The Spiral Road (1962)

In 1936, a Dutch physician who treats leprosy patients in the jungles of Indonesia has a dangerous run-in with a local witch-doctor who uses black magic to kill his enemies.

Director:

Robert Mulligan

Writers:

John Lee Mahin, Neil Paterson

Stars:

Rock Hudson, Burl Ives, Gena Rowlands

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rock Hudson	...	Dr. Anton Drager
Burl Ives	...	Dr. Brits Jansen
Gena Rowlands	...	Els
Geoffrey Keen	...	Willem Wattereus
Neva Patterson	...	Louise Kramer
Will Kuluva	...	Dr. Sordjano
Philip Abbott	...	Frolick
Larry Gates	...	Dr. Kramer
Karl Swenson	...	Insp. Bevers
Edgar Stehli	...	The Sultan
Judy Dan	...	Laja
Robert F. Simon	...	Dr. Martens
Ibrahim Pendek	...	Stegomyia (as Ibrahim Bin Hassan)
Reggie Nalder	...	Burubi
Leon Lontoc	...	Dr. Hatta

Storyline

An arrogant young doctor helps an eccentric older doctor care for natives in the Dutch West Indies circa 1936. Challenged by love, leprosy and black magic, he undergoes a series of ordeals on a spiritual journey through the jungles of Java.

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Plot Keywords:

black magic | jungle | plague | dutch doctor | dutch east indies | 

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Taglines:

Shattering Adventure That Boldly Explores the Jungles of the Heart!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 November 1962 (Finland)

Also Known As:

Am schwarzen Fluß

Filming Locations:

Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal International Pictures (UI)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

139 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The Spiral Road contains the origin for the opening of Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969). Rock Hudson wanders aimlessly through the jungle confused to his identity, while his beard grows long and his clothes wind up in tatters. Finally he comes to a clearing where there is a pool. He sees his reflection and exclaims, "It's..." But instead of an offstage voice saying Monty Python's Flying Circus, he just says, "It's... me!".

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Quotes

Dr. Brits Jansen: [to Dr. Drager] I'll bunk in with you. I snore like an elephant but that's your problem.

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Connections

Referenced in 11-22-63: The Day the Nation Cried (1989)

User Reviews

Going in Circles in the Jungle

After I finished watching "The Spiral Road" -regretting that the failed end product had been directed by Robert Mulligan, the same man who did "To Kill a Mockingbird"- I was surprised to know that both films were released the same year. After both, Mulligan (a long time associate of Alan J. Pakula) started a chain of fine motion pictures, with favorites as "Love with the Proper Stranger", "Up the Down Staircase", "Summer of '42", "The Other" and "The Man in the Moon". But something went wrong in "The Spiral Road", and I believe it has to do mostly with the screenplay by John Lee Mahin and Neil Paterson. Everything seems okay in the first 90 minutes or so: I thought the story was in the lines of the Mexican film "Amok" ( based on a novel by Stefan Zweig) and the Argentinean real-life account "Houses of Fire", in which doctors fight in faraway places against strange diseases; and it also reminded me of "Gorillas in the Mist" or "Never Cry Wolf", which were based on fact. Here Rock Hudson plays Dutch doctor Anton Drager who convinces the head of the colonial health service in Batavia to assign him to a leper colony ruled by bright scientist Brits Jansen (Burl Ives), a man who might have made great advances in the study of leprosy, but who has neither ordered, compiled nor published his findings. Hudson brings conviction to the role of a man whose upbringing by a religious father has turned him into a nihilistic cynic, a rude and opportunistic scientist. Then the character of Els (Gena Rowlands) is introduced, things start to shake. It's a pity because it has nothing to do with the 1930s character or with Rowlands, who is good as usual. It is just the turning point when things begin to go bad. An endless sequence portraying the "decadence" of Dutch colonialists in a party (it's been reported that "Mulligan filmed it in Suriname with old colonial Dutch types, who were very mad when the film was released, because he had fooled them into re-enacting a colonial party") is followed by the introduction of a dwarf as comic relief. Soon Drager and Jansen disagree, argue and separate, the former starts to drink, and the third act turns into an embarrassingly silly and kilometric search for spirituality. Somebody must have told Mulligan or the adapters of Jan de Hartog's novel, that filming the spirit or the spiritual life is no easy task, and that capturing its search on film stock, a privilege reserved to a few: Dreyer, Rossellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, among the prominent... But works as Fleming's "Joan of Arc", King's "The Song of Bernadette", Rook's "Siddharta", Zeffirelli's "Brother Sun, Sister Moon", Jewison's "Agnes of God", or Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" are failed intents. While Drager goes in circles in the jungle, Jansen disappears from the film, and his place is taken by a evil witch doctor, played by Reggie Nalder, whom I wrongly thought that I had seen doing all, from Hitchcockian assassin to green vampire. Then the film ends abruptly after Drager experiences a "moment of illumination" (as reported, mocked by Monty Python) in the spiral road to spirituality. A real shame, because for Universal-International (which I remember that in those days was perceived as the corny studio) it meant a serious super-production, and it shows. Take also note of Jerry Goldsmith's score: if Bernard Herrmann borrowed in 1946 a few notes from traditional music of the Pacific for his "Anna and the King of Siam" score, then Goldsmith chose the same. If not, Goldsmith seems to have lifted Herrmann's main theme.