SEA WIFE

UK, 1957, 81 minutes, Colour.
Joan Collins, Richard Burton, Basil Sydney, Cy Grant, Ronald Squire, Joan Hickson, Norah Nicholson, Ronald Adam.
Directed by Bob Mc Naught.

If there were to be a competition to name the most unlikely actress to portray a nun on screen, Joan Collins would be somewhere in the top ten. However, in Sea Wife, she is a nun.

The film has a World War Two setting. A cargo ship with evacuees from Singapore is sunk by a Japanese submarine. There are four survivors in a lifeboat. The black seaman knows that the woman is a nun. However, the bigoted administrator (Basil Sydney) and the officer (Richard Burton) do not.

While the film is one of survival as well as the integrity of the nun, the main action, while the group drifts, is flashback of reminiscences about their life.

Richard Burton had emerged as a hero for American films after his stage and screen career in England. He had appeared in such spectaculars as The Robe and Alexander the Great. He was to make a number of films in Britain including Look Back in Anger. However, with the making of Cleopatra and the meeting with Elizabeth Taylor, his whole career changed – sometimes for the better, many times for the worse. In the meantime, Joan Collins had also moved from England and appeared in a number of big-budget American films including The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, Land of the Pharaohs, The Opposite Sex. She was to continue a headlining career for many decades, especially with her starring role on American television in Dynasty. The film has some links with the theme of Heaven Knows, Mr Allison, with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. It is interesting to compare Deborah Kerr and Joan Collins as nuns on screen.

I. How interesting and enjoyable a drama? The issues?

2. The contribution of Cinemascope, colour, the sea locations, music?

3. The structure with the introduction to Michael Cannon, the flashbacks, the ironies and the irony of the ending? The brevity of the film?

4. Initial audience interest in Michael Cannon? His puzzling behaviour and telegrams and advertisements on the ship? Curiosity concerning his return to Enrland? Richard Burton's style? Serious man, the collage of advertisements and the lack of progress? (The humour of Cannon's visit to the club and the clue about the racehorse?)

5. The introduction to Bulldog, his presence in the asylum, his image of himself justifying himself after the events? The significance of the flashback at this point?

6. The importance of the audience knowing all the informatation throughout the film when the characters didn't? What advantage did this give to the audience for understanding the characters, the issues, the strange behaviouor? The recreation of the evacuation of Singapore, the atmosphere of the war, the refugees and the ships? The purser and his doing his job, the nuns and looking after the children, Bulldog and his arrogance and wanting to get a cabin?

7. Was there sufficient introduction to the characters before the torpedo hit? How well was the atmosphere of panic, the ship sirking conveyed? The presentation of the Japanese and their skill in sinking the ship? The lifeboats, Bulldog and his pushing, Michael Cannon and his being wounded and jumping? Sister Therese and her surviving the lifeboat and the four finally finishing in the lifeboat, watching the ship go down, the prospect of coping?

8. How interesting were the sequences on the sea? How well did the four cope? The four and what they represented: man and woman, racial backgrounds, English and supremacy? Power and who commanded? Survival and life and death? The confrontation of the elements? the moods of the sea, the breeze and the winds? Then possibility of swimming, sharks? The contrast with the savage storms? Food and drink? Rain?

9. How interesting was Michael as a character in the lifeboat? As hero, ill, his wisdom? The significance of his nickname of 'Biscuit'? His giving his own name, the name of 'Sea Wife’ to the nun? The irony of his not understanding the Sister's identity? His falling in love with, her, the sig.nificance of his relationship and how she helped him? The obsession at his return to try to find her identity? The motivation and compulsion of his search?

10. The character of Sea Wife? The sigificance of the name and the mermaid ard her not being fully mortal?
Feminine but not fully sexually feminine? The significance for the nun? Seeing her on the ship, her work, her surviving, her decision not to tell the others? Was it wise? Number Four and his guarding her secret? His using this information with the Japanese for their survival? The bond between Sister and Number Four? sister and her explanation of her religion to Bulldog and his not understanding, his own arrogance and self-confidence? As a genuine nun, her vocation, her feelings for Biscuit and her control? Her role in uniting the survivors, her horror at Number Four’s death? Michael told that she had died, her passing him on the path and her comments about a nun's face? The raising of her eyes to heaven - Hollywood-style religion? How interesting a characterisation of a nun? How plausible?

11. Bulldog as the arrogant British? The pathos of his being in the asylum, his self-justification? His arrogance at Singapore, his racist attitudes and his language, his continually beinrg offensive? The bashing of the birds? His being saved by Number Four and the irony of his being responsible for Number Four's death? His two-faced behaviour on the island, his hiding the knife? His takinp the raft away? His being responsible for Four's death? Was he right in telling Michael that Sea Wife had died?

12. The characterisation of Number Four: racial background, his work, on the ship? his surviving? His helping and considerinp himself an equal passenger on the lifeboat? his helping the group cope? Saving Bulldog in the storm? The building of the raft, the importance of the knife and his havingpower? His fear and his creating of fear?
To what extent was he responsible for Bulldog’s action? The pathos of his swimming out and his death?

13. Themes of survival, human nature? The film as an allegory about existence and survival in the world? relationships? Good and evil? Religion?