Return To Paradise

Mark Robson was a jobbing director who stayed well within the current parameters of his time and his films are qualitatively a mixed bag. Return to Paradise falls below the median which is somewhat surprising given that Robson also functioned as co-producer.  

The story, based on James A. Michener's best-selling novel of the same name, concerns a free-wheelin’ adventurer, Mr Morgan (Gary Cooper), who turns up on a South Seas atoll where he comes up against a strict missionary (Barry Jones) and attracts the attention of a winsome native girl (Roberta Haynes). Typical of America’s post war love affair with the region (South Pacific, 1958 was its classic statement) the film revels in the unspoilt beauty of island life and the simple native ways whilst Cooper fulfills thetHollywood conquering hero role with easy charm, all to the strains of Dimitri Tiomkin’s thundering score.

The trouble is that simple exoticism is no longer enough to brush aside the mechanical nature of the drama and Robson’s perfunctory direction, the film only remaining viable on the basis of pure nostalgia.

DVD Extras: None

Available from: Shock Entertainment

 

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