Today’s Genre-ary DailyView sends us back into the 1950s to one of the classic musicals of all time, South Pacific.

According to IMDB, “On a South Pacific island during World War II, love blooms between a young nurse and a secretive Frenchman who’s being courted for a dangerous military mission.”

It is really two love stories, one with the young nurse Nellie Forbush (Mitzi Gaynor) and the Frenchman Emile (Rossano Brazzi) and the other with Lt. Joseph Cable (John Kerr) and a native girl Liat (France Nuyen). Both relationship, intriguingly enough, are derailed by racism. 

Nellie rejects Emile when she found out the he had had two children with a Polynesian years before, one who was now dead. Cable decided he could not marry Liat because she was a native girl and not white. It may not have been specifically said out loud, but that is absolutely the reason.

That makes me wonder about our main heroes of this romantic musical. I guess this is a product of the 1950s and, sure, both reconsidered their racism eventually (although Cable came around too late), but the idea that their mindsets were appropriate was in the film.

I was surprised when I saw that Ray Walston was in this film, and providing the comedy relief (at least part of the time). He was some of my favorite parts of the film.

Again, there are some very well known classic songs in this musical including “Some Enchanted Evening,” “I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair,” and “There is Nothing Like A Dame.”

It was a little long, but I did like the music and it is always great to see Ray Walston. South Pacific is a classic for a reason, but I did not expect the racism to be a major theme of the story.