

Logan had directed their brilliant Broadway production, he paid attention to staging, angling and framing these beautiful actors, pictures, colors and, of course, songs. The sum total is a theme which expresses that paradise is chosen, not bestowed.Ĭoming after their breakthrough stage and film versions of Oklahoma!, South Pacific further established the great American songwriting partnership Rodgers and Hammerstein as leading intellectuals exhibiting an indelibly American sense of life.
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Logan made this movie with a clear and apparent vision of how to showcase its tunes, drama and humor as well as how to film its cast and effects. The subplot demonstrates why art matters very much.


In its 60 years, South Pacific has gained a reputation as a light, enjoyable movie and, certainly, there’s lightness to the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.Īs with the best light movies, especially movies with music, any sense of easy, cheerful sentiment and sensibility stems from serious understanding of higher values with pressing, darker themes.įor instance, the picture’s comic relief of putting on a show underscores art as crucial to one’s life. This film, directed by the man who directed the stage production, Joshua Logan, is undervalued by critics, if not by audiences. The sheer, intoxicating brilliance of Richard Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s Broadway production of South Pacific comes through in the 1958 motion picture version (and on home video).
