LouHomey From my favorite movies..

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

jacobs-greenwood Produced by Samuel Goldwyn and directed by John Ford, this James Norman Hall/Charles Nordhoff novel was adapted by Oliver H.P. Garrett and features a screenplay by Dudley Nichols that was rewritten by Ben Hecht (though he didn't receive a screen credit). One of the early disaster movies, following San Francisco (1936), it still preceded Oscar's Special Effects category by a couple of years. It did win Thomas Moulton an Academy Award for Best Sound, Recording and its Score earned Alfred Newman his first nomination. The titled event, which occurs more than 75 minutes into the drama and lasts for approximately 15 minutes, is pretty spectacular, giving one a pretty good idea of what it would be like to experience the high winds and storm surge that up until recently, because of 24 hour cable news, was unimaginable.The melodrama itself is rather average, and even provides a mild indictment against the rule of law. On the other hand, one could think of "the hurricane" as an act of God against the story's sinners. From the beginning, we know that the fictional island of Manukura (or Manakoora, as the song became known), said to be 600 miles from Tahiti, will be devastated - Dr. Kersaint (Thomas Mitchell, who earned his first Academy recognition with a Best Supporting Actor nomination) tells a fellow cruise ship passenger (Inez Courtney) that the strip of sand before them was once a vibrant island. In flashback, we learn the story before the storm.Raymond Massey plays the island's French Governor Eugene De Laage, a caricature of unyielding principles who believes justice must be meted out at all costs, regardless of the circumstances. As stern as he is paranoid (which conjures up Humphrey Bogart's performance in The Caine Mutiny (1954)), he provides a vivid contrast to the "live and let live" islanders whose native ways are supported by everyone else including his wife (Mary Astor), his drinking doctor (Mitchell), and especially the moral relativist priest Father Paul, played by C. Aubrey Smith. Top billed are relative unknowns, Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall (born Charles Locher), whose characters' (Marama & Terangi, respectively) love story forms the basis of the non- disaster part of the plot. John Carradine plays a typically sadistic prison warden and Jerome Cowan plays an ethically challenged boat captain, Nagle. Al Kikume plays the natives' island Chief, Mehevi.After a short scene which helps to establish the Governor's, the doctor's, and the Chief's punishment philosophies, the flashback features Nagle's ship coming into port, guided through the reefs by Terangi, a popular native who represents the island's free (as a bird) spirit. It's his wedding day, and after Father Paul performs a Christian service to marry Terangi & Marama, the two proceed to Mehevi, who performs the native ceremony. The whole island celebrates, but the newlyweds' time together is short-lived, Captain Nagle must set sail for Tahiti and the boat doesn't go anywhere without its navigator. On Tahiti, Terangi gets in a fight with a white man (William Davidson), whose nose Terangi breaks. Because of this, the Judge (Spencer Charters) sentences him to 6 months. Naturally, Nagle protests that this is unfair, that Terangi had been provoked, but the Judge promises to allow the native to work outside and that the time will pass quickly. Seeing his ship sailing without him, however, prompts Terangi to attempt to escape, to swim to the ship. But Nagle doesn't see him and Carradine's character, who had whipped him earlier, recaptures him. Attempting to escape adds a year to Terangi's sentence and further attempts add more time until it totals 16 years.Of course, everyone on Manukura, save Governor De Laage, feels this is unfair. They urge the Governor to intervene on Terangi's behalf, have him transferred to their island (anything!), but he refuses. Eventually, Carradine's character becomes the warden and Terangi fakes suicide to escape yet again. This time he's successful, but he kills a guard (with one punch) by accident in the process, so he's a murderer. Miraculously, Terangi is able to make it 600 miles across the open ocean to Manukura to be reunited with Marama and their (6 year old?, wedding night conceived?) daughter. Actually, Father Paul, who'd been fishing offshore, helped Terangi make it the last ten miles in his canoe. De Laage accurately suspects per the natives' celebrations that Terangi is back on his island ... right about the time the storm winds start blowing in.De Laage goes out with Nagle (on his boat) to find Terangi. Dr. Kersaint has to deliver a baby, Marama's sister's, and actually goes out into the storm on a canoe with her and some others. De Laage's wife goes to the church with most of the others to be with Father Paul, who's decided to sing (until the end), like on the Titanic. Terangi lashes his wife and child up in the biggest tree he can find, and then goes to the church (with a rope tied to the tree) to get others to join them. De Laage's wife is the only one that makes it. The storm destroys everything! Afterwards, Dr. Kersaint finds himself washed up on the sandbar that is left. The baby was born successfully. De Laage and Nagle are seen on his battered boat; they rendezvous with the doctor but decide to go out looking for other survivors. Terangi, his wife, child, and De Laage's wife survived on the tree; they find a canoe and make their way to another sandbar. Terangi sees Nagle's boat coming and decides to leave with his family in the canoe, but starts a smokescreen so that De Laage can find his wife. When De Laage arrives, he embraces her, and then sees the canoe in the distance, seeing clearly (with his binoculars) what it is (e.g. Terangi escaping with his family), but agrees with his wife's pleading conjecture that it's just a log.

