Sea Wife

Last updated

Sea Wife
"Sea Wife" (1957).jpg
Original British trade ad
Directed byBob McNaught
Screenplay by
Based onSea-Wyf and Biscuit
1956 novel
by James Maurice Scott
Produced by André Hakim
Starring Joan Collins
Richard Burton
Basil Sydney
Cy Grant
Cinematography Edward Scaife
Edited by Peter Taylor
Music by Kenneth V. Jones
Leonard Salzedo
Production
company
Alma Productions
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • 4 April 1957 (1957-04-04)(London)
  • October 16, 1957 (1957-10-16)(United States)
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Sea Wife is a 1957 British CinemaScope drama thriller war film photographed in DeLuxe Color, based on the 1955 James Maurice Scott novel Sea-Wyf and Biscuit. [1] Shot in Jamaica, the film follows a group of survivors from a torpedoed British refugee ship. [2] [3]

Contents

Plot

Michael Cannon (Richard Burton) returns to London after the Second World War and places adverts in the personal columns of newspapers in an effort to re-unite with "Sea Wife", a lost acquaintance. Cannon publishes under the name "Biscuit." In time, he receives a letter summoning him to the Ely Retreat and Mental Home. There he meets an ill man nicknamed "Bulldog" (Basil Sydney), who tries to persuade Biscuit to give up the search. A flashback reveals the backstory.

In 1942, people crowd aboard a ship to escape Singapore before it falls to the Japanese Army. Biscuit encounters "Bulldog", who insists the ship's black purser, later to be nicknamed "Number Four" (Cy Grant), evict the people from the cabin he has reserved. However, when he sees that it is occupied by hungry children and nuns, he reluctantly changes his mind. The nun with her back to him is Sister Therese, later nicknamed "Sea Wife" (Joan Collins). Later, the ship is torpedoed by a submarine. Biscuit, Sea Wife, Bulldog, and Number Four commandeer a small life-raft. Only Number Four knows that Sea Wife is a nun; she asks him to keep that secret. It soon becomes evident that Bulldog is a racist who distrusts Number Four.

Later, they encounter a Japanese submarine whose captain reluctantly gives them food and water when Number Four negotiates with him in Japanese. Eventually, the quartet land on a deserted island. Number Four finds a machete, with which he builds a sturdier raft, made of tropical timber. After completion of the project, Number Four insists on keeping the machete for himself, which heightens Bulldog's distrust. Meanwhile, Biscuit falls in love with Sea Wife; she is tempted, but rejects his romantic advances without telling him the reason.

Finally, the four are ready to set sail. Bulldog tricks Number Four into going in search of his missing machete, then casts off without him. When Biscuit tries to stop him, Bulldog knocks him unconscious with an oar. Number Four tries to swim to the raft, but is killed by a shark. Days later, the 3 survivors are picked up by ship, and Biscuit is taken to a hospital for a long recovery. By the time he is discharged, Sea Wife has gone. Here, the flashback ends, and the narrative returns to "Bulldog's" hospital room in London, where he informs Biscuit that Sea Wife died on the rescue ship. Heartbroken, Biscuit leaves the grounds and walks past two nuns without noticing that Sea Wife is one of them. She watches him leave in silence.

Production

Richard Burton accepted this acting assignment only because, at the time, Roberto Rossellini had been slotted by the Fox studio as the film's director. However, before actual shooting began in Jamaica, Rossellini, whose script would have invited censorship problems, bowed out of the production and was replaced by Bob McNaught. [4]

Sensing early during shooting that the film would wind up a dud, Burton concentrated his energies on two objectives: Joan Collins, who rejected his advances, [5] and drinking, to fight insomnia. Yet despite waking every morning at 5 am with a terrible hangover, he was still able to contribute a full day's work. [6]

During initial exhibition of Sea Wife, The Daily Telegraph distributed miniaturized copies of the personal ads placed by "Biscuit" as a means of promoting itself as well as the film.

