Rating: 
Summary: Joshua Logan has no business behind the movie camera
Review: South Pacific on film should have been the finest of all R&H musicals but was ruined by Joshua Logan. The direction is dreadful. Everyone is miscast except Juanita Hall and she was dubbed, yet she did the show on broadway. Where was the choreography? It didn't exist. The "Nothin Like a Dame" number is embarrassing to watch. Enough has been said about the disgusting use of color filters, but that is the least of this travesty's problems. A great work of the American Muscial Theatre bastardized by the useless Josh Logan. He also ruined Camelot and Paint Your Wagon on the screen.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful film
Review: This is just a beautiful movie. The actors are uniformly wonderful, from Ray Walston as the comic Luther to John Kerr, Mitzi Gaynor, Julia Hall, Rossano Brazzi; they're all great. It's beautifully filmed. I liked the color filter effects, the location shooting is exquisite (you can see the beach where it was filmed if you visit Kauai, not far from the Na Pali coast), and the music is just wonderful. This is a very moving, beautiful film that is also great family viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Entertaing film adaptation of the classic broadway musical
Review: A triumphant transfer of the hugely successful Rodgers and Hammerstein broadway musical to the cinema screen. This was probably the best film version of a broadway musical until "The Sound Of Music" came along several years later. After all these years, it continues to entertain all who see it.
Rating: 
Summary: Could've Been Great!
Review: This is one of my favorite musicals--despite the incredibly annoying, irritating casting of Mitzi Gaynor as the star. She's so perky and artificial she manages to knock down the wattage of every scene she's in. Elizabeth Taylor was actually in the running for her role but Josh Logan said: "She can't sing! She'd have to be dubbed!" Which is hysterical. EVERYONE in the cast, except Mitzi, WERE dubbed!!!!!. Liz would have been a knockout. Also seriously considered was Doris Day. Wow, this gal could have pulled it off and won an Oscar. Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe were also considered. Jane Powell was also in the running but mysteriously ignored. With all these charismatic stars available, why in hell did Logan go with the bland, monotonous Gaynor? Rossana Brazzi is so handsome and sensual you wish they could have arranged a nude scene with him.Ray Wallis was a nightmare. Especially when he tried to sing. This was supposed to be comical, I guess, but it ruined every scene he was in. Also, he looked horrible. If he knew he would be appearing barechested in much of the movie, why couldn't he have at least gone to the gym. Ugh! Repulsive is an understatement. Who can forget that hideous spare tire of a stomach. If they should remake this today, there's no one who could star in it. There are no women or male stars who can sing (Dear God, don't mention the names of Madonna or Chris Izak. They both sound dying moose). Also, there would have to be a sex scene (please, not Madonna and Chris together)and a big subtext of American racism). So perhaps we had best be satisfied with this frustrating musical. Even though it stars the ever-perky Mitzi Gaynor. In fact, she's so perky she makes Kathi Lee Gifford look like Linda Tripp!
Rating: 
Summary: Underrated film version of R&H show
Review: This film has too often taken an undeserved beating, when in truth it is as good a version of SOUTH PACIFIC as can be desired. It arguably "works" much better than the film versions of CAROUSEL, OKLAHOMA, and FLOWER DRUM SONG. Several factors may be taken into account for SOUTH PACIFIC's initial lack of success: when it was released in 1958, it was some 13 years after WWII, and by then some of the themes had lost its impact. The Broadway show of 1948 followed the war by only 3 years, and it was fresh, and new, and the impact of the show's two superstars, Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, was such that they were, in the public's mind, indelibly associated with SOUTH PACIFIC. So, how could Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi stand a chance? Though it may seem sacreligious to say so, in fact Gaynor and Brazzi are worthy successors to Pinza and Martin (who were indisputably great PERSONALITIES), even unique from their own standpoint - and in many ways are probably more desirable for the believability of the characters. Mitzi Gaynor's Nellie Forbush is appealingly sincere, spunky, fresh and lively, completely convincing in her role, not least in her inner conflicts about Emile and her own attitudes. She provides the most heartbreaking moment in the film: near the end, when Nellie draws Liat close to her after learning of Cable's death, Gaynor's compassion for the distraught girl is touching and filled with tragic remorse. Set against a brilliantly hued sky, this scene alone conveys the overwhelming tragedy of the story. Gaynor is in fact more attentive to characterization and the words in her songs than Martin displayed in the cast album: also Gaynor sounds much more the young woman, while her predecessor has a huskiness to her voice that imparts a middle-aged countenance. Rossano Brazzi is a dignified, passionate Emile, and absolutely believable in his love for the younger, optimistic Nellie: we SEE why she is good for him, and we care. Brazzi was dubbed by