NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

brtor222 by one of the greats in the cinematography field (Freddie Young, credited as many of his films were as F.A. Young).But isn't it amazing when you are watching a film and suddenly an actor pops up who you just know you've seen before in a similar role???? It took me awhile but just before Mason turns himself in, I figured out that John Williams also played a detective inspector (although in this film a Colonel), in Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder...typecasting? Maybe, but Williams is just so good in a role like this, you can just see how he gets the criminal to confess to the crime by slow insinuation and guilt-tripping. Mason is caught up in the trap just like Ray Milland.Apart from that small side plot, the rest is so trivially done and I'm sorry but Joan Fontaine tries just too hard with all her practised smiles to look as young as Mr. Belafonte, more an aunt or mother. Why did she do this role is beyond me.This could have been greater film if Miss Dandridge's storyline had been more developed. And Stephen Boyd (although pre-Ben Hur) is equally wasted (as he was in some other Fox films (see The Best of Everything,Fantastic Voyage). Was he really considered for Anthony in Cleopatra??? (with Joan???) That might have been fun.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Never ending soap opera that takes place on the fictional Caribbean island of Santa Marta involving arrogant white plantation,of coffee beans and sugar cane, owner the insecure and high strung Maxwell Fleury, James Mason. Maxwell always felt that he was considered by his late father as a second stringer, in the Fleury clan, to his dead older brother, killed in WWII, the highly respected and looked up to Arthur.Maxwell's insecurity starts to get the best of him when he suspects his wife Sylvia, Patricia Owens, of having a secret affair with roving British diplomat and adventure Hilary Carson, Michael Rennie, when he spotted him leaving the Fleury Mansion in a huff while leaving a clue to him being there behind: A half smoked Egyptian cigarette something that only Carson, and no one else on Santa Marta, smokes. Maxwell is also worried about black labor leader David Boyeur, Harry Belafonte, who's stirring up trouble at his plantation by demanding that the native workers get their fair share of the profits, in labor costs, as well respect from their white, Maxwell Fleury, overlord.Meanwhile while this is all going on there's a number of mixed, between blacks and whites, love affairs spinning out of control notably with handsome British embassy worker Denis Archer, John Justin, and pretty half-breed island native Margot Seaton, Dorothy Dandridge, who works as a cashier at the local Santa Marta drug store. What makes things even worse is that Margot just happens to be labor leader Boyeur's girlfriend! And to complicate things even more Boyeur is starting to get it on with royally bread and lily white, she seems to glow in the dark, British socialite Mavis Norman, Joan Fontaine, who's just nuts about him while he's, in not trying to stray from his people and heritage, trying like hell not to fall in love with her! We of course can't overlook the hot and steamy affair going on between Maxwell's younger sister Jocelyn and war hero and British Aristocratic Euan Tempelton, Stephen Boyd, who's old man is a major maker and shaker back in Jolly Old England and a good friend of the Royal Family.****SPOILER ALERT**** All this fooling, as well as horsing, around comes to a sudden and tragic end when the truth-through an exclusive newspaper article-comes out about Maxwell, as well as Jocelyn's, genetic backgrounds that involves their dad Julian's, Basil Sydney, real mother who's identity, or racial background, he had hidden all these years. This sets off a number of ugly events that leads Maxwell to go completely bananas as well as, in the case of poor Hilary Carson, homicidal. It also has Julian's wife, Diana Wynyard, reveal to her distraught daughter Jocelyn, in order to keep her upcoming marriage to Euan from being deep sixth-ed, that she isn't really her father's daughter! What a Relief!Well anyway in the end everybody-in the cast-is happy the way the movie "Island in the Sun" turned out with both love, in the case of Euan Denis and their girlfriends Jocelyn & Margot, winning out over ignorance and prejudice. In the case of the by now ready for the funny farm Maxwell Fleury he finally saw the light in what he did, to the drunk on his feet Hilary Carson, and gladly accepted the consequences. As for David & Mavis they went their separate ways knowing full well that fate would not be kind to them if they didn't.

edwagreen Disappointing film dealing with life in the Caribbean.The film might have fared better if it had been a musical. The movie marked the re-teaming of Harry Belafonte and the late Dorothy Dandridge from "Carmen Jones" fame 3 years before. Belafonte sings well at the beginning before this film evolves into too many plots, pregnancy, murder, racial tension, politics, etc. The subject matter is totally uneven and the film suffers as a result. Dandridge was never weaker before in any of her brief film career. She evokes little to no emotion and the luster of Carmen, 3 years before, is totally gone.There is entirely too much going on here. James Mason is caught up in a killing, running for political office, and facing the reality that he is partially black. Belafonte loves Joan Fontaine, of all people, but by the end can't marry her due to racial-political considerations on the island. Joan Collins loves Stephen Boyd, he is given so little to do here, but he will be in The House of Lords, so how can she marry him if their children might be black. (Collins and Mason are brother and sister in this Peyton Place circus-atmosphere.) To complicate matters still further, old timer Diana Wynyard, an Oscar nominee for 1933's "Cavalcade," appears in the film as the mother of Collins and Mason. She is effective in the part but the plot twists again when it is revealed that she had Collins from another man.Robert Rossen who directed this mess, did so much better years before with his winning "All the King's Men." That 1949 Oscar winner for best picture stuck with basically one theme. This one is all over the mull berry bush.

DottiezBiggestFan I actually liked this movie. It doesn't seem to get as much credit as it should, seeing that it is the first movie to ever star an interracial couple (between the beautiful Dorothy Dandridge and the cute John Justin. Also, would've been between much older, but good actress Joan Fontaine and handsome Harry Belafonte). The scenery is beautiful and the plot is very good, but I think it's the storyline and script that make it so bad. It really doesn't count for a romance seeing that Ms. Dandridge and Mr. Justin were hardly aloud to touch each other and another character got pregnant out of wedlock, who was white. But this if you want a great movie with a beautiful tropical set (filmed on location in the Caribbean), interracial romance, suspense, mystery, a little singing, race relations, and politics, I suggest this movie.