Hawaii

Released by: Twilight Time
Released on: January 19, 2016
Directed by: George Roy Hill
Cast: Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow, Julie Andrews, Gene Hackman, Richard Harris, Carroll O'Connor, Michael Constantine, John Cullum, Elizabeth Logue, Bette Midler
Year: 1966
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The Movie:

James Albert Michener was born sometime in early 1907 in or around Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Nothing is known about his parents, who deserted him as an infant; he was adopted by a Quaker, Mabel Michener, but distressed by his limited opportunities at home, he ran away while in his teens. Regardless, he graduated from high school and went on to college, where he earned multiple degrees. He later became a writer and editor and served as a naval historian during World War II, at which time he wrote many of the works published in the collection Tales of the South Pacific (1948), a reference to where he was stationed from 1944 to 1946. The collection won a Pulitzer Prize and was optioned by Rodgers and Hammerstein for adaptation to the stage; their play, South Pacific, debuted in 1949 and was wildly successful, leading to a cinematic adaptation in 1958.

Buoyed by the critical and commercial success of his first book, Michener continued to write. He followed Tales of the South Pacific with a series of epic literary works, including The Bridges at Toko-ri (1953), Sayonara (1954), The Drifters (1971), Chesapeake (1978), and Texas (1985), along with many others. Among his most famous works was Hawaii, first published in 1959. It told the tale of the Hawaiian Islands from their fiery birth to the present day through a series of episodic chapters, each telling a different story in the island chain's history. Chapter Three, titled “From the Farm of Bitterness,” dealt with the coming of the first Christian missionaries in the 1800s, Calvinists who sought to influence the native peoples' cultures and beliefs. The book was a hit with the masses, and it wasn't long before Hollywood again came knocking on Michener's door. The very next year, producer Walter Mirisch optioned the film rights and offered the property to director Fred Zinnemann (From Here to Eternity, 1953). When Zinnemann bowed out after a disagreement with Mirisch and fled to England to oversee A Man for All Seasons (1966), Hawaii found a new home with George Roy Hill (The World of Henry Orient, 1964), who saw it through conception to final production.

Cast in the lead roles were popular actors Max von Sydow (The Virgin Spring, 1960) and Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins, 1964). The original cut of the film clocked in at a whopping 189 minutes, but distributor United Artists deemed this cut too long for average theatergoers and excised 27 minutes, resulting in a more viable 162-minute version. Made on a fairly massive $15 million budget, the film grossed almost $35 million in worldwide theatrical bookings, making it the most successful film of 1966 (despite an inexplicable reputation today that it tanked at the box office). The film was so successful, in fact, that it spawned a sequel starring Charlton Heston, The Hawaiians, four years later.

In the 1820s, Yale Divinity School graduate Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) travels to the Hawaiian Islands to tell the peaceful natives all about Jesus. Accompanying him is his new bride, Jerusha (Julie Andrews). She married him just before the trip, giving up on her true love, sailor Rafer Hoxworth (Richard Harris) after not hearing "boo" from him for three years. While the sweet-natured Jerusha blends in quickly with the locals, hard-ass Calvinist Abner, with the support of the Hawaiian queen (Jocelyne LaGarde), pressures the peaceful Hawaiians to destroy their pagan idols, cover their breasts, and stop marrying their brothers and sisters. Years go by. Rafer shows up and is rejected by Jerusha. Sailors burn down Abner's church to protest his opposition to sexy-time between them and the native women. Jerusha has three sons. More white people move to the island paradise, bringing with them their commercialism and their measles. Some main characters die. The whole thing wraps up with a low-key, bittersweet finale three hours after the opening credits.

Unfortunately, even in its shortened version, Hawaii's length works against it. There's simply too little story to stretch the film's framework out to such an extended duration. Some passages are redundant, and the interpersonal relationships, despite ample time in which to develop them, are not as fully rounded as they should be. If anything, the man-against-man strife is a bit overripe and predictable. None of this means that Hawaii is a bad film, however. Working in its favor are some terrific performances, particularly from Sydow, Hackman, Harris, and O'Connor. But the film's real draw is not an actor, a character, or the story: it's the setting, as well as the sterling cinematography from Russell Harlan that brings that setting to life. Hawaii isn't simply a backdrop, a place where the action unfolds; it's the entity around which everything else in the film revolves. Without its bravura location work, Hawaii would be just another overlong period soap opera; as it stands now, however, it's a seminal work in many respects, a composition of visual and aural art painted in broad strokes that are appealing nonetheless.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Twilight Time brings Mirisch's epic Hawaii to Blu-ray in 1080p high-definition with an MPEG-4 AVC encode. The film is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 2.35:1, and included on the BD are both the 162-minute and the 189-minute cuts. The 162-minute theatrical version does not come without issues, unfortunately. The transfer shows some general softness of the image. Quite frankly, contours lack detail. Given the beautiful outdoor locations, the film should look pristine, stunning, and fully detailed on Blu. For the most part it isn't, though there are a few occasions when it comes to life. Part of the problem appears to have been the use of noise-reduction software, at least in spots. And colors look good but not great in a film where each appears to have been hand-selected to make the film pop off the big screen. Grain is not as pleasing and organic as it should be, though this problem pops up more often at night or in darker interiors than it does during daylight exteriors, and there are instances of dirt and debris, though these are largely managed and not particularly detrimental to the overall presentation.

The film's soundtrack comes in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono, just as purists would want, and it's a surprisingly strong presentation with a great deal of depth. The score by Elmer Bernstein is nicely rendered in isolation on both cuts in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. There are no issues to report with either track, thankfully.

The Roadshow version of the film is placed on the disc as an extra in non-anamorphic standard definition, which means that it comes surrounded by black bars on all sides and is betrayed by a lower-quality image than that of the hi-def, shortened cut. Even worse, video dropout on a few occasions suggest that the source wasn't even film. One has to wonder why Twilight Time didn't utilize seamless branching to avoid the lower quality of this second version. The company used a 50GB disc with few extras to house the twin features. Even had the missing footage contained in the longer cut never been given a hi-def transfer, that footage upscaled in hi-def as part of the alternate theatrical cut would have been preferable to what we get. And speaking of the missing footage, it really doesn't add much to the film, so unless you're dying to watch both films back to back for comparison purposes, go with the more common theatrical release edition.

In addition to the original Roadshow version, Twilight Time has also seen fit to include the film's original theatrical trailer (3:05) and beautifully written liner notes from the incomparable Julie Kirgo.

The Final Word:

Hawaii may not be a masterpiece, but some good performances, sterling cinematography, and an exultant score raise it to the level of film art regardless. The Blu-ray presentation may be problematic—the image is stronger than the previous DVD release, though it pales in comparison to other films of the same period released in the format—but the offer of both versions in one package should be attractive to the film's fans.

Christopher Workman is a freelance writer, film critic, and co-author (with Troy Howarth) of the Tome of Terror horror film review series. Volume 2 of that series (covering the 1930s) is currently available from Midnight Marquee Press, Inc.

Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!