'Green Dolphin Street' is set in the early Victorian era and features two unusual backgrounds for Hollywood films, New Zealand and the Channel Islands. (Contrary to what some have thought, 'St Pierre' is not in France, but rather in the British-ruled Channel Islands, although the model for the offshore nunnery was clearly Mont-St-Michel in Normandy). The plot centers around two sisters, Marianne and Marguerite, who are both in love with the same man, William. (An added complication is that the girls' mother, in her youth, was in love with William's father, but they were prevented from marrying by the opposition of her parents).

William himself loves Marguerite; indeed, he seems to be unaware that Marianne is in love with him. He persuades the girls' wealthy and influential father to help him to obtain a commission in the Royal Navy. He is, however, a feckless young man and a heavy drinker, and, after getting drunk and missing his ship while in China, deserts from the navy and flees to New Zealand. He meets Timothy, another Channel Islander and fellow-fugitive from justice who has killed a man in a brawl. Timothy is now running a logging business in a remote area of the North Island with the help of Maori workers, and invites William to assist him in his business. The business prospers, and William writes to Marguerite's father, asking for the hand of his daughter in marriage. Unfortunately, he is drunk at the time he writes the letter, and inadvertently writes 'Marianne' rather than 'Marguerite'. Marianne, delighted to think her love is returned, sets off for New Zealand to marry him.

In some respects, 'Green Dolphin Street' is a standard costume drama of its period, a combination of a Jane Austen-style drawing-room romance and an epic of the British Empire. The acting is neither particularly distinguished nor particularly bad. Nevertheless, it has a few interesting features. An earthquake hits the logging camp, and this scene can still generate tension even today, as the special effects are surprisingly well done for a film of this period. The characters are well-drawn and undergo genuine development; the feckless William becomes a more responsible character and comes to appreciate the finer qualities of the wife he has married by mistake. Timothy, a wild character in his youth, also matures. He is himself secretly in love with Marianne, but keeps this a secret as he believes she will be happier with William. (Unlike many of the white settlers, he admires the native Maori population and befriends them rather than treating them with contempt). Marianne, headstrong and determined but capable of sincere love, plays an important role in her husband's success. Back in St Pierre, Marguerite, originally a rather spoiled young woman, develops a religious vocation and enters a nunnery. (The film has a strong, specifically Catholic, religious atmosphere). This is a film that has stayed watchable. 6/10.

There are a couple of errors that I spotted. The ship's captain talks of having seen a flightless bird larger than an ostrich in New Zealand. This is presumably a reference to the moa, but this bird was already extinct before Europeans first landed in the country. It seems strange that William and Timothy, both fugitives from British justice, should think themselves safe in New Zealand, where they live quite openly under their real names. The country was, after all, a British colony at the time, and they could presumably have been arrested by the local authorities and extradited to Britain.

This is a gorgeous film to look at, and like the previous decade's "San Francisco", is best remembered for a powerful earthquake sequence. But the soap opera storyline has got to be seen to be believed, and it all surrounds the children of former lovers Frank Morgan and Gladys Cooper, reunited years later as neighbors, he a widower with a grown son and she married (to Edmund Gwenn) with two daughters. The two girls both fall in love with the son (Richard Hart),a brooding young man who thanks to Gwenn becomes an officer in the Imperial Navy and an accidental deserter thanks apparently to some rice wine given to him by a Eurasian girl he meets while in China. Now a drunk like his father, he settles in New Zealand, and sends a letter to his love, accidentally putting in her sister's name. When she shows up ready for marriage, he feels guilty and goes through with it, causing a situation he will have to face years later when the sisters are reunited.

This is almost a "Gone With the Wind" of the south of the equator as two completely different women, one willful (Lana Turner),the other sweet (Donna Reed, seeming very much like Olivia de Havilland) love the same man and go through tons of heartache. Reed is ready to do what her mother once almost did, jump off a cliff, but the Mother Superior (Dame May Witty) who once prevented Cooper from doing the same thing steps in once again, giving Reed a book that will change her life. In New Zealand, a pregnant Turner goes through one of the wildest on-screen earthquakes, later deals with her husband's partner (Van Heflin) who obviously loves her, and stands tall through a rebellion by native New Zealanders who are not about to be ruled by the British.

Everybody does their best to help this film rise above it silly over-the-top story, which will keep your attention because of its delightful attention to detail. The earthquake itself is one of the boldest sequences ever in film, and the flood that follows devastating, especially considering recent events with tidal waves and tsunamis which have caused world devastation. Still, there is a feeling of too much of a good thing as it strives too hard to cover too much territory, pretty much a retread of "The Rains Came" which ironically was remade by Turner as "The Rains of Ranchipur".

Green Dolphin Street was MGM's big blockbuster film of 1947 the year I made my earthly debut. Why MGM didn't bother with some color for this one is beyond me, it might have elevated it a star or two higher in the ratings.

Like Gone With the Wind it concerns the lives of four people, two sisters, the romantic Donna Reed and the more practical Lana Turner and the men that loved them, Richard Hart and Van Heflin. Only in this one Scarlett actually marries her Ashley and Rhett Butler kind of fades away before the finale.

Richard Hart is the Ashley Wilkes of the piece, the somewhat spoiled son of Frank Morgan living on St. Pierre one of the Channel Islands. He's a weak character who goes between sisters Donna Reed and Lana Turner. A Freudian slip of a pen while writing a letter in a state of intoxication has him send for Lana instead of Donna. By now Hart has arrived in New Zealand which is in its colonial period. Another refugee is Van Heflin from the same island who's the strong and adventurous Rhett Butler.

Green Dolphin Street is the only film I know made in Hollywood that ever dealt with New Zealand so it is of some curiosity. It won the special effects Oscar that year for its depiction of an earthquake and a tidal wave. Oddly enough the name of the ship that brought all these folks to New Zealand is the Green Dolphin and a sequence where it is swamped by a tidal wave was cut from the film. And it still won the special effects Oscar.

But viewers this isn't Gone With the Wind though it has pretenses. It also depicts the wars with the Maori which were every bit as bloody as the American Indian wars. I wish some Kiwis could see this film and write their impressions of it.