By Richard Winters
My Rating: 3 out of 10
4-Word Review: Turning point in war.
Inspired by actual battles during the Korean War the film centers on the Battle of Inchon, which many consider the pivotal turning point that allowed American forces to achieve victory and was lead by General Douglas MacArthur (Laurence Olivier). While he exudes great outwardly confidence to others he does confide to his wife Jean (Dorothy James) that his age is creeping up on him and he fears he may no longer have the energy or mental acuity to take on the same types of challenges like he had done in the past. The film also has several side stories including that of Barbara (Jacqueline Bisset) whose husband Frank (Ben Gazzara), a Major in the U.S. army, is openly having an affair with a Korean woman (Karen Kahn). When the war fighting breaks-out near her she quickly tries to hitch a cab ride to get out, but soon finds herself straddled with some young Korean children who want to use her car to escape from the war with her.
The film is notorious for having been financed in large part by Reverend Sun Myung Moon who was head of the ‘Moonie’ cult that hit it’s peak during the 70’s and 80’s and gets credited with being the film’s ‘Special Advisor’ during the opening credits. He even used the help of psychic Jeanne Dixon who said she spoke with General MacArthur’s spirit and this spirit reiterated that he approved of the production, which was enough to get Moon put down a whooping $46 million to get it produced, but the film failed badly when it was released and was savaged by the critics. It was shelved for a year and then rereleased in a much shorter 105 minute version, which did not improve things and audiences stayed away causing them to only recoup of meager $5.2 million and turning it into a huge financial loss.
Overall the original 140-minute cut is the better version, if you can find it, and the movie wasn’t quite as bad as I had feared going in. The scenario dealing with Bisset and the kids is the best and I found the children to be genuinely appealing. I liked how well behaved they were and respectfully bow their heads when coming into contact with adults and won’t eat their dinner, despite being really hungry, until Bisset is sitting at the table with them. While this storyline does have a lot of similarity to The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, and in fact the hotel they stay at is named this, I still felt it was engaging enough to keep me semi-involved and had the film centered solely on this it would’ve done better though it’s still filled with some incongruities like having Bisset shoot and kill a man right in front of them where she’s not concerned about the psychological effects this may cause them, but then later when they come to a battlefield with dead soldiers laying about she warns the kids to ‘shield their eyes’, but if they’ve already witnessed one dead body and gotten through that what’s the harm of seeing a few more?
The drama dealing with her husband Gazzara and his affair is a bore and her conversations with him about it goes nowhere and slows the pace up badly as it offers up no spark and I found Gazzara’s constant smirking no matter what situation he was in to be annoying and wished someone else had been cast in the part. Olivier’s moments as MacArthur are equally cringey and should’ve been a source of complete embarrassment. However, he was at least honest about it and admitted in interviews he was only doing it for the money, so that his family would have something to keep them comfortable after he died, which he felt was coming soon and thus ‘nothing was beneath him’ as long as the ‘price was right’, which in this case was a payout of $1.5 million and included a $250,000 signing bonus.
Much of the problem with his part is with the ghoulish looking make-up that was put on and took 2 and a half hours each day to apply, but makes him look like some wax figure, his hair literally shines off his head every time it comes into any light. The effect makes him look like a walking dead person, or a strange alien from another planet and his moments come-off as either creepy, or laughable. His attempts at replicating MacArthur’s accent, which he had been informed sounded like W.C. Fields, is ineffective especially when you hear the real MacArthur speak during archival footage that appears near the end.
David Janssen as a crotchety and cynical news reporter, whose scenes were entirely cut in the abbreviated prints, is terrific and gives the movie a much needed sense of brashness and I wished his character was in it more though due to his death during filming he’s not in it as much. Everything else though unfortunately falls flat including the battle scenes that become quite redundant and surprisingly uninteresting to watch. The finale that deals with the illumination of a lighthouse and MacArthur’s reliance of banking on the ‘spirit of God’ to get it lighted was fabricated making it corny and forgettable.
My Rating: 3 out of 10
Released: May 4, 1981
Runtime: 2 Hours 20 Minutes (Original Cut) 1 Hour 45 Minutes (Reissue)
Rated PG
Director: Terence Young
Studio: MGM/UA
Available: DVD-R
Scopophilia 