Tonight's Movie: Green Dolphin Street (1947) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

The excellent MGM romantic adventure GREEN DOLPHIN STREET (1947) was recently released on Blu-ray by the Warner Archive.

I have a wonderful old used copy of the novel by Elizabeth Goudge -- still in print today -- and love both it and the movie. I believe the last time I saw the film was before I was blogging, so it had definitely been a while!

It was a joy to return to the movie thanks to the pristine new Blu-ray. GREEN DOLPHIN STREET is a great example of MGM movie-making firing on all cylinders; it's perfectly cast and is beautifully produced in every respect.

GREEN DOLPHIN STREET tells the story of a pair of lovely sisters living in a town in the Channel Islands in the 1840s. Marianne (Lana Turner) is smart and headstrong, with a mind for business, calculating plans far into the future. Marianne's beloved sister Marguerite (Donna Reed) is quiet and shy, a more traditional young lady of the times.

Both girls fall for their new neighbor William (Richard Hart, DESIRE ME), who is the son of their mother Sophie's (Gladys Cooper) old flame Edmond (Frank Morgan). William shows signs of following in the footsteps of his hard-drinking father, whom Sophie had been forbidden to marry; instead she married kindly Octavius (Edmund Gwenn). But Marianne is determined William will not live an aimless, dissolute life; instead she forms a plan to turn William into a responsible officer and gentleman, and with her father's help gets him a commission in the navy.

Despite Marianne's work towards his future and their shared love of the sea, William secretly proposes to Marguerite. Years later, however, when William is living in New Zealand -- it's a long story -- and finally ready to marry, he drunkenly sends a letter to Octavius asking for the hand of...Marianne. No one is more surprised than William when the ship arrives and it's not the woman he loves, but his business partner, Timothy (Van Heflin), convinces him that he owes it to Marianne to marry her and make it work.

The above is only a small part of a long, rich story, but it's to the film's credit that the viewer's interest never wavers during the film's 141 minutes. There's an Oscar-winning earthquake sequence, a life-threatening native uprising, and several complex relationships, as William very slowly falls in love with his accidental wife, while she is also silently loved by Timothy.

There is so much I love about this film, including the sparring yet intimate relationship between Marianne and Timothy, who understands Marianne's strengths and faults -- and also saves her life on multiple occasions. This is probably my favorite of all Heflin's performances. His final scene with Marianne, a mature, honorable reckoning of their relationship and why Timothy must move on, is superb.

And speaking of superb, the final scene with Cooper and Gwenn, as she confesses to her husband and Marguerite how she had fallen in love with her husband after their marriage, is deeply moving, the kind of scene which is so powerfully engrossing that the viewer forgets for a bit that the people on screen are actors.

The above is also one of Reed's best scenes, simply reacting to her parents. Reed takes her smaller part as the unexpectedly rejected fiancee and makes something quite memorable of it. The viewer will not soon forget her glowing countenance at the end of the movie.

Like too many beautiful actresses, Turner never got enough credit for her acting; this is one of her best performances. The combination of Turner's acting and a well-written script make the steely Marianne a fully rounded character, both flawed and admirable. Marianne's determined nature is simultaneously her best feature and worst fault; she controls her husband too much, yet it's because she sees his potential and wants to help lead him to be the admirable man of her dreams. And despite being clear-eyed about her husband's own flaws, she remains completely committed to him.

For a costume drama, there are some fairly deep thoughts along the way about commitment and the meaning of true love. And as the viewer watches Marianne and William -- and Marguerite -- we also wonder about things such as simple fate versus a higher plan designed to lead all three people to their best lives.

GREEN DOLPHIN STREET was directed by Victor Saville, who also directed one of my favorite Rita Hayworth musicals, TONIGHT AND EVERY NIGHT (1945). The screenplay was by Samson Raphaelson, with uncredited work by producer Carey Wilson. The Oscar-nominated black and white cinematography was by George Folsey.

The supporting cast includes Gigi Perreau as William and Marianne's daughter Veronica, who is played at an older age by Carol Nugent. The cast also includes Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Linda Christian, Patrick Aherne (brother of Brian), and Moyna MacGill, the real-life mother of Angela Lansbury.

Extras on the Blu-ray are the trailer and the 1949 Lux Radio Theater production starring Turner and Heflin, with Peter Lawford, Ed Begley (Sr.), and Joan Banks. A bit of trivia: Banks was married to Frank Lovejoy.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from the Warner Archive Collection Amazon Store or from any online retailers where Blu-rays are sold.

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