High Barbaree

This is a wonderful, romantic drama. A navy pilot played by Van Johnson crashes in the Pacific not far from a make believe island named High Barbaree. June Allyson plays the childhood sweetheart. While the downed flier drifts in his crashed plane, he recounts his life story to his injured buddy. The cast is fleshed out by Thomas Mitchell, Marilyn Maxwell and Cameron Mitchell. A tale of true romance and love never ending. Just super!

Today, I took out a disc of June Allyson & Van Johnson films I had recorded when she was Star of the Month earlier this year. The first film I watched is the one I want to mention now. It was HIGH BARBAREE. Another reviewer on the IMDb says it is part Leave It to Beaver and part mystical journey, and I really like that description. I think it also resembles a well-crafted episode of The Twilight Zone.

The picture is bolstered by MGM's top-notch production values, and the leads are well restrained and ably supported by Thomas Mitchell and Cameron Mitchell (no relation). There is also an early performance by Claude Jarman Jr. that really stands out and captures the viewers' attention. I feel like with so many excellent elements, this is a film that should be more widely known. It's a relatively unheralded classic.

I haven't seen this for decades, but I do remember it. The pilot, reminiscing to his shipmate, while downed on a tropical island, goes on and on about his past experiences, including his dream since childhood about an island paradise called High Barbaree.

On and on he goes, as one reviewer observed, slowly boring his companion to death. And the theme and throughout his ramblings, the subject of High Barbaree recurs.

SPOILER FOLLOWS: Toward the end of the film, a Polynesian native appears, and offers him entry to High Barbaree, but he realizes that he shouldn't go there then. Not if he wants to keep on living. For High Barbaree _is_ Paradise (as in Heaven).

It's a very slow film, but there have been far worse.

I am amazed at the reviewers who wrote negative descriptions that make me wonder if they paid attention to the film or even watched it. Van Johnson pilots a PBY badly damaged in an attack on a Japanese warship. Cameron Mitchell is not the co-pilot but is the plane's flight engineer. They are not stranded on a tropical island but are stuck in the plane with a broken radio that prevents them from radioing their location. Most of the crew was killed in action. Mitchell is cynical regarding their chances of survival; Johnson keeps the faith by telling about his childhood romance that finally came together when he saw June Allyson just before taking off on their patrol. Mitchell's cynicism does not make Johnson's recollections boring.

I saw this film on TV back in the 1960s and it has stayed in my memory all these years. That said, none of the reviewers mentioned that the film is based on the novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, authors of the "Mutiny on the Bounty" trilogy. I read the novel as an adult and was surprised to find that the ending in the book was very different from the film.

I remember seeing this movie when I was around 11, one rainy Saturday afternoon, with my father. It's stuck with me all these years (I'm 46 now) and I wish I could see it again! I could be romanticizing it a bit based on memory of days long past, but I remember it well enough to know that it WAS a great movie despite the tricks the years may have played on me. It was indeed an unusual mixture of adventure, romance and fantasy - but what makes it unusual also makes it unique and well worth watching. I know I turned it on originally because of the phrase 'World War II' that I spotted in the TV Guide - but the war really has little bearing on how the story plays out. If you happen to see it advertised on TV, be sure and watch it - I've been waiting for years now, and have only seen it listed once (but sadly I wasn't home at the time and couldn't see it).