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#254 - Love is a Many-Splendored Thing
Henry King and Otto Lang, 1955
A Eurasian doctor living and working in Hong Kong falls for an American journalist.
It seems more than a little unfair to dismiss classic melodrama simply for being classic melodrama - like virtually every genre, there is good in it. Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, on the other hand, is not a particularly good example of 1950s melodrama. The film follows a romance that blooms between Jennifer Jones' Eurasian doctor and William Holden's American journalist in 1949 Hong Kong, and while it does start off reasonably promising it soon runs out of steam long before its conclusion. Holden is reasonably solid even though he does seem to be sleepwalking through his role at times, while Jones puts in some hard yards that don't quite seem to pay off. The rest of the cast doesn't leave much of an impression, though given the time period and setting I do have to wonder how well they treat the Asian members of the cast, especially when compared to Jones playing a white-passing Eurasian. In any case, they seem especially peripheral for the main plot, whether it's the family of Jones' character or her co-workers (with a significant scene where the main duo visit a fortune-teller).
There isn't much else of note to say about this film - the Hong Kong setting does make for a good backdrop and the music (which apparently won an Oscar, as did the titular song) isn't too obtrusive. There's a very cursory exploration of racial issues, but it's pushed to the side in favour of a clumsily-written romance between Holden and Jones that's padded out with some awkward dialogue that isn't sold by the leads' lack of chemistry with one another. As a result, it drags awfully hard over the course of 100 minutes and, though it looks alright, is a severely underweight piece of work.
Henry King and Otto Lang, 1955
A Eurasian doctor living and working in Hong Kong falls for an American journalist.
It seems more than a little unfair to dismiss classic melodrama simply for being classic melodrama - like virtually every genre, there is good in it. Love is a Many-Splendored Thing, on the other hand, is not a particularly good example of 1950s melodrama. The film follows a romance that blooms between Jennifer Jones' Eurasian doctor and William Holden's American journalist in 1949 Hong Kong, and while it does start off reasonably promising it soon runs out of steam long before its conclusion. Holden is reasonably solid even though he does seem to be sleepwalking through his role at times, while Jones puts in some hard yards that don't quite seem to pay off. The rest of the cast doesn't leave much of an impression, though given the time period and setting I do have to wonder how well they treat the Asian members of the cast, especially when compared to Jones playing a white-passing Eurasian. In any case, they seem especially peripheral for the main plot, whether it's the family of Jones' character or her co-workers (with a significant scene where the main duo visit a fortune-teller).
There isn't much else of note to say about this film - the Hong Kong setting does make for a good backdrop and the music (which apparently won an Oscar, as did the titular song) isn't too obtrusive. There's a very cursory exploration of racial issues, but it's pushed to the side in favour of a clumsily-written romance between Holden and Jones that's padded out with some awkward dialogue that isn't sold by the leads' lack of chemistry with one another. As a result, it drags awfully hard over the course of 100 minutes and, though it looks alright, is a severely underweight piece of work.