with what ideas they want to indoctrinate me.

Caveat emptor - buyer be cautious.
And advertiser must be convincing in his turn. Something like competition between armor and armor-piercer. And intellectual defense can be basically two types - passive intellectual defense (aka ignorance) and active intellectual defense (aka critical thinking). As for me, latter is preferred, but it is resource-demanding. That's why I love foreign and obsolete books and movies.