NR | 1h 51m | Drama, Romance, War | 1956
“The Proud and Profane” (1956), a World War II romantic drama, unfolds in Nouméa, the capital of the French Special Collective island of Grande Terre, situated in eastern Oceania.
Widow Lee Ashley (Deborah Kerr) arrives at a Red Cross service club on the island. She is met by Kate Connors (Thelma Ritter), the club’s supervisor, but Lee also elicits a chorus of what I term “vocal cues of female admiration”—commonly referred to, albeit derogatorily, as catcalls.
A Widow’s Journey
Lee’s late husband was a Paramarine officer who fought and died in one of the most grueling skirmishes in the Guadalcanal campaign, the Battle of the Bloody Ridge. Today, it’s known by a more sanitized PC title: the Battle of Edson’s Ridge.Kate has seen Lee’s type before: Women who sign up to be stationed at posts near where their husbands perished in order to find out more about how they died. As Lee acclimates to her surroundings, Kate confesses that she nearly turned down Lee’s request to work at the service club, deeming it a selfish decision.
However, after sternly reminding Lee that she’s there to help the men who are still alive, Kate agrees to teach them French lessons and provide solace to the wounded returning from the frontlines, predominantly from Guadalcanal.
Lee appears uneasy being in close proximity to the wounded men, who arrive by boat on gurneys, limping, or just in a daze from battle fatigue. Kate helps her adapt to her new role and takes her to a beach house with a stunning bay view to alleviate stress. It’s there that Lee encounters Lt. Col. Colin Black (William Holden), a rugged Marine officer who claims to have served alongside her husband.
As the commander of a Marine Raider unit engaged in frequent combat against Japanese forces, Black believes the duties the Red Cross women perform are detrimental to the men’s combat readiness. From his perspective, it makes the men too emotionally sensitive and is akin to babying them.
In a particularly amusing scene, Black is lecturing Kate on the distractions posed by the women she supervises. However, his tone shifts abruptly when he spots Lee sunbathing on the beach through a pair of binoculars. Suddenly, the hardened Marine officer becomes curious about Lee and his tough exterior appears to soften. Thus begins his pursuit of Lee, who at first coldly rebuffs his advances.
Gritty Dialogue and Humor
Realistic dialogue is often missing in modern World War II movies. The authenticity here can be credited to the proximity of Golden Age Hollywood films to the actual war, which enabled input and guidance from veterans.For example, consider the conversation between Kate and a badly wounded serviceman whose entire face is concealed by bandages. Her playful banter is intended to uplift him while injecting a touch of humor to humanize his return from the frontlines:
Kate (offering a cigarette): “Have a cigarette?”
Serviceman: “No thanks, ma’am.”
Kate: “What happened? You shaved too close this morning?”
Serviceman: “Yeah … and I had a Jap barber.”
As expected of the master-level actor, Holden delivers a stellar performance as the no-nonsense, pragmatic Lt. Col. Black. His character’s romantic advances toward Lee unfold less in terms of emotion and more like stages of a military strategy. At times, he advances. At others, he executes tactical withdrawals. He even employs occasional ruses to draw in his target.
Kerr delivers an exceptional performance as a sensitive woman grappling with depression, who has erected her own barriers to guard herself from the men around her. It’s intriguing to see whether Black can successfully establish a beachhead on her self-imposed island of isolation