1966 Directed by George Roy Hill
Abner Hale, a rigid and humorless New England missionary, marries the beautiful Jerusha Bromley and takes her to the exotic island kingdom of Hawaii, intent on converting the natives. But the clash between the two cultures is too great and instead of understanding there comes tragedy.
Julie Andrews Max von Sydow Richard Harris Gene Hackman Carroll O'Connor Jocelyne LaGarde Manu Tupou Ted Nobriga Elizabeth Logue John Cullum George Rose Lou Antonio Torin Thatcher Michael Constantine Malcolm Atterbury Elizabeth Cole Diane Sherry Case Heather Menzies Don Doolittle John Harding Lokelani S. Chicarell Dorothy Jeakins Robert Crawford Jr. Robert Oakley Henrik von Sydow Clas S. von Sydow Bertil Werjefelt Bette Midler Wayne Stam
There’s an inverse proportionality between how much I want to visit Hawaii and how much I want to revisit the movie Hawaii 😒
*WAY* too long and boring and ever so problematic. The performances were enough to validate spending three hours watching this and the visuals are breathtaking. If I had to watch it again, I’d definitely want to see it remastered.
Julie Andrews & Jocelyne LaGarde were bright points for me. Von Sydow is actually quite good here too. Just not likable.. at all..
It’s colonialist at best. And it’s not a good look. All white men have is the audacity to think they’re so much better than anyone who doesn’t look like them.
An impressive assemblage of Hollywood talent comes together to make an epic mondo costume drama and thereby get paid. Hawaii was the second-highest grossing film of 1966, and was something of a unique stopping point for quite a lot of people. George Roy Hill, more notable for directing films like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting, leads the way in his only big-budget epic production. Max von Sydow stars in one of his earliest mainstream Hollywood roles. Julie Andrews solidifies her position after bursting onto the scene in the prior two years in Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. Gene Hackman is here in one of his earliest roles. And is that Archie Bunker I spy?…
If you wanted to look at Max von Sydow, Julie Andrews, Richard Harris, and Gene Hackman in their early-to-mid 30s in a super wide Panavision shot epic about 19th century missionaries colonizing Hawaii, then this film has exactly what you're looking for. Hawaii was the highest grossing film of 1966 in North America, an era where the Hollywood of Old was on the death vine, right before the Hollywood of New was about to take off, which probably helps to explain why a film like Hawaii can be the most forgotten #1 film of the box office year, maybe ever?
An epic motion picture which stands head and shoulders above all others, from its opening prologue of the incipient Hawaiian's journey across the Pacific to escape from the cruel gods of Bora Bora to their subsequent enslavement by the pale Haoles from a far off country who steal their land, defile their women, and infect them with terrible diseases, all the while shaming them and their native customs in order to subjugate them to a Christian god who consigns them to Hellfire while simultaneously teaching them of the Christ who died for their sins.
Julie Andrews is unalloyed radiance, love, and forgiveness, while Max Von Sydow epitomizes the flip side of the Calvinist coin which judges his parishioners and finds…
My girlfriend and I are headed to Maui in a week, so this seemed like a convenient way to pop in a few days early. Even though this film got me there two centuries too soon of course. James A. Michener is a name my mom introduced me to quite early in life. She read a ton of his books growing up, losing herself in the episodic chronicles of exotic, faraway places. I only made it through two: “Alaska” and “Mexico”. The former is more representative of his style, a sweeping saga set over millennia that covers the geographical and historical aspects of the region through an ensemble of both historical and fictional characters. It’s revealing that this almost three-hour…
An epic, at least in scope, that probably doesn't need or deserve a third hour. Young Max Von Sydow, Julie Andrews, and Gene Hackman are great, but it's certainly a commitment. I didn't hate the storyline, but it takes so many side tracks that felt unnecessary.
Impressive talents behind Hawaii: Gene Hackman a year away from Bonnie and Clyde... Max Von Sydow two years in Hollywood after his legendary run of Swedish classics with Ingmar Bergman... Richard Harris two years after the groundbreaking This Sporting Life... director George Roy Hill with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid around the corner... screenwriter Dalton Trumbo not long after being blacklisted... and Julie Andrews in her follow-up role from The Sound of Music.
Despite this incredible line-up, Hawaii is at best an admirable effort. Can't fault director Fred Zinnemann for bailing out on Hawaii for A Man For All Seasons.
Great script from Dalton Trumbo really lays into the evils of colonialism, and Max Von Sydow plays one of the biggest pieces of shit ever put onscreen. Not perfect (this is 60s anti-racist film, there's gonna be blind spots) but much better than you'd expect. It's so good at what it does I'm not surprised the studios kicked out the lousy sequel a few years later that runs with the moral "capitalism solves everything".
Boy, it looks like Max von Sydow was on a bit of a high from playing Jesus at this time? Demoted to a reverend, he is nonetheless on a mission to bring the word of God to a civilization that hopefully won't retaliate the same way Rome did. It's practically the first American honeymoon in Hawaii, and the groom is such a stick-in-the-mud that he's managed to turn it into a business trip. He thinks he can lift the Kingdom of Hawaii by spreading Christianity, whereas his new bride thinks she can do the deed with frolicky friendship because, you know, she's Julie Andrews. Thankfully, nobody breaks out in song as Andrews' character begins to bond with these folk, but…
