HAWAII (1968)

We begin with a brief history of how a tribe from Bora Bora, feeling their gods were threatened, uprooted themselves to live on the Hawaiian island of Maui, in a village called Lahaina. In the early 1800's, young prince Keoki comes to the States, hoping that Christian missionaries will help his people fight the bad influences of white traders who are setting up businesses on the island. Divinity school student Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) feels a strong urge to go, but he must be married to be sent off (with marriage assumed to be a tool to fight intimate fraternization with the female villagers). The Reverend Thorn sets him up with his lovely young niece Jerusha (Julie Andrews), recovering from an apparent abandonment by her suitor, a sailor named Rafer who hasn't communicated with her in some time. Abner is shy and unworldly, and to push them together, Thorn takes a packet of letters from Rafer that had been lost in the mails and hides them from her. She enters willingly into the arranged marriage and they head off to Hawaii on a missionary ship. But once there, Abner has a tough time gaining converts, though he manages to get on the good side of Queen Malama, who insists that Jerusha become her personal teacher of English. Relations begin to fray more seriously when Abner discovers the incestuous ways of the island people; Malama is married to her brother Kelolo, and when Malama dies (and a predicted wind of destruction sweeps over the island), Keoki will have to marry his sister. 

Over the years, Abner builds a church and helps the villagers, though few of them actually become converts. He convinces Malama to stop the informal prostitution of young village girls with visiting sailors, gaining the wrath of one particular merchant who turns out to be Rafer, Jerusha's former suitor. Though still attracted to him, Jerusha turns down his offers to take her away from the hard island life. When Rafer finds out that it's Abner’s influence that has threatened his mens' recreation, he leads a band of sailors to burn down the church, but afterwards, the villagers band together and drive the sailors back to their ships. Abner's hardest time comes when he tells a dying Malama that she must renounce her love for Keolo or she will not be with Jesus when she dies. She does, but when she dies, the punishing wind does indeed arrive and blows down Abner's church. An angry Keoki defies Abner and reverts back to his native religion and marries his sister. There are more plot points: Jerusha has three children, Keoki's child is born deformed, and a measles epidemic, brought by a white sailor, kills off hundreds of villagers. By the end, Abner has shifted his concerns from conversions to trying to save the island from encroaching "civilization" by corrupt businessmen.

This movie, at nearly three hours, is based on only a small part of James Michener's huge novel of the same name. Shot largely on location, it's often lovely to look at, though it feels every bit of its running time, and the early arduous ocean crossing to Hawaii goes on far too long. Julie Andrews is top-billed, as this came out after her twin hits, Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, but it's von Sydow's show and he's compelling as the imperfect and intolerant minister who is tragically slow to adapt to circumstances. Richard Harris is equally good as Rafer, and fine support is offered by Gene Hackman, John Cullum and Lou Antonio as fellow missionaries. Carroll O'Connor, a few years before his TV success as Archie Bunker, has a small role as Andrews' father. The Tahitian Jocelyne LaGarde, as Malama (pictured with Andrews at left), is quite good and snagged an Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the only movie she ever made. After Malama dies, some of the narrative steam vanishes but the ending is satisfying. I wouldn't call the movie anti-Christian, though one of its major themes concerns the blinkered intolerance of Christian missionaries--most of the men who come with Abner loosen up or leave their vocation. In the beginning, it's impossible not to see Andrews as a variation on the young nun Maria in Sound of Music, and sadly she doesn't get to flesh out her character very much, though her makeup as she ages help transform her into the careworn old-before-her-time woman she becomes near the end. This film is sometimes viewed as a commercial bomb and the beginning of Andrews' career decline, but in fact, the movie was a hit, one of the top-grossing movies of the year, as was her next film, Thoroughly Modern Millie. But Andrews generally fades into the background. Its real problem is that its genre, the big-budget self-important saga, has not aged well. Recommended for a lazy Sunday afternoon or a snow day. [Blu-Ray]