South Pacific

An American unit stationed on a Pacific island during the Second World War. The nurse Nellie falls in love with Emile, a French planter living there, and pulls back when she learns he has children from an earlier marriage. At the same time a young lieutenant runs into the same wall over his relationship with an islander. The subject is not love but the fact that racism is taught. The song at the centre of the film says so plainly: you have to be carefully instructed to hate. Rodgers and Hammerstein refused when asked to cut it. The form is the large-scale musical: wide screen, real island locations and long song sequences. But the film's most contested choice is colour. The director Joshua Logan used filters that change the colour of the screen during the songs, so the image turns pink, yellow or green mid-scene. The decision was harshly criticised then and since, and Logan expressed regret. The production won the Oscar for sound. Mitzi Gaynor plays Nellie, and Rossano Brazzi's singing was dubbed by another performer. Who it is for: viewers who like classical Broadway musicals and big-production song sequences. Who it is not for: anyone with no patience for the colour filters; that choice is the most tiring thing about the film today.