Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Lawbolisted Powerful

Donald Seymour This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

JohnHowardReid The poet, Francis Thompson, supplies this film's interesting title. Like "A Man Called Peter", this film is based upon a true story. The screenplay was adapted by John Patrick from Dr. Han Suyin's semi- autobiographical novel, "A Many-Splendored Thing". Henry King is one of Hollywood's veteran directors. To his credit must be placed what was at its date one of the finest films America had produced, "Tol'able David" (1922). Some of his other important films are "Stella Dallas" (1925), "Twelve O'Clock High", and "Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1952). One of King's chief characteristics is his love of landscape and natural scenery. This love is well illustrated in "Love Is a Many- Splendored Thing", which was actually made on location in Hong Kong. King is a very sincere director. If he feels that a screenplay has merit, he will give his best. On the other hand, if he feels that the material given him is beyond redemption, he won't bother to exert himself. This explains his apathetic direction of "King of the Khyber Rifles", in which he allowed Terry Moore to give a performance so shockingly bad as to conclusively prove that she has no natural acting ability whatsoever.On the other hand, King has always regarded Jennifer Jones as one of the world's greatest actresses. For her performance in "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" she was deservedly voted by America's cinema-goers in their First Annual Audience Awards Poll, as the best actress of the year. Anyone can have their appearance changed from role to role, but very few can convincingly change their voice. Miss Jones had a convincing American accent in "Carrie", a convincing English accent in "Beat the Devil", a convincing Shropshire accent in "Gone to Earth". In this film she uses quite appropriately for her role, a more formal English accent. As Dr. Suyin she effectively portrays a noble, gracious, dignified Eurasian, child-like in her simplicity, proud of her mixture of bloods. There is nothing cheap or shoddy about this woman. When she breaks social conventions, she does so because she sincerely believes that she is right and the conventions wrong. In his usual vein, William Holden turns in another very competent performance. Australian, Murray Matheson, is superb in his portrayal of Chinese, Dr Tam. His accent is faultless. He speaks in a flat, somewhat hesitant voice — for the doctor is translating his Chinese thoughts into English words. Isobel Elsom provides a vivid characterization of the vain, ignorant, stupid, light-headed, commandeering, snobbish Mrs. Palmer-Jones. Jorja Curtright is brilliant in the role of Suzanne, a worldly, money-wise Eurasian of loose morality — an excellent foil to Suyin. One of the men with which Suzanne is associated is Mr. Palmer-Jones (Torin Thatcher). Because of their relationship, there is some subtle irony in the fact that Mr. Palmer-Jones, while pretending to uphold the morals of the hospital, is himself carrying on an illicit affair.Henry King has splendidly directed the photographing of Hong Kong background in "Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing". I draw your attention particularly to the scenes on the hill overlooking the harbor and to the arresting sequence, with the camera mounted on the front of a fast-moving ambulance, at the beginning. Another example of King's skillful directing is the sequence in which a shot of a falling bomb is cut into a shot of a bowl of red paint, knocked to the floor by the little girl. And speaking of the little girl reminds me that King seems to be quite adept at directing children."Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing" won three Academy Awards, one for the musical score and another for the title song. To sum up: Excellent acting, excellent script, excellent scenery, excellent direction, excellent music — what more could you want? — JHR writing as George Addison.

DKosty123 I am a fan of William Holden and this starring film at this time should have been better. Despite all the great scenery in Hong Kong, the script lets this one down. No wonder the theme song is much more famous than the film.Holden is a journalist and he meets a Female Doctor who has been widowed. Holden's wife who we never meet does not want to let him go, even though she has not seen him in 6 years. Such is the confusion of this plot, and the Doctor falls in love and carries a flame for this guy throughout. What is missing for everybody here is a back story.The ending is so predictable that I guessed it about the first 10 minutes. The scenery is the neat stuff here. The car Holden drives around is not the usual model. There is a CAT Vehicle at one point.Oh, if this really had a story, but it tries to wet 3 hankies without really drawing the viewer into anything except feeling how odd this relationship is. I got out the hankie when I realized how good this movie could have been, but it just does not get anywhere near where it should be.Sometimes the tree at the top of the hill needs to get cut down. I had the urge to rent a chain saw for the last scenes and say "enough already." The song Love is a Many Splendored Thing" is the only claim to long term fame this one has.

Dalbert Pringle After patiently sitting through this 1955, star-vehicle, meant solely to showcase the likes of Jennifer Jones and William Holden, I'm now convinced that love is a many-demented thing. It really is. As on-screen lovers, I found Jones and Holden had as much chemistry going between them as do two, cross-eyed slugs meeting for the first time.I think - The only audience that this trite, mixed-race tale of semi-forbidden romance could ever appeal to would be those who (within watching the first 10 minutes of this film) still cannot figure out where this one's story is inevitably heading. (Yes. This picture's story was really that predictable) This film also lost itself some significant points because director Henry King did not see the importance (as I do) of taking lots of close-ups of the actors' faces as they deliver their dialogue, pretending to emote real feelings of passion, anger, sorrow, etc., etc. King held the camera back so far that I couldn't tell, a good part of the time, what the real expression was on these people's faces.*Note* - Be prepared to end up hating (like I did) this film's title song "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" by the time the story is over, due to repeated strains of this popular tune being constantly recycled throughout the entire course of its 102-minute running time.

evening1 I often enjoy love stories, but this one was sappy and dumb -- though set against a dazzling Hong Kong backdrop.Jennifer Jones was saccharine and one-note as a Eurasian doctor as obsessed with her bi-racial heritage as with an American war correspondent who would never marry her.I found William Holden as her friend -- it's implied their love was never consummated -- similarly unappealing. He was always late and breaking dates, yet rarely seeming to write anything. What a cad.The acting of the Chinese characters in the film was often so stilted as to be absurd. Were these professional thespians? I will admit the film has a few good lines, though they sometimes sounded like they came from fortune cookies: "A great many mistakes are made in the name of loneliness." "There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness." "To go on living one must be occasionally unwise." "I won't be sad -- sadness is so ungrateful." One could tell from the start this story would not end well. I managed to get through it due only to mild curiosity about how, exactly, it would all turn out.