| Hawaii | |
|---|---|
.jpg) original 1966 Spanish language film poster | |
| Directed by | George Roy Hill |
| Screenplay by | Daniel Taradash Dalton Trumbo |
| Based on | Hawaii byJames A. Michener |
| Produced by | Walter Mirisch |
| Starring | Julie Andrews Max von Sydow Richard Harris |
| Cinematography | Russell Harlan |
| Edited by | Stuart Gilmore |
| Music by | Elmer Bernstein |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million[1] |
| Box office | $34.5 million[2] |
Hawaii is a 1966 Americanepicdrama film directed byGeorge Roy Hill. It is based onthe eponymous 1959 novel byJames A. Michener. It tells the story of an 1820sdivinity student fromYale University who, accompanied by his new bride, becomes aCalvinist missionary in theHawaiian Islands. It was filmed atOld Sturbridge Village, inSturbridge, Massachusetts, and on the islands ofKauai andOahu inHawaii.
The film was released on October 10, 1966. It received mixed to favorable reviews but was a box-office success. It received seven nominations at the39th Academy Awards, includingBest Supporting Actress (forJocelyne LaGarde).
In 1819, Prince Keoki Kanakoa appeals to theYale Divinity School to bring Christianity to theHawaiian Islands. Among the volunteers is newly ordained Reverend Abner Hale, who is required to be married before embarking on the mission. Reverend Thorn introduces Abner to his young niece, Jerusha Bromley, who is in love with Captain Rafer Hoxworth, a whaler currently away at sea. Believing Hoxworth has forgotten her, Jerusha agrees to marry Abner after a brief courtship.
The couple, along with other missionaries and Keoki, sail toLahaina on the island ofMaui. They are shocked by what they see as the sinful ways of the islanders, including the practice of incest among the royal family. Keoki’s father, Kelolo, is both the husband and biological brother of his mother, Malama Kanakoa, the ruler of the island. This incestuous tradition is meant to preserve the royal bloodline, and Keoki, despite wanting to become a minister, is expected to marry his sister, Noelani, who is next in line to rule.
While other missionaries sail toHonolulu, the Hales remain in Lahaina, living in a grass hut as they work to build a church. Jerusha takes an active role in helping the natives, including efforts to end the practice of infanticide after rescuing a baby with a facial birthmark. After a challenging labor, she gives birth to a son, Micah. During a stopover in one of his whaling voyages, Rafer Hoxworth discovers Jerusha’s marriage to Abner and, filled with jealousy, threatens to kill Abner. Despite the tension, Abner baptizes his first convert, a young Hawaiian girl named Iliki, who was given to the Hales as a servant.
Malama agrees to learn about Christianity but resists conversion, knowing it would require her to send Kelolo away. At the Hales' insistence, Malama imposes a curfew on sailors and forbids them from fraternizing with native women, inciting a riot among the sailors. Hoxworth tries to convince Jerusha to leave with him, but she refuses. When the sailors retaliate by partially burning the church, the Hawaiians come to the Hales’ aid, driving the sailors back to their ships. In a final act of vengeance, Hoxworth entices Iliki to leave the island with him and throws Abner overboard when he attempts to retrieve her. Attacked by a shark, Abner is left permanently lame.
Years later, Abner reveals to Keoki that he will never be ordained as a minister because he is not white, offering him instead the role of deacon to oversee the natives' activities. Keoki refuses, straining their friendship and renouncing Christianity. On her deathbed, Malama agrees to be baptized as a Christian and renounces Kelolo as her husband. As the natives foretold, a strong gale strikes the town and destroys the church upon Malama’s death.
Noelani becomes the new Ali'i Nui and marries Keoki. Abner crashes the wedding, discovering that Malama’s conversion was only for the good of her people. As Kelolo departs forBora Bora with Malama’s heart, Abner prays for divine retribution to punish the natives. When Noelani and Keoki’s child is born severely deformed, Abner sees it as God's punishment and refuses Jerusha’s pleas to save the infant. Keoki drowns the child, and soon after, a measles outbreak devastates the native population, killing hundreds, including Keoki, who dies denouncing God.