The deserted-island scenes for this movie were photographed at the same Ocho Rios, Jamaica, location that had previously been used in such pictures as Island of Desire (1953) and All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953). The city of Kingston stood in for Singapore during early scenes of the film; and before the episode involving the torpedoed ship was shot, Richard Burton participated in a cricket match with some of the actors and extras who were about to be used for that scene. [7]

As noted by the New York Times, the opening credits for Sea Wife state that the film was "adapted from the novel 'Sea-Wyf' by J. M. Scott"—but the person or persons who did the adaptation is/are not identified. [8]

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ingrid Bergman</span> Swedish actress (1915–1982)

Ingrid Bergman was a Swedish actress. With a career spanning five decades, Bergman is often regarded as one of the most influential screen figures in cinematic history. She won numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, four Golden Globe Awards, BAFTA Award, and a Volpi Cup. She is one of only four actresses to have received at least three acting Academy Awards. In 1999, the American Film Institute recognised Bergman as the fourth greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Burton</span> Welsh actor (1925–1984)

Richard Burton was a Welsh actor.

HMS <i>Jamaica</i> (44) Fiji-class cruiser

HMS Jamaica, a Fiji-class cruiser of the Royal Navy, was named after the island of Jamaica, which was a British Crown Colony when she was built in the late 1930s. The light cruiser spent almost her entire wartime career on Arctic convoy duties, except for a deployment south for the landings in North Africa in November 1942. She participated in the Battle of the Barents Sea in 1942 and the Battle of North Cape in 1943. Jamaica escorted several aircraft carriers in 1944 as they flew off airstrikes that attacked the German battleship Tirpitz in northern Norway. Late in the year she had an extensive refit to prepare her for service with the British Pacific Fleet, but the war ended before she reached the Pacific.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Bennett</span> American actress (1910–1990)

Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era. She is best remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's films—including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945)—and for her television role as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the gothic 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Raft</span> American actor (1895–1980)

George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Invisible Stripes (1939) with Humphrey Bogart, and Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon; and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and Bogart.

<i>Operation Pacific</i> 1951 war drama film by George Waggner

Operation Pacific is a 1951 black-and-white World War II submarine war drama from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Louis Edelman, and written as well as directed by George Waggner. John Wayne and Patricia Neal star and Ward Bond and Philip Carey play supporting roles.

<i>White Nights</i> (1985 film) 1985 American musical drama film

White Nights is a 1985 American musical drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, Jerzy Skolimowski, Helen Mirren and Isabella Rossellini. It was choreographed by Twyla Tharp. The title refers to the sunlit summer nights of Leningrad, the setting for the majority of the film, situated just a few degrees below the Arctic Circle.

<i>Father Goose</i> (film) 1964 film by Ralph Nelson

Father Goose is a 1964 American Technicolor romantic comedy film set in World War II, starring Cary Grant, Leslie Caron and Trevor Howard. The title is a play on the children's fiction character of "Mother Goose," which is used as a code name assigned to the coast watcher character played by Grant. Based on a story A Place of Dragons by Sanford Barnett, the film won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. It introduced the song "Pass Me By" by Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, later recorded by Peggy Lee, Frank Sinatra and others.

<i>Nocturne</i> (1946 film) 1946 black-and-white film noir directed by Edwin L. Marin

Nocturne is a 1946 American film noir directed by Edwin L. Marin and starring George Raft, Lynn Bari and Virginia Huston. The film was produced by longtime Alfred Hitchcock associate Joan Harrison, scripted by Jonathan Latimer, and released by RKO Pictures. It was one of several medium budget thrillers Raft made in the late 1940s.

<i>The Odyssey</i> (1997 miniseries) 1997 television miniseries directed by Andrei Konchalovsky

The Odyssey is a 1997 American mythology–adventure television miniseries based on the ancient Greek epic poem by Homer, the Odyssey. Directed by Andrei Konchalovsky, the miniseries aired in two parts beginning on May 18, 1997, on NBC. It was filmed in Malta, Turkey, parts of England and many other places around the Mediterranean, where the story takes place. The cast includes Armand Assante, Greta Scacchi, Irene Papas, Isabella Rossellini, Bernadette Peters, Eric Roberts, Geraldine Chaplin, Jeroen Krabbé, Christopher Lee and Vanessa Williams.

<i>Hell Below</i> 1933 film

Hell Below is a 1933 American MGM pre-Code film set in the Adriatic Sea during World War I about submarine warfare based on Commander Edward Ellsberg's novel Pigboats. The film stars Robert Montgomery, Walter Huston, Robert Young, Madge Evans and Jimmy Durante.

<i>The Heart of the Matter</i> (film) 1953 British film based on the 1948 novel

The Heart of the Matter is a 1953 British drama film based on the 1948 book of the same name by Graham Greene. It was directed by George More O'Ferrall for London Films. It was entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival.

