Review of South Sea Woman (1953) by Van R — 18 Jun 2010

The Marines have landed! "Rhubarb" director Arthur Lubin's wartime comic escapade "South Sea Woman" with Burt Lancaster and Chuck Connors unfolds ostensibly as a military court-martial melodrama interspersed with flashbacks as two agile Jarheads vye for the affections of beautiful Virginia Mayo.

This exciting but studio-bound, 1953, black & white, 99-minute, Warner Brothers' theatrical release teems with action galore in those flashback sequences as our heroes tangle with the Japanese Navy during the Guadalcanal campaign in the South Pacific.

Lubin doesn't waste a second of those 99-minutes and "Stalag 17" scenarist Edwin Blum doesn't let the complicated exposition of the courtroom get in the way of the action in Earl Baldwin and Stanley Shapiro's adaptation of William Rankin's stage play.

Actually, it appears as if this patriotic World War II actioneer was lensed by three-time Oscar nominee Ted McCord of "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" fame. Our Marine heroes wind up on a remote, Vichy-controlled island after they lose the steering column of a small boat and find themselves drifting in the South China Seas.

Master Gunnery Sgt. James O'Hearn (Burt Lancaster of "Brute Force"), Pvt. Davey White (Chuck Connors of "The Rifleman") and Ginger Martin (Virginia Mayo of "White Heat") are quarreling about White getting married to Ginger before the Marines head off to war.

Sergeant O'Hearn and company commandeer a boat to get to the Navy before they weigh anchor, but Ginger twists off the steering column and they drift until the owners of a Chinese junk pick them up.

They don't get much time to malinger on the junk after they accidentally try to burn it down and wind up on Nimev. Initially, the local commander, Pierre Marchand (Leon Askin of "Desert Legion") does not confine them to his jail because they proclaim that they are deserters.