Perhaps because she incarnated what is thought to be the ultimate "nasty woman" character in TV history, namely Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc., on the hit TV show "Dynasty," from 1981 - '89, many viewers will find it hard to believe that Joan Collins had previously played women every bit as nasty. But such is indeed the case. Even before "Dynasty," Collins had played an Alexis warm-up, Fontaine Khaled, in sister Jackie Collins adaptations "The Stud" (1978) and "The Bi_ch" ('79), and going as far back as her earliest roles, in the British cinema of the mid-'50s, Collins was specializing in women who were decidedly not "nice girls." In "Cosh Boy" (1953), she was a young unwed pregnant woman; in "Turn the Key Softly" ('53), a prostitute. Once arrived in Hollywood, her streak would continue. In the cult favorite "Land of the Pharaohs" ('54), her Princess Nellifer, who lived during some early Egyptian, uh, dynasty, was as duplicitous and scheming as Alexis ever was, and her Crystal Allen character in 1956's "The Opposite Sex" was still another preparation for the "Dynasty" character. How odd, then, to realize that Collins was also more than capable of playing sweet young things, as in 1954's "The Good Die Young" and '55's "The Virgin Queen." And don't even get me started on how wonderful Collins was as the saintly missionary in the classic "Star Trek" episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"! But viewers who are desirous of seeing Collins in what is most likely the most extreme of her "nice girl" roles might be interested in watching her in the 1957 British offering "Sea Wife," Collins' 15th film out of an eventual 71 (as of this writing), in which she plays the part of a nun, no less, and to winning effect. Based on a 1955 novel entitled "Sea-Wyf and Biscuit" by James Maurice Scott, and adapted for the screen by George K. Burke, the film finds the 24-year-old actress opposite some heavy-hitting acting talent but nevertheless holding her own in one of the more unusual roles of her career.
The film opens with a young RAF officer named Michael Cannon (Richard Burton, 32 here and in his 13th film of an eventual 58) returning to England several years after the termination of WW2. He immediately starts putting a series of personal ads in the British papers, in which he states a desire to be reunited with somebody only known as "Sea Wife." In response to these ads, he is summoned to the Ely Retreat and Mental Home in Wandsworth, where he is reunited with a man who he had known as Bulldog (British actor Basil Sydney, who had been in films as far back as 1920) during the war. And then the reminiscences begin, and in flashback, we learn their story. It seems that Cannon and Bulldog had both been on the same transport ship, the San Felix, that was taking refugees from Singapore as the Japanese closed in in 1942. Their ship had been torpedoed by a Japanese sub and quickly sank, leaving the two, as well as a young black man (the ship's purser) and a beautiful young woman (our Joan), in a rubber lifeboat. The four had spent many harrowing days at sea, and had given each other nicknames: Cannon was known as Biscuit, the woman as Sea Wife (a Scottish term for a mermaid, it seems), Bulldog as, well, Bulldog, and the purser only as Number Four (Guyanese actor Cy Grant, supposedly appearing here in his first film, although he HAD made an appearance in 1955's "Safari" in a bit part). As their predicament grew ever more dire, the personality traits of each of the quartet became more evident, and the viewer is soon made to realize that Bulldog is very much a racist, Sea Wife rather saintly in character, Number Four the most levelheaded and rational of the bunch, and Biscuit...well, just a rather ordinary Joe. Eventually, the four fetched up on the shore of a deserted island - it is intimated that they are near the Nicobar Islands, somewhere in the Andaman Sea - where Biscuit declared his love for Sea Wife, to her great discomfiture. What everyone but Number Four did not realize is that the woman is indeed a nun, a fact that, for some rather vague reason, she refused to admit to the men. The four had attempted to build a raft to replace their ruined lifeboat, a task made easier when Number Four discovered a machete buried somewhere on the beach. But Bulldog's distrust of the black man had resulted in great tragedy and a lifetime of regret for the unlikeable character, as events return to the present, and Biscuit's search for Sea Wife reaches a touching conclusion....
