PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 721, 8 May 1953, Page 18

PLYMOUTH ADVENTURE

(M.G.M.) ‘THIS is the story of what really happened to the Pilgrim Fathers (and Mothers) on the long voyage from Southampton (Eng.) to Provincetown (New Eng.) back in 1620. And after the three-way stretch of Man in the Dark it was quite a relief to set sail in the old Mayflower (Master, Spencer Tracy). True, we were back on two dimensions again, but it was 2D-coloured, and there was such a diverse assortment of, as you might say, colourful characters that any absence of depth seemed scarcely worth noticing. The story proves that, just as a clot of blood on the brain of an emperor could at one time change the face of Europe, so the cut of a kirtle and the colour of a lipstick helped decide the fate of the first New England colony. The kirtle and the colour are worn by Mrs. Bradford (Gene Tierney), who draws the attentions of the bully skipper and eventually throws herself overboard in an agony of divided loyalty. By that time, however, her constancy has shamed the bold captain. Before the Mayflower drops anchor he has suffered a sea-change and instead of abandoning the Pilgrims for a pack of canting hypocrites (as he had intended) he stands by- in the roadstead through the little colony’s first terrifying winter. As you might guess, it’s pretty free-and-easy history, and the characterisations are generally novelettish. But I enjoyed Noel Drayton’s portrayal of Myles Standish (and his musketry instruction even more), and the film has the most ambitious and technically successful seastorm I remember seeing. The *tweendeck storm shots and the manipulation of tank models-a tour de force by the backroom boys-are in themselves well worth seeing.