Jerusha’s years of toil and childbearing take a toll on her health, leading to her early death. Devastated, Abner becomes more compassionate toward the Hawaiians, even joining them in opposing settlers and plantation owners from seizing more land. When the other ministers vote to profit from the land, Abner refuses and is reassigned to Connecticut. He stays in Hawaii, sending his children to New England. Returning to his hut, Abner is greeted by a young Hawaiian man who wishes to be his assistant. Abner is overjoyed when he realizes the man is the disfigured infant Jerusha had saved from drowning years before.
Bette Midler also had her first on-screen movie appearance as an extra in the film (she can be seen behind a woman covered in a white shawl during Abner's sermon).Heather Menzies (who co-starred with Andrews inThe Sound of Music a year earlier) appears as Jerusha's sister Mercy Bromley. Claes von Sydow and his younger brother Henrik are Max's real-life sons. The film's costume designerDorothy Jeakins makes a credited cameo as the Hales matriarch Hepzibah Hale.
The film was based on the book's third chapter (out of six), entitledFrom the Farm of Bitterness, which covered the settlement of the island kingdom byits first American missionaries.[3] There are some differences between the novel's third chapter and the film, such as Abner, who was already lame at the time they landed in Lahaina, the riots had already started before Malama enforces laws in the Island, Urania Hewlett's difficult childbirth was changed into Jerusha's, Rafer's character was introduced earlier in the novel (before the missionaries landed in Hawaii), and the whistling wind scene was more chaotic in the novel than in the film (several whaling ships sank) and occurred the day after Malama's funeral. Other key scenes (such as Rafer bombarding Lahaina and damaging the Fort and the Mission House) were omitted for the film.
Needing aPolynesian female for the key role of Malama, theAlii Nui, the producers hired a nativeTahitian for the role. French-speakingJocelyne LaGarde had never acted before and could not speak English; however, herscreen test showed a powerful presence, and the producers hired a coach to train herphonetically to handle the character's dialogue. Of theall-star cast, LaGarde would be the only one to earn anAcademy Award nomination and the only one to win aGolden Globe Award. Making early screen appearances in this film wereBette Midler,John Cullum, and future Oscar winnerGene Hackman.
Originally, it was to be directed byFred Zinnemann, and intending to castAudrey Hepburn andAlec Guinness as leads. But Zinnemann had fought withUnited Artists a few years before the film was made and left the production to go to England, to work onA Man for All Seasons. DirectorGeorge Roy Hill was subsequently asked to work on the film, which he agreed to do, and the film became the only epic he directed. To cast the lead roles,Julie Andrews, fresh from her role as thetitular character inMary Poppins, signed in December 1964 whileMax Von Sydow andRichard Harris on February and March 1965 respectively. The film would also feature appearances from Henrik von Sydow and Claes von Sydow, the real sons of star Max von Sydow, who play Abner's son Micah at different ages.
The film was filmed in various locations throughout Oahu in the state of Hawaii, the perfect replica of Lahaina during the 1820s is built on Makua Beach and the surrounding Makua Valley.[4] Despite the Hawaiian setting and filming locations, a significant portion of the props used in the film were imported fromMexico,Taiwan,Ireland,Hong Kong,Japan, and thePhilippines.[5]
Principal photography began in April 1965, on location inOld Sturbridge Village for scenes set inWalpole, New Hampshire and the Hales' farm (interiors were filmed in Hollywood soundstages for seven weeks, along with scenes set in Yale College and on board theThetis). Then on location in the island of Oahu in Hawaii in June. Location filming in Oahu bogged down with heavy rain and tidal wave alerts, which caused the budget to balloon to over $10 million; despite this producer Walter Mirisch sacked Hill as director, and intended to hireArthur Hiller as director. Polynesian extras protested and refused to work with another director, so Hill was hired back. Principal photography ended in November 1965.