Remarkably, this was not the first time that Collins had played the role of a woman marooned on a desert island with three men; in 1953's "Our Girl Friday," her ninth film, which I have yet to see, she was very much in the same situation! The difference, of course, is that in the latter film, her character, being a woman of God, is simply not available to the men's advances. Collins makes the most of her part here, underwritten as it is, and is actually quite credible as the woman who, we ultimately find out in the film's final moments, is actually named Sister Therese. She must automatically be put into the pantheon of filmdom's most beautiful sisters, alongside Jennifer Jones' Bernadette Soubirous in "The Song of Bernadette" ('43), Ingrid Bergman's Sister Mary Benedict in "The Bells of St. Mary's ('45), Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh in "Black Narcissus" ('47), Audrey Hepburn's Sister Luke in "The Nun's Story" ('59), Diana Rigg's Philippa in the TV film "In This House of Brede" ('75), and Anita Ekberg's Sister Gertrude in, uh, "The Killer Nun" ('79). Collins is a LOT better than you might be expecting in this role, which is the polar opposite of/diametrically opposed to/light-years distant from Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc. Her Sea Wife is the glue that holds the men together during their travails, and easily the coolest of the bunch when it comes to facing imminent death. And Collins ably holds her own against Burton here, who by all reports was hungover on the set every morning and who tried unsuccessfully to have an affair with his leading lady. And really, given the way Collins looked in the 1950s-and heck, even into the 2000s-who could possibly blame him for trying?
"Sea Wife," fortunately, although it never rises to the level of greatness that the viewer might hope for, yet still features some other commendable qualities besides the thesping of its four leads. Director Bob McNaught, who only directed two other films, the obscurities "Wicked Wife" ('53) and "A Story of David: The Hunted" ('60), brings his film in with a competent if unremarkable style, keeping things taut and compact, with little flab; the entire affair runs to an efficient 82 minutes. Shot in beautiful color and CinemaScope, the film offers much in the way of pictorial splendor, its sunset and starry nighttime scenes while adrift on the high seas being particularly nice to look at. The island of Jamaica is where the picture was actually filmed, standing in for both Singapore (in the early scenes) and that desert island later on, and the beach where our castaways wash up is one that you will wish to visit one day, to be sure. Cinematographer Edward Scaife, who later in '57 would be responsible for the look of one of the finest horror films of the 1950s, "Night of the Demon," does a fine job of capturing the island splendor, as well as the loneliness of days and nights at sea. On a personal note, this viewer happened to visit London for the first time last year, and my B&B was in Wandsworth, where Cannon visits early in the film. No, I did not recognize the building that stands in for the Ely Retreat and Mental Home, but how interesting to see that the Chelsea Bridge that Cannon drives over from Chelsea to get to Wandsworth looks almost exactly the same today, over 60 years later!
Unfortunately, I DID have one major issue with "Sea Wife" - putting aside the relationships between the four main characters not being better explored - and that is the fact that it is a bit hard to believe that Sister Therese would NOT tell her fellow survivors that she is indeed a sister of God. When Biscuit has her up against a palm tree on that desert island, confessing his love to her, while she sheds tears and tells him that she is already promised to another...well, how much easier would it have been for her to just come out with the truth? Her rationale to Number Four that she does not wish to cause problems with the men by confessing her secret just did not ring true for this viewer. It is a secret that Biscuit will never discover, as it turns out in the film's marvelous final moments. "Nobody ever notices the face of a nun," Therese tells her elderly sister as Biscuit passes her by without noticing outside the rest home. And that really is a pity, especially when that face belongs to someone who looks like Joan Collins! The bottom line, I suppose, is that "Sea Wife" is certainly not a great film, but it is surely worth a look, especially for fans of Joan who want to see her in a role VERY much against type....
The film opens with a young RAF officer named Michael Cannon (Richard Burton, 32 here and in his 13th film of an eventual 58) returning to England several years after the termination of WW2. He immediately starts putting a series of personal ads in the British papers, in which he states a desire to be reunited with somebody only known as "Sea Wife." In response to these ads, he is summoned to the Ely Retreat and Mental Home in Wandsworth, where he is reunited with a man who he had known as Bulldog (British actor Basil Sydney, who had been in films as far back as 1920) during the war. And then the reminiscences begin, and in flashback, we learn their story. It seems that Cannon and Bulldog had both been on the same transport ship, the San Felix, that was taking refugees from Singapore as the Japanese closed in in 1942. Their ship had been torpedoed by a Japanese sub and quickly sank, leaving the two, as well as a young black man (the ship's purser) and a beautiful young woman (our Joan), in a rubber lifeboat. The four had spent many harrowing days at sea, and had given each other nicknames: Cannon was known as Biscuit, the woman as Sea Wife (a Scottish term for a mermaid, it seems), Bulldog as, well, Bulldog, and the purser only as Number Four (Guyanese actor Cy Grant, supposedly appearing here in his first film, although he HAD made an appearance in 1955's "Safari" in a bit part). As their predicament grew ever more dire, the personality traits of each of the quartet became more evident, and the viewer is soon made to realize that Bulldog is very much a racist, Sea Wife rather saintly in character, Number Four the most levelheaded and rational of the bunch, and Biscuit...well, just a rather ordinary Joe. Eventually, the four fetched up on the shore of a deserted island - it is intimated that they are near the Nicobar Islands, somewhere in the Andaman Sea - where Biscuit declared his love for Sea Wife, to her great discomfiture. What everyone but Number Four did not realize is that the woman is indeed a nun, a fact that, for some rather vague reason, she refused to admit to the men. The four had attempted to build a raft to replace their ruined lifeboat, a task made easier when Number Four discovered a machete buried somewhere on the beach. But Bulldog's distrust of the black man had resulted in great tragedy and a lifetime of regret for the unlikeable character, as events return to the present, and Biscuit's search for Sea Wife reaches a touching conclusion....
