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!

I hope the following words do not turn some folks off on this truly good movie. It is a sweet movie! Want to get lost in something nice, get this movie, want to feel good about friendship and romance, get this movie. I usually say "the actors did their job and earned their pay," well they surely did in this one. With me, anything June Allyson did was super for me. With Mr. Johnson, I can say, I like just about all of the work he has done, that I have seen. Brigadoon, is one of my favorites with him. When the movie started they had me, and took me along with the story, and I am very glad they did. To all involved with this movie, thank you.

Van Johnson and June Allyson head a talented cast in this enchantingly dotty romantic fantasy about true love in peace and war. The romance begins when they're children, and the childhood scenes have some charmingly surreal moments, such as when the two run away to join the circus. Someone must have been reading Freud in his spare time when making this one. There are enough symbols, phallic and otherwise, to fill a fair-sized textbook. Director Jack Conway did an admirable job on the film, with beautifully composed shots which at times recall the best silent pictures. He had flair for investing what are, on the surface, mundane images,--a water tower, a tropical island--with a subliminal power rare in a Hollywood movie. Since much of the story is related in flashback, there's a slight but unmistakable distortion involved in what unfolds on the screen that makes the movie feel at times like a dream. There are strange, abrupt transitions,--a storm comes seemingly out of nowhere--that make the movie resonate in one's memory years after one has seen it. Corny as hell, this is in many respects a remarkable film.

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.