This 1948 Warner Brothers release was based on a Broadway play that had opened in December 1943 and closed only weeks before the movie premiered. The central issues of the film are a mix of the up-to-date and the outdated -- fear of commitment, as well as the propriety of "intergender cohabitation."
In an era when proper young ladies didn't discuss sex with proper young gentlemen -- at least, not in movies sanctioned by the Hayes Office -- THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE was a bit risqué, which helped account for its long run on Broadway. The fear of what other people might think about a nice girl offering a spare bed to an attractive young man in uniform, even during the housing shortages of World War II, was not foreign to a lot of Americans, especially women, as the war put a strain on the nation's sexual mores and values. Among those born since the 1940s, that kind of innocent gesture might be taken for granted as an act of kindness, with no sexual overture implied by the woman. The scene in which Sally and Bill frantically try to prevent Olive from finding out that he's come to her apartment that morning to have breakfast with her may seem silly (though it is funny), but Sally knows that if Olive finds Bill there at breakfast, Olive will immediately assume "the worst." (I also anticipated that, if Bill was discovered, Sally's subsequent "reputation" might cause her to become an even more tempting target for the aging stage lothario with whom she's been cast in a play, but that little tete-a-tete occurs off-stage/off-camera.) It was still the 1940s, and in those days, people WOULD talk. (Some people STILL do.)
Fear of commitment is still with us. Unfortunately, here the film doesn't succeed very well, perhaps because, again, of Hollywood's self-censorship. We get a little information about Sally's disappointing relationship with a theatrical producer (which, the context implies, did become sexual), but the allusions to Bill's pain about lost love are weak. (At one point he encounters his old lover in a nightclub, but we never learn anything more about her, or them.) The delicate minuet that Sally and Bill dance around their immediate attraction to one another is what drives the story, but (not having the seen or read the play) I have a strong sense that Van Druten's original addressed their dilemma more directly than his Hayes Office-vetted screenplay.
No doubt self-censorship also undercut the more brazenly promiscuous aspects of Olive, though Eve Arden does a fine job with what she is given to work with. In fact the cast is one of the things that makes this film still worth watching. Eleanor Parker does well in conveying Sally's uncertainty about love, and whatever you think of Ronald Reagan's later political activities, he effectively portrays the essential decency of Bill. Actors Wayne Morris, Kent Smith, and those who play a host of other supporting characters (none of them in the original stage version) also are effective.
THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE is best approached as a period piece, a time capsule of how Americans viewed awakening love in a changing wartime culture. For all the restraints imposed by the Hayes Office, it remains worth an occasional viewing.
In an era when proper young ladies didn't discuss sex with proper young gentlemen -- at least, not in movies sanctioned by the Hayes Office -- THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE was a bit risqué, which helped account for its long run on Broadway. The fear of what other people might think about a nice girl offering a spare bed to an attractive young man in uniform, even during the housing shortages of World War II, was not foreign to a lot of Americans, especially women, as the war put a strain on the nation's sexual mores and values. Among those born since the 1940s, that kind of innocent gesture might be taken for granted as an act of kindness, with no sexual overture implied by the woman. The scene in which Sally and Bill frantically try to prevent Olive from finding out that he's come to her apartment that morning to have breakfast with her may seem silly (though it is funny), but Sally knows that if Olive finds Bill there at breakfast, Olive will immediately assume "the worst." (I also anticipated that, if Bill was discovered, Sally's subsequent "reputation" might cause her to become an even more tempting target for the aging stage lothario with whom she's been cast in a play, but that little tete-a-tete occurs off-stage/off-camera.) It was still the 1940s, and in those days, people WOULD talk. (Some people STILL do.)
Fear of commitment is still with us. Unfortunately, here the film doesn't succeed very well, perhaps because, again, of Hollywood's self-censorship. We get a little information about Sally's disappointing relationship with a theatrical producer (which, the context implies, did become sexual), but the allusions to Bill's pain about lost love are weak. (At one point he encounters his old lover in a nightclub, but we never learn anything more about her, or them.) The delicate minuet that Sally and Bill dance around their immediate attraction to one another is what drives the story, but (not having the seen or read the play) I have a strong sense that Van Druten's original addressed their dilemma more directly than his Hayes Office-vetted screenplay.
No doubt self-censorship also undercut the more brazenly promiscuous aspects of Olive, though Eve Arden does a fine job with what she is given to work with. In fact the cast is one of the things that makes this film still worth watching. Eleanor Parker does well in conveying Sally's uncertainty about love, and whatever you think of Ronald Reagan's later political activities, he effectively portrays the essential decency of Bill. Actors Wayne Morris, Kent Smith, and those who play a host of other supporting characters (none of them in the original stage version) also are effective.
THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE is best approached as a period piece, a time capsule of how Americans viewed awakening love in a changing wartime culture. For all the restraints imposed by the Hayes Office, it remains worth an occasional viewing.