<i>Action in the North Atlantic</i> 1943 film

Action in the North Atlantic, also known as Heroes Without Uniforms, is a 1943 American black-and-white war film from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Jerry Wald, directed by Lloyd Bacon, that stars Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey as officers in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. Typical of other films in the era, Action in the North Atlantic was created as a morale-boosting film during this world war and a film that told the story of unsung heroes. As noted by film critic Bosley Crowther, "... it's a good thing to have a picture which waves the flag for the merchant marine. Those boys are going through hell-and-high-water, as 'Action in the North Atlantic' shows."

<i>Journey to Italy</i> 1954 film

Journey to Italy, also known as Voyage to Italy, is a 1954 drama film directed by Roberto Rossellini. Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders play Katherine and Alex Joyce, a childless English married couple on a trip to Italy whose marriage is on the point of collapse until they are miraculously reconciled. The film was written by Rossellini and Vitaliano Brancati, but is loosely based on the 1934 novel Duo by Colette. Although the film was an Italian production, its dialogue was in English. The first theatrical release was in Italy under the title Viaggio in Italia; the dialogue had been dubbed into Italian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carley float</span> Liferaft design

The Carley float was a form of invertible liferaft designed by American inventor Horace Carley (1838–1918). Supplied mainly to warships, it saw widespread use in a number of navies during peacetime and both World Wars until superseded by more modern rigid or inflatable designs. Carley was awarded a patent in 1903 after establishing the Carley Life Float Company of Philadelphia.

<i>Pirate Latitudes</i> 2009 novel by Michael Crichton

Pirate Latitudes is an action adventure novel by Michael Crichton, the sixteenth novel to be published under his own name and first to be published after his death, concerning 17th-century piracy in the Caribbean. HarperCollins published the book posthumously on November 26, 2009. The story stars the fictional privateer Captain Charles Hunter who, hired by Jamaica's governor Sir James Almont, plots to raid a Spanish galleon for its treasure.

<i>Dark Shadows</i> (film) 2012 film by Tim Burton

Dark Shadows is a 2012 dark fantasy film based on the gothic television soap opera of the same name. Directed by Tim Burton, the film stars Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Bonham Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, Chloë Grace Moretz, and Bella Heathcote in a dual role. Christopher Lee has a small role in the film, his 200th film appearance and his fifth and final appearance in a Burton film. Jonathan Frid, star of the original Dark Shadows series, makes a cameo appearance. He died shortly before the film was released. One of the film's producers, Richard D. Zanuck, died two months after its release.

<i>Waterfront</i> (1950 film) 1950 British film by Michael Anderson and Peter Ustinov

Waterfront is a 1950 British black and white drama film directed by Michael Anderson and starring Robert Newton, Kathleen Harrison and Avis Scott. It was written by John Brophy and Paul Soskin based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Brophy.

James Maurice Scott was a British explorer and writer. He was born in Egypt where his father was an English judge in the mixed courts. After he graduated from Cambridge University in 1928 he joined an exploring expedition to Labrador. He served in the 5th Scots Guard Ski Battalion.He is best known for his biography of Gino Watkins, and for the novel Sea-Wyf and Biscuit (1955) which was filmed as Sea Wife in 1957 starring Richard Burton and Joan Collins.

<i>The Power of a Lie</i> 1922 film

The Power of a Lie is a 1922 American drama film directed by George Archainbaud and written by Charles Kenyon. It is based on the 1908 novel The Power of a Lie by Johan Bojer. The film stars Mabel Julienne Scott, David Torrence, Maude George, Ruby Lafayette, Earl Metcalfe, and June Elvidge. The film was released on January 7, 1923, by Universal Pictures.

References

  1. Scott, James Maurice Sea-Wyf and Biscuit, Daniel C. Krummes, Cruel Seas: World War 2 Merchant Marine-Related Nautical Fiction from the 1930s to Present, Institute of Transportation Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
  2. "Sea Wife (1957) - Notes - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
  3. "Sea Wife". BFI. Archived from the original on 12 July 2012.
  4. Brunette, Peter. Roberto Rossellini. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996. p. 195. See also Bragg, Melvyn. Rich: The Life of Richard Burton. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1988
  5. Collins, Joan. The World According to Joan. London: Constable & Robinson, Ltd., 2011.
  6. Munn, Michael. Richard Burton: Prince of Players. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008.
  7. Polack, Peter. Jamaica, the Land of Film. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017. pp. 75-80.
  8. "The Screen: 'Sea Wife'; Thrill is Gone from Scott's Thriller." New York Times. (Dec. 5, 1957).