iamyuno2 The Hurricane is a movie all movie buffs need to see. It's great on so many levels that its minor drawbacks or imperfections are entirely forgivable. First of all, you have one of the best hurricane scenes in any film, ever. This is so realistic, intense and prolonged that, even today, you keep wondering: how did they do this? This is what hurricanes do - to people's lives and to the topography of our world. But then you look at the cast. Jon Hall was just OK yet we have Thomas Mitchell, John Carradine, Mary Astor and Raymond Massey - four movie heavyweights who infuse this with its near-greatness, putting in performances that fans of great acting need to see. These are actors who usually have a supporting role, yet when given the chance, they bring a gravitas and realism that rivets the viewer and draws one into the story such that you're bonded to it...entirely invested in the story's outcome, rooting for the much-maligned good characters to "win" in the end, your emotions going up and down with their fortunes. That's the sign of a really really good film. The story, too, speaks of universal truths and injustices done in the name of imperialistic governments, wrongs done native islanders, laws applied unbendingly and cruelly, and the bitter ends that come of political power struggles - all of this plays out along with the more immediate story, the plight of a young couple with a child, victims of circumstance, struggling to find happiness in a mad political situation that's become of their prior idyllic world. So if you don't pick up on the greater picture or care about it, you still care deeply about the lives of these young lovers and their child - as well as their people, the native islanders (played in some instances by real Polynesians). You have to have patience to get beyond the first few moments in the film, where the writing and the acting (primarily because of Jon Hall) was not as great as the rest of the film, because then brilliance takes over as Hall's role greatly diminishes and the story unfolds in all of its horror and wonder, and you'll be hooked...on the edge of your seat to the end. Finally...there's some redemption at the end. This is key to a great film and it happens. Not easy to pull off - in a way that moves you. Here, it's real, and it affects you, rewards you - even though, as in life, the redemption isn't complete or perfect. Like life, lives are ruined in the process - which is a credit to this film. It scrupulously avoids the hackneyed and sugar coats nothing. Dorothy Lamour...fine actress, beautiful as a saronged islander...has a somewhat limited role, though key because she is the angel that makes us really care about the plight of the young family. Her performance, though spare, is, to her credit, always believable and full of appropriate intense emotion. No shallow beauty here. In sum...this is a must-see film!!!!

solarblast I always try to catch this movie when it shows up on TV, usually TCM. Leonard Maltin calls the hurricane scenes unequaled and he's right. Quite impressive even by today's standards.Well, I guess I need to continue with this review. I didn't meet the quota on lines.I would agree with the assessment above that Lamour and John Hall are in their prime physically. Impressive that they got top billing despite the appearance of Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, Carradine, and Thomas Mitchell. Of course, John Ford, the director went on to even more successful action movies, and won numerous awards. As many know, he teamed with John Wayne for a number of award winning westerns.

blanche-2 Jon Hall, Dorothy Lamour and an excellent cast are all caught in "The Hurricane," a 1937 film and the first to win a Special Effects Oscar. The original novel was written by Jon Hall's uncle. On the island of Manakoora, Terangi (Hall) and Marama (Lamour) marry amidst a happy celebration, though their happiness will be short-lived. Terangi must deliver cargo to Tahiti, though Marama has a premonition about the trip and warns him not to go. While in Tahiti, he gets into a barroom fight and is sentenced to 6 months in prison. The governor of Manakoora, DeLaage (Raymond Massey), despite the urgings of his friends and his wife (Mary Astor) refuses to ask for Terangi to be brought back to Manakoora and put on parole. Unable to endure a life with no freedom, and desperate to get back home, Terangi continually attempts to escape. Each time he does, 2 years are added to his sentence until he has to serve 16 years. At last, Terangi escapes and makes his way back to his island, where he meets his daughter for the first time. Knowing that DeLaage will capture him and return him to Tahiti, islanders prepare to help the family sail to another island. But a hurricane (actually a typhoon) strikes.Besides those mentioned, "The Hurricane" also stars Thomas Mitchell as the French doctor on Manakoora, C. Aubrey Smith as the local priest, Jerome Cowan as Terangi's captain, and John Carradine as a sadistic prison guard.The effects are astounding and are a no-miss, particularly considering it is 1937! The tremendous winds, the rising waters, the trees falling, buildings collapsing - all magnificent. John Ford did an excellent job of directing this film, which has racism as its underpinning - the prison sentence was the result of a so-called dark man hitting a white man; and DeLaage's patrician and cruel attitude has racism at the base of it. I disagree with one of the comments that states that Hall was a white-skinned movie star trying to pass himself off as a dark man; Hall's mother was Tahitian.Dorothy Lamour, exotic and beautiful, has very little to do in this film except look frightened and lovely - you can count her lines on one hand. Hall, a total hunk if there ever was one, has more to say and do but one is so distracted by his face and physique that it becomes difficult to pay attention to anything else. The acting burden falls to Mitchell, Massey, Astor, Carradine, and Cowan, who are terrific.Ford isn't known for his tales of the sea, but obviously he was good at everything. He wouldn't see water again until the 1950s. Lamour carried on the sarong tradition in better roles, and Hall worked into the mid-'60s; at the age of 65, dying of cancer and in excruciating pain, he shot himself.Highly recommended as a feast of skin and brilliant special effects.