Les bas-fonds d'Hawaï

The story is interesting. After a honeymoon of three days Wendell Corey has to break up to serve in the war and happens to Pearl Harbour, where he is almost killed but not quite, but he survives with his face damaged for life. He gets stuck on Hawaii and tries to make a life of his own there in a casbah-like nest of murky activitieds, where he gets mixed up with local rackets but also makes some local career as a singing poet. His wife back home has received news that he is reported missiing, supposed dead, in which assumed fact she lives on for years, until she hears a song of his and recognizes his words on a modern record. She goes to Hawaii to search for him while he gets deeper involved with murders and rackets and refuses to acknowledge her or his life before the war. Of course there are further complications.

Wendell Corey was never a favourite actor of mine, he was almost a disappointment to me in every film I saw him in for hisstiffness and lack of expression, but this film is saved by the story. The other actors are rather mediocre as well, but fortunately there is Elsa Lanchester as a helpful taxi driver, who actually contributes in saving the film. The local touch is also excellent, with sweet ukuleles singing and swinging all over the place and everywhere you go, and the environment is lovely and enchanting, of course. Only Wendell Corey is not, and he is only saved by the sad story of his fate.