On I List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)


In Harm's Way (1965)

Rate: 4
Viewed: 2/09

HarmW
2/09: Along with the most exciting moment which was the fatal car accident, the first ten minutes made it clear that In Harm's Way was going to be a rip-off of From Here to Eternity.

But the action started too soon with over two hours to spare for the full-fledged soap opera fest of different vignettes, converging to a single point which was the battle for Levu-Vana island. Barbara Bouchet and her swiveling hips made Pearl Harbor look like a 70's swinging party until the Japanese attacked. By the time the infamy ended, the film felt trivially done. I wouldn't say I was bored, but the ultimate meaning did dissipate during the final half hour.

The battle scenes at the end are so cheaply done that they make a total mockery of how a war should be filmed. Some special effects are terrible, especially the smoke when in fact it's just a camera effect to make me believe otherwise. Patricia Neal probably give the best job of anyone. The performances by John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, and the others are fine, too. My, my...Brandon deWilde, who's famous as the boy in Shane, looks all grown up yet is so ordinary-looking. It's disappointing to see Henry Fonda having like five minutes of screen time. However, I like the sentimentality of the relationships among their characters.

Meanwhile, there's one scene that I couldn't believe my eyes when Kirk Douglas' Eddington forcefully grabbed, necked, and raped(!) Annalee Dorne for no apparent reason. When she committed suicide thereafter, nobody gave a damn about her. As for Kirk Douglas, I liked his character up to that point. Then, In Harm's Way somewhat fell apart from there on but got torpedoed for good after suddenly losing the sight of its purpose by wasting so much time on whatever Otto Preminger was trying to accomplish. Hence, there isn't a clear direction going on unless it's meant to be a by-the-numbers war picture with sappy scenes.

After seeing the cover of the VHS copy, I initially thought the movie was going to be in color, so the sight of the black-and-white photography left me misled. Really, it's better if Otto Preminger elected to go the other way because the ships would look prettier. However, the decision may have been influenced by the scant availability of black-and-white WWII archive footage. It's worse when the battle scenes don't look real which turns out to have been done with plastic models (probably in the bathtub).

All in all, In Harm's Way is Battle of the Bulge on sea.