Remarkably, this was not the first time that Collins had played the role of a woman marooned on a desert island with three men; in 1953's "Our Girl Friday," her ninth film, which I have yet to see, she was very much in the same situation! The difference, of course, is that in the latter film, her character, being a woman of God, is simply not available to the men's advances. Collins makes the most of her part here, underwritten as it is, and is actually quite credible as the woman who, we ultimately find out in the film's final moments, is actually named Sister Therese. She must automatically be put into the pantheon of filmdom's most beautiful sisters, alongside Jennifer Jones' Bernadette Soubirous in "The Song of Bernadette" ('43), Ingrid Bergman's Sister Mary Benedict in "The Bells of St. Mary's ('45), Deborah Kerr's Sister Clodagh in "Black Narcissus" ('47), Audrey Hepburn's Sister Luke in "The Nun's Story" ('59), Diana Rigg's Philippa in the TV film "In This House of Brede" ('75), and Anita Ekberg's Sister Gertrude in, uh, "The Killer Nun" ('79). Collins is a LOT better than you might be expecting in this role, which is the polar opposite of/diametrically opposed to/light-years distant from Alexis Carrington Colby Dexter, etc. Her Sea Wife is the glue that holds the men together during their travails, and easily the coolest of the bunch when it comes to facing imminent death. And Collins ably holds her own against Burton here, who by all reports was hungover on the set every morning and who tried unsuccessfully to have an affair with his leading lady. And really, given the way Collins looked in the 1950s-and heck, even into the 2000s-who could possibly blame him for trying?
"Sea Wife," fortunately, although it never rises to the level of greatness that the viewer might hope for, yet still features some other commendable qualities besides the thesping of its four leads. Director Bob McNaught, who only directed two other films, the obscurities "Wicked Wife" ('53) and "A Story of David: The Hunted" ('60), brings his film in with a competent if unremarkable style, keeping things taut and compact, with little flab; the entire affair runs to an efficient 82 minutes. Shot in beautiful color and CinemaScope, the film offers much in the way of pictorial splendor, its sunset and starry nighttime scenes while adrift on the high seas being particularly nice to look at. The island of Jamaica is where the picture was actually filmed, standing in for both Singapore (in the early scenes) and that desert island later on, and the beach where our castaways wash up is one that you will wish to visit one day, to be sure. Cinematographer Edward Scaife, who later in '57 would be responsible for the look of one of the finest horror films of the 1950s, "Night of the Demon," does a fine job of capturing the island splendor, as well as the loneliness of days and nights at sea. On a personal note, this viewer happened to visit London for the first time last year, and my B&B was in Wandsworth, where Cannon visits early in the film. No, I did not recognize the building that stands in for the Ely Retreat and Mental Home, but how interesting to see that the Chelsea Bridge that Cannon drives over from Chelsea to get to Wandsworth looks almost exactly the same today, over 60 years later!
Unfortunately, I DID have one major issue with "Sea Wife" - putting aside the relationships between the four main characters not being better explored - and that is the fact that it is a bit hard to believe that Sister Therese would NOT tell her fellow survivors that she is indeed a sister of God. When Biscuit has her up against a palm tree on that desert island, confessing his love to her, while she sheds tears and tells him that she is already promised to another...well, how much easier would it have been for her to just come out with the truth? Her rationale to Number Four that she does not wish to cause problems with the men by confessing her secret just did not ring true for this viewer. It is a secret that Biscuit will never discover, as it turns out in the film's marvelous final moments. "Nobody ever notices the face of a nun," Therese tells her elderly sister as Biscuit passes her by without noticing outside the rest home. And that really is a pity, especially when that face belongs to someone who looks like Joan Collins! The bottom line, I suppose, is that "Sea Wife" is certainly not a great film, but it is surely worth a look, especially for fans of Joan who want to see her in a role VERY much against type....