Andrews received top billing around the world except in continental Europe, where Sydow's contract stipulated that he receive first and same line billing.[6]
Hawaii had its premiere at theDeMille Theatre in New York City on October 10, 1966. It also opened the same week at theEgyptian Theatre in Los Angeles.[7][8] It expanded into five further cities the following week, including Honolulu, and another three the following week.[9]
The film as originally released ran 189 minutes (including overture, intermission, entr'acte, and exit music). This roadshow version would be issued on VHS andLaserDisc from the best available elements. For general release, this was then subsequently cut by United Artists to 161 minutes and is the version seen on the 2005 DVD release from MGM Home Video (as the best elements suitable for DVD came from the general release). Both versions have been broadcast onTurner Classic Movies andThis TV Network.
On October 9, 2015, Twilight Time Movies announced on the Home Theater Forum that they would release a Blu-ray edition ofHawaii (along withThe Hawaiians) on January 19, 2016.[10]The Hawaiians would be released the next month on February 9, 2016. TheHawaii Blu-ray has both the long and short versions, but the long, original version is in standard definition and not anamorphic widescreen.
The film's critical response was mixed to favorable.Vincent Canby ofThe New York Times wrote that "one comes out the theater not so much moved as numbed — by the cavalcade of conventional if sometimes eyepopping scenes of storm and seascape, of pomp and pestilence, all laid out in large strokes of brilliantDe Luxe color on the huge Panavision screen."[3] Arthur D. Murphy ofVariety stated, "Superior production, acting and direction give depth and credibility to a personal tragedy, set against the clash of two civilizations."[11] Philip K. Scheuer of theLos Angeles Times wrote that even at three hours in length, the filmmakers "still haven't given themselves enough leeway" to adapt Michener's epic novel, but"'Hawaii' will still be one of the outstanding Hollywood pictures of 1966."[12]
Time magazine felt that "Instead of portraying the death of one culture and the birth of another, he [George Roy Hill] has restricted himself to the story of one man and his ministry. The spectator is rather too frequently allowed to feel that he is watching a rather small film on a very large screen and to wonder, with a mounting sense of lumbar crisis, why he must pay advanced prices $2.25 to $4.25) for the privilege of sitting through a3+1⁄2-hour story that could have been told just as well in two."[13]Richard L. Coe ofThe Washington Post found the romance between Abner and Jerusha "more trite than credible" and wrote that Max von Sydow "seems to have based his concept of the leading role on a quick course in Roots of Modern America."[14]Brendan Gill ofThe New Yorker called it "perhaps the biggest empty movie, or the emptiest big movie, ever made. Despite its length and its look of being extremely ambitious, it contains scarcely a single action worth dramatizing."[15]The Monthly Film Bulletin praised the "intelligent and literate" script and "deeply felt performances from the whole cast," but felt "a distinct slackening of interest" after the intermission, as once Malama dies "there is little left except for Jerusha to join her. The real drama is over, and a colorful local wedding hardly compensates for the lack of tension."[16]
The film holds a score of 70% onRotten Tomatoes based on 10 reviews.[17]
After expanding to 10 cities,Hawaii reached number one at the US box office.[18] In its first seven weeks of release, it had grossed $1,545,688.[9] The film grossed $34.5 million in North America, making it thehighest-grossing film of 1966. It went on to earn $15.6 million intheatrical rentals.[19]
| Award | Category | Nominee(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards[20] | Best Supporting Actress | Jocelyne LaGarde | Nominated |
| Best Cinematography – Color | Russell Harlan | Nominated | |
| Best Costume Design – Color | Dorothy Jeakins | Nominated | |
| Best Original Music Score | Elmer Bernstein | Nominated | |
| Best Song | "My Wishing Doll" Music by Elmer Bernstein; Lyrics byMack David | Nominated | |
| Best Sound | Gordon E. Sawyer | Nominated | |
| Best Special Visual Effects | Linwood G. Dunn | Nominated | |
| Golden Globe Awards[21] | Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama | Max von Sydow | Nominated |
| Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture | Jocelyne LaGarde | Won | |
| Best Original Score – Motion Picture | Elmer Bernstein | Won | |
| Laurel Awards | Top Song | "My Wishing Doll" Music by Elmer Bernstein; Lyrics by Mack David | Nominated |
| National Society of Film Critics Awards | Best Actor | Max von Sydow | Nominated |
The film is recognized byAmerican Film Institute in these lists: