Region: All
MSRP: $21.99
A melodrama of epic scope but smaller emotional dynamics, Victor Savilleâs
Green Dolphin Street displays every bit of its $4 million cost (in 1947 dollars!) on the screen but shortchanges its audience in believable human interactions and interpersonal developments in telling its familiar love triangle narrative set in faraway New Zealand. This MGM extravaganza was an enormous hit in its day, but the story hasnât stood the test of time and serves now as an overlong exercise in patience while admittedly impressing the eye and ear with its multitude of indulgences.
The daughters of wealthy shipping magnate Octavius Patourel (Edmund Gwenn), headstrong Marianne (Lana Turner) and retiring Marguerite (Donna Reed), both fall for the same man, swaggering William Ozanne (Richard Hart). Though his heart belongs to Marguerite, through a series of mischances and unfortunate happenstance, Marianne is the one who shows up in Auckland, New Zealand, to marry him when his proposal is offered. His partner in the timber business Timothy Haslam (Van Heflin), who has always carried a torch for Marianne himself though he didnât have the courage ever to declare his feelings, encourages William to go through with the marriage, and Marianneâs common business sense and uncanny knack for making money brings the partners great fortunes. But the unsettled nature of New Zealand, both in its population and its geography, brings potential ruin to Haslam and Ozanne until Marianne again comes through in a crisis and forges ahead with new plans for them, all the while back home Marguerite must deal with death and disappointment as she searches for meaning in her own life.