G.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 436, 31 October 1947, Page 24

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(M.GM:)

Who or what is High Barbaree? A: High Barbaree is an island situated off the coast of New Guinea-1 North,

160 East to be precise-where the surf thunders everlastingly on a long white beach, backed by cool palm trees, that stretches between twin, cloud-capped mountain peaks, Q: It sounds most enticing. How does one get there? A: One doesn’t. This island exists only in the imaginations of Van Johnson, June Allyson, Thomas Mitcheil, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall (the authors), and the M.G.M. property-department. They dream it up for our special benefit. Q: Sounds a lot of people to be having the same dream. How come? A: Well, actually it originates with Mr. Mitchell, a shaggy old sea-dog very prone to flights of fancy, who talks about it so persuasively and with such a wealth of factual embellishment that he convinces nearly everybody

who hears him-particularly his young nephew and the little girl next door. When these two grow up they become Van Johnson and June Allyson. By that time the former has almost forgotten that as a boy he always intended to become a doctor and has become a Big Business Executive instead, with the result that the vision of High Barbaree is beginning to grow a little dim (symbolism). But the girl hasn’t ever forgotten, and thanks to her the young man becomes suitably high-minded and imaginative again. Therefore, when forced down in a seaplane after killing Japs, he isn’t enormously surprisedthough, of: course, greatly relieved-to discover that they are on exactly the right parallel of lattitude and are drifting straight for High Barbaree. Q: They? A: The young man and his companion, the only other survivor of the seaplane’s crew, who provides a_ longsuffering audience for the young man’s reminiscences of his childhood. Q: Do we share them, too? A: Of course. It’s a wonderful opportunity for the Flash-back Department.

There’s first of all a flash-back about the G-Note Road.... Q: The what? A: Just whimsy. When the hero as a little boy heard his mother play the piano he said the G-note sounded like a road that went on and on and on. And when eventually he landed on High Barbaree, there was the very road. But I anticipate. Well, before that there was the flash-back about the field of flowers (more whimsy), and the flashback about the water-tower (that was a good one), and the flash-back about Uncle Thomas Mitchell, who had a bad habit of becoming too familiar with his Scotch friends. ... Q: Can you tell us more about that one? z A: Not much-it was. just a whimsical way of saying that Uncle was too fond of whisky. After a while, this habit caused Uncle to drop out of sight, following a particularly "‘whimsical episode in which he took the children out looking for High Barbaree in a canoe on the river and they landed up in a circus. Uncle remained out of sight, searching for High Barbaree one presumes, during adolescence, young

manhood, the tornado sequence (realism), and the dawn of romance; but he popped up conveniently covered with gold braid and whimsy in order to bring the two young lovers (as by then they were) together for a brief encounter on his battleship in the Pacific. Immediately after this the hero took off in his seaplane to bomb Japs and the rest you khow. Q: But I don’t. After all this buildup does anybody ever potually arrive at High Barbaree? A: Well there would seem to be reasonable doubt as to whether anybody actually could: since the place is entirely imaginary. I personally think it would have been better left to the imagination. But M.G.M. leave us in no doubt at all about anything. Just when the hero, in the last stages of exhaustion, is about to be rescued by Uncle and his battleship (with heroine aboard in role of nurse), a great gong sounds across» the water, the Heavenly Choir give tongue, and as the hero wades ashore. on High Barbaree, there is Tongaroa awaiting him in an _ attitude of welcome. ... Q: Who did you say? A: Tongaroa, a whimsical native chief. I should have mentioned him and the gong before. Both were an integral part of the childhood vision. One can’t help wishing, though, thatas with the vision which Jennifer Jones had as St. Bernadette-Tongaroa had

not been allowed to materialise. He resembles altogether too much an advertisement for Rotorua and somebody’s toothpaste, and his brief discourse on the soul, while possibly edifying, is just one of those things better left unsaid. Q: I recall that you have not always been so snooty about fantasy on the screen. Why are you on this occasion? A: It is true that I think there is a place for famtasy, and even whimsy, in the cinema-but it must be kept in its place. High Barbaree is a sad case as well as a bad case of misdirected enthusiasm, because the story does contain some of the ingredients of genuine romance and might, with delicacy of treatment, have qualified as a moving and persuasive allegory on the impermanence and elusiveness of dreams and ideals. Unfortunately, as it approaches its all-important climax this film has all the delicacy of a debate in the United Nations’ Security Council.