I like movies of this vintage, and I like Frank, Tony, and Natalie, so I liked this movie, but it's a mess. The crux of the drama seems silly these days (at least to anyone who isn't a pathetic loser), but I suppose that it was daring in its day. Also, some key actions seem grossly undermotivated, and there is no emotional coherence to the ending. I can't say anything more without mentioning things that are technically spoilers (although they are mentioned in other reviews here), so I will warn you that this review contains spoilers...............
So the big dramatic moment is that Natalie Wood's father was black. When this is comes up in the scene, I really expected the Sinatra character, to whom this revelation was made, to look confused and say "So what?", but of course he didn't (he looks shocked and dismayed, although he gets over it eventually -- it's rather sick-making how the girl's mother acts as if there is some nobility in this: "You reacted like a bigot idiot, but after a week of struggle you have decided to overlook what is at most a disgusting cultural artifact, and I'm sure that the fact that my daughter looks like a young Natalie Wood has nothing to do with it.")
Anyway, Natalie (who is 19) doesn't love Frank (who is 43, but looks older), so when she falls for Tony, Frank steps aside despite his great love for her. Then Tony breaks her heart by dumping her (can't marry an African American woman even if she looks like Natalie Wood), and so Frank decides to see to it that Tony dies (by going on a suicide mission with him). Tony dies, Frank loses an arm, and then comes back an visits Natalie after the war. Mom has died, Natalie is now running a school for orphans, and Frank looks at Natalie in a haunted manner while the orphans sing a song. (Frank is on his way back to LA, where he is a partner in a construction contracting firm, but has stopped to see Natalie for some reason that is never explained -- it's like a pilgrimage, but to or for what?)
I can't figure out what is supposed to be going on here. Why would Frank not warn Natalie about hooking up with an aristocratic no-good from the South? Why would he kill a guy who was his friend just for jilting a woman, especially when Frank is in love with her, and after this jilt she might well be more interested? And why does the ending seem so unmotivated, random, and abrupt?
Well, here's why. In the book, "Frank" doesn't know about the father, just that "Natalie" doesn't love him. He introduces N to T in the hope that it will make him (F) look better (N says that she wants to know more ordinary Americans -- F is an officer -- and so he brings his buddy T, who is a wealthy, Ivy League educated, Southern aristocrat, as a sort of joke) and is surprised when N falls for him. T asks N to marry him (perhaps for real, perhaps just for sex), and then eventually learns that N has a black father. He dumps her cruelly, and she kills herself. F kills T, more or less as in the movie, and tells the mother shortly before she dies (She comes to see him in the hospital). He is badly wounded (losing an arm, and eye, and lots of shell fragments and bullets), and feels terrible about N's death, but is also haunted with guilt about killing T.
The book isn't bad. It's written in a sort of stream of consciousness, and the suicide gives F a motive for killing T (which doesn't exist in the movie, of course, and explains why he's so troubled at the end). I guess they decided that it was too much of a downer having N die (she throws herself in the ocean but is rescued), but without that the motivation for the killing and the remorse and haunting memories just don't make sense.
So the big dramatic moment is that Natalie Wood's father was black. When this is comes up in the scene, I really expected the Sinatra character, to whom this revelation was made, to look confused and say "So what?", but of course he didn't (he looks shocked and dismayed, although he gets over it eventually -- it's rather sick-making how the girl's mother acts as if there is some nobility in this: "You reacted like a bigot idiot, but after a week of struggle you have decided to overlook what is at most a disgusting cultural artifact, and I'm sure that the fact that my daughter looks like a young Natalie Wood has nothing to do with it.")
Anyway, Natalie (who is 19) doesn't love Frank (who is 43, but looks older), so when she falls for Tony, Frank steps aside despite his great love for her. Then Tony breaks her heart by dumping her (can't marry an African American woman even if she looks like Natalie Wood), and so Frank decides to see to it that Tony dies (by going on a suicide mission with him). Tony dies, Frank loses an arm, and then comes back an visits Natalie after the war. Mom has died, Natalie is now running a school for orphans, and Frank looks at Natalie in a haunted manner while the orphans sing a song. (Frank is on his way back to LA, where he is a partner in a construction contracting firm, but has stopped to see Natalie for some reason that is never explained -- it's like a pilgrimage, but to or for what?)
I can't figure out what is supposed to be going on here. Why would Frank not warn Natalie about hooking up with an aristocratic no-good from the South? Why would he kill a guy who was his friend just for jilting a woman, especially when Frank is in love with her, and after this jilt she might well be more interested? And why does the ending seem so unmotivated, random, and abrupt?
Well, here's why. In the book, "Frank" doesn't know about the father, just that "Natalie" doesn't love him. He introduces N to T in the hope that it will make him (F) look better (N says that she wants to know more ordinary Americans -- F is an officer -- and so he brings his buddy T, who is a wealthy, Ivy League educated, Southern aristocrat, as a sort of joke) and is surprised when N falls for him. T asks N to marry him (perhaps for real, perhaps just for sex), and then eventually learns that N has a black father. He dumps her cruelly, and she kills herself. F kills T, more or less as in the movie, and tells the mother shortly before she dies (She comes to see him in the hospital). He is badly wounded (losing an arm, and eye, and lots of shell fragments and bullets), and feels terrible about N's death, but is also haunted with guilt about killing T.
The book isn't bad. It's written in a sort of stream of consciousness, and the suicide gives F a motive for killing T (which doesn't exist in the movie, of course, and explains why he's so troubled at the end). I guess they decided that it was too much of a downer having N die (she throws herself in the ocean but is rescued), but without that the motivation for the killing and the remorse and haunting memories just don't make sense.