On Broadway, Mary Martin had made the part her own, but by 1957 she was simply too long in the tooth for it. It was said he became peeved because she had refused his request to sing at a party they had attended, so he left her out of his thoughts from then onwards. Another explanation came from the lady herself. One of them accused her husband, Martin Melcher, of turning it down on her behalf because not enough money was being offered. Thirty year-old Doris would have been perfect, but there are several stories about why she did not get the part. Judy Garland, Doris Day, Audrey Hepburn and even the 47 year-old Ginger Rogers were all tested. Besides, she did not particularly want the job anyway. His first choice was the smoking hot Elizabeth Taylor. Most critics tend to agree with him.Ĭolor filter used for ‘A Cock-eyed Optimist’ and for ‘Bali Ha’i’įor the role of Nellie Forbush he tested virtually every leading lady in Hollywood, regardless of her vocal ability. The filtering both distracted and annoyed most cinema-goers and Logan himself later conceded that it the worst decision of his entire career. Tickets had been sold and it had deadlines to meet. By the time he saw the end results it was too late to re-shoot. He did not expect the filtering to be as extreme as it turned out to be, but again, why he did not test it first with a single tune has never been explained. For those reasons he made the very bad decision to utilize different colored filters (a new invention) during the singing sequences. He was also worried about image quality should the weather on location fluctuate as predicted. A quick test would surely have told him otherwise. Initially, Logan was concerned that the lush Pacific settings might not photograph well in Technicolor. Juanita Hall (‘Bloody Mary’) and Joshua Logan Today, it is still very enjoyable, but it could have been so much more. Unfortunately, Joshua Logan made a bit of a mess of it.
Under different direction, however, it would have made a whole lot more than it did.
The screen version of this record-breaking musical simply had to make money.
In my opinion it contains the best soundtrack of all of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musicals and it was the first to be recorded and released in stereo. The Broadway production of South Pacific ran for 1,925 performances in New York City, and in London it ran for four and a half years.
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