Metropolitan Opera bass Giorgio Tozzi, and he undoubtedly brings a great deal more characterization to his songs than did Pinza. Whereas Pinza sang his music in a very stately, operatic way, Tozzi pays careful attention to the words by carefully shading them, imparting much feeling and tenderness. All in all - Gaynor and Brazzi more than hold their own, notwithstanding the sour grapes often accorded them. The only dud in the cast is Ray Walston's Luther Billis, unfunny, and an irritating presence: comedy relief does not work in this show. The only genuinely funny moment occurs when Billis receives a well-aimed dart in his derrière. John Kerr is a deeply serious Cable, a man of little joy - until he meets Liat, when he seemingly becomes reborn, and his happiness is almost painful to see. Thus it is doubly tragic when he decides that he and Liat can never be together. France Nuyen is an exquisite Liat, her fresh face full of innocent wonder. Bill Lee, dubbing for Kerr, sings a sublime "Younger Than Springtime", completely eclipsing William Tabbert's nasal, braying account on the Broadway show album. Juanita Hall, the only member from the original Broadway cast, is a shrewd, formidable Bloody Mary. Hall is a commanding actress, with an expressive, knowing face and a wonderful laugh. When Cable tells her he can't marry Liat, Hall's rage is overwhelming. It is puzzling why Hall was dubbed by Muriel Smith in the film's soundtrack, as she sang effortlessly in the Broadway show album. Perhaps by 1958 her voice was no longer up to par. All the good work of the cast is undone by the ponderous direction. The film begins disastrously with a noisy scene onboard a military plane, thus providing a very weak beginning. If the film had begun as the play had, we would have been placed immediately in the human situation of Emile and Nellie. The actors are repeatedly upstaged by long military scenes, travelogue shots, and worst of all, the use of garish tints for several scenes - in a dubious attempt to create "mood". It is as though the director, Joshua Logan (or whomever was responsible), did not trust the actors and the already gorgeous scenery to provide whatever ambience needed. Particularly during the Emile/Nellie scenes do we feel this intrusion: their conversations are engrossing, and the busy, jerky manipulations undercut the tension: if I had been Gaynor and Brazzi I'd have been furious. Fortunately, these inexcusable treasons do not mar the overall impact of the film, which still has its superb score framed most persuasively: it is the most consistently original of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein shows - served by this very worthy treatment.
Rating: 
Summary: OK movie marred by inferior video quality
Review: Joshua Logan's "South Pacific" is moderately entertaining and a reasonably accurate rendition of the stage version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's hit musical. The movie is hardly energetic, but does try to remain faithful to the original, including some awful dialogue, but also including the courageous theme of interracial love and marriage. Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi are adequate but lackluster in the principal parts. The use of color filters to underscore the musical numbers gradually becomes annoying, and doesn't add anything to the presentation. This is still a great movie to have, especially if you're a musical buff. The biggest disappointment (for the DVD version) was the second-rate video quality that seems to be present on all of Fox's classic R&H musicals, like "The King & I" and "Oklahoma". It's just too soft and poorly focussed. (They're probably using an inferior source for the digital transfer.)
Rating:
Summary: Loss of 21 minutes from original = loss of coherence
Review: I think South Pacific is second only to Sound of Music among movie musicals. The music and visuals are superb. The only real weakness is in the casting of John Kerr as the lieutenant. Unfortunately, videos of South Pacific, including this DVD, have been trimmed to 150 minutes from the original 171 minutes. There is some loss of coherence as a result. Why do they do this?
Rating:
Summary: Purtrid trashing of classcic
Review: How did R&H allow their glorious stage work to be so trashed. The story structure is rearranged, ersatz and totally inapproriate to the moment comedy destroys what was a tense, moving and tragic denoument. On stage this was a boisterious, realistic portrayal of American troops in the Pacific in WW II, that stunned with its tragic-hopeful ending. Long, boring and one of the greatest of R&H scores is only a disheartening shadow of itself. A black filter should be permanently put over this atrocity
Rating:
Summary: Va-va-voom! A Perfect Film!
Review: This movie is perfection, in a perfect format! The film cries for wide screen--so it is nobly served on the DVD. The songs are vintage Rodgers and Hammerstein, and they are perfectly performed! The color filters used for many of the major songs are distracting--one could have wished they had not been used. But they are part and parcel of the film, and must be forgiven. The casting of the film is ideal. The look, the sound, the feel are perfect. The extras are good too. Run--don't walk--for SOUTH PACIFIC on DVD!
Rating:
Summary: funny, entertaining and yet touching
Review: I love it. Funny and very entertaining. You still get a taste of what war can do to a person
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