|
Marine and nun "like Adam and Eve" in a shoreline chamber piece, Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe is a useful compositonal model. The lug from Milwaukee in the Pacific Theater, Robert Mitchum stubbly and sunburned and expressively deadpan, first seen aboard a rubber raft in the wake of a torpedoed submarine. He washes ashore an island deserted but for the Irish novice (Deborah Kerr), who tends to the chapel while Japanese planes whoosh overhead. Survival reveals kindred pledges, "you got your cross, I got my globe and anchor," along with tastefully escalating desire. She clutches her rosary inside a cave during a fierce bombardment, he sneaks into the enemy camp after canned food and gets stuck with game-playing sentries and oversized rodents. "Nothing's certain in this crazy war." Rugged grace is what John Huston is after, he finds it in a celestial recomposition of The African Queen perfectly keyed to the limpid byplay of his two stars. A muscular technique in relaxed display: Waves lashing the lenses as the corporal crouches behind coastal rocks, a brief POV pan of turned-away Japanese troopers while the bugler plays patriotic anthems, a nocturnal horizon lit up by naval combat ("Like having two-dollar seats to a Joe Louis fight, ain't it?"). Broken vows are as bad as military desertion, the heroine tells the companion who's just proposed marriage, in both cases a matter of commitment. He pretends to shrug until a bottle of saké uncorks a broken heart: "If you have to be a nun, why aren't you old and ugly?" There's a nod to Black Narcissus with Kerr bare under a blanket, and a joke on Moby Dick in the unexpected force of a sea turtle. The divine inspiration is an impromptu disarmament, the miracle is a romantic bond no less ardent for being utterly chaste. "Very pleased to have met you, ma'am." Cinematography by Oswald Morris.
--- Fernando F. Croce |