1957 in Film: Until They Sail

Until They Sail (directed by Robert Wise) is a World War Two romance set in New Zealand. Featuring the four Leslie sisters and their romantic entanglements with the American soldiers who are stationed there after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The sisters are Anne (a 40-year-old Joan Fontaine), Barbara (Jean Simmons), Delia aka Dee (Piper Laurie) and Evelyn (a 15-year-old Sandra Dee, in her debut role). Paul Newman plays Jack Harding, a marine who is tasked with investigating prospective marriages between the American soldiers and the local girls. To ensure they’re ‘legit’ and not just being used by ‘undesirable’ women to get a free ticket to the US. 

Joan Fontaine (who was, of course, Olivia de Havilland’s sister) had her biggest success in the early 40s with the Hitchcock double of Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar). She would go on to play Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles in 1943, appeared in Billy Wilder’s The Emperor Waltz with Bing Crosby in 1948 and Ivanhoe with Elizabeth Taylor in 1952.

The beautiful Jean Simmons had early roles in David Lean’s masterful Great Expectations (1946), Powell & Pressburger’s Black Narcissus (1947) and Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet (1948). Her most famous roles came either side of Until They Sail – in Guys and Dolls (1955) and Spartacus (1960).

Piper Laurie (the only main cast-member still living) made her debut in 1950, but had already made 15 films by the time Until They Sail came along. Appearing opposite Tony Curtis four times and Rock Hudson twice. She is best-known for her phenomenal work with Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961), for which she was Oscar-nominated.

Related: 1940 at the Oscars

Sandra Dee’s stardom was unfortunately brief, but she had big success following Until They Sail with Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place (all released in 1959). She won the Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer in Until They Sail.

Paul Newman was still a relative newcomer in 1957, having made his big breakthrough in Somebody Up There Likes Me (also directed by Robert Wise) the previous year. He only agreed to do the film, about which he had “grave misgivings about the script and about the character and about (his) usefulness in it” because of the debt he felt he owed Wise and producer Charles Schnee for taking a gamble on him in the boxing film; “I felt the least I could do would be to return the favor.”*

The billing for Until They Sail is interesting, with the first title showing Jean Simmons above Joan Fontaine, then the second showing Paul Newman above Piper Laurie (even though you could certainly make the case that Laurie was a far bigger success than Newman at this point). The film also stars Charles Drake as Dick Bates (who becomes Anne’s love interest), Wally Cassell as Shiner (who Dee inadvisedly marries), Adam Kennedy as Andy (an American soldier that Dee has an affair with) Ralph Votrian as Max (Evelyn’s American boyfriend) and John Wilder as Tommy (Evelyn’s New Zealand boyfriend).

Until They Sail is pretty frank about the effects of having every able-bodied man up and leave a pretty small and isolated country like New Zealand (especially during the 1940s). The women and (in Evelyn’s case) teenage girls are repeatedly referred to as “lonely,” which is clearly a euphemism. They descend on the arriving American soldiers like vultures and Harding has a pretty dim view of them.

Related: 1957 at the Oscars

The Leslie sisters have lost their father and brother and then the news comes that Barbara’s husband has been killed. Dee marries the much older Shiner, as he was one of the few men left in Christchurch, then he spends most of the war in a POW camp. She moves to Wellington and starts having affairs with American soldiers, Anne is judgmental of her but then becomes pregnant by Dick before they have the chance to marry.

The most unrealistic scene takes place when Barbara is first introduced to Harding in Wellington and Newman is on his own drinking, not surrounded by hoards of adoring girls. Harding’s wife has left him (for another soldier, we presume) and he is burying himself in the bottle and sworn off women. Of course, Jean Simmons melts his cold heart.

The film is framed by a trial in which Harding is giving evidence against Delia. Saying that she was going to run away to America with Andy without telling him she was already married to a New Zealander.

Spoiler Alert

By the end, we realise that this is in fact Shiner’s murder trial. He is released from the POW camp, comes back to New Zealand, Dee asks him for a divorce and HE KILLS HER WITH A SAMURAI SWORD! This is one of the biggest WTF moments I’ve ever had watching a 50s film. Harding’s evidence is being used in the trial to excuse Shiner’s actions because Dee slept around. Barbara understandably finds this hard to accept – but do they end up happily ever after? You’ll have to watch to find out.

1967 in Film: Cool Hand Luke

It is unusual to see a World War Two film set in Australasia. And I’ve only really seen this arena covered in Episode 3 (entitled Melbourne) of the 2010 TV series The Pacific (a follow-on from Band of Brothers), which explores the effect of large numbers of American soldiers descending on Australia and New Zealand. Wise uses stock footage of Christchurch and an establishing aerial shot each time the action moves to Wellington, but Until They Sail was entirely filmed on the MGM backlot. The Leslie sister’s home does have a spectacular spot on a cliff overlooking the sea and a summer house with a sea view is used for a steamy scene involving Simmons and Newman.

Surprisingly, Until They Sail was not a box office hit, despite its big-name cast. The biggest successes of the year were also set in the Pacific theatre of war – The Bridge over the River Kwai (set in a WWII POW camp in Thailand) and Sayonara, set during the Korean War. Sayonara has some parallels with the plot of Until They Sail. Marlon Brando plays Lloyd Gruver, a flying ace assigned to Japan. He staunchly supports the military’s opposition to marriages between American troops and Japanese women. Until….I’m sure you can guess where this is going. I have tried to find out exactly why Until They Sail was a box office flop, but the internet is coming up frustratingly short. 

Considering who is in this film, it is not well-known. It is an unusual war film, not tackling the usual events and places that have been covered over and over. It is well acted by Fontaine and Simmons but could use the sublime Piper Laurie more. Newman goes through an arc that would become a staple of his career – playing a stoic, gruff, callous, closed-off man (often violent, alcoholic etc) who is softened by the love of a good woman. It is pretty tear-jerking at times and the chemistry between Simmons and Newman fairly sizzles. Until They Sail is definitely worth seeking out.

*Quotations taken from Paul Newman – A Life by Shawn Levy