BRIDGE TO THE SUN

BRIDGE TO THE SUN (1961). Director: Etienne Perier.

A pretty young woman named Gwen (Carroll Baker) falls in love with a handsome Japanese diplomat named Hidenari Terasaki (James Shigeta), marries him, and moves to Japan, where she's expected to conform to the docile, subservient role of a typical Japanese housewife, causing friction, to say the least. The couple and their young daughter are back in the U.S. when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor; when Hidenari is deported, Gwen -- to her mother's horror -- decides to go with him. Hidenari is distrusted by his colleagues not only because of his American wife but because he is secretly working for peace (exactly what he's doing is never really specified). Based on a true story, Bridge to the Sun is interesting and well-acted, but despite some good scenes, its examination of some serious and provocative situations is on the superficial side. (The whole business of atomic bombs being dropped on Japan is completely glossed over so we never learn the reactions of either Gwen or Hidenari.) However, the ending is very moving.

Verdict: An A for effort. **1/2.

THIS ABOVE ALL

THIS ABOVE ALL (1942). Director: Anatole Litvak.

Prudence Cathaway (Joan Fontaine) appalls her snooty uppercrust British family by enlisting in the WAF during WW 2. She meets and falls in love with a bitter, disillusioned soldier, Clive Briggs (Tyrone Power), who has come to feel he's only fighting to preserve the unfair and hypocritical class structure -- although Prudence argues that the Germans must be defeated (oddly the term Nazi is never used. The film probably started production before the U.S. entered the war). Briggs has decided that he's going to be a deserter no matter what the consequences. This Above All (to thine own self be true) has some uncompromising attitudes in its depiction of Briggs, but the first half is superior to the second half. Once Prudence learns Briggs' secret, the picture veers a bit from romance into soap opera and becomes jingoistic. The business with Briggs encountering an unctuous priest who sets him straight is tiresome. However the performances are good and Alfred Newman's sensitive musical score embellishes every sequence. Fontaine is lovely in the film, although some may feel that she's borderline cloying at times. Power's performance is not so much great as rigorously earnest. Gladys Cooper is snippy and exact as Prudence's disapproving Aunt, and Nigel Bruce is excellent -- and nearly unrecognizable -- in the character part of an inn owner that is quite different from his Watson in the Sherlock Holmes movies. Certain scenes, such as a bar scene with melancholy songs, are imbued with the brave, sad, hopeless atmosphere of London during the Blitz, and an Air Raid sequence is chilling and well-done.

Verdict: Compelling if imperfect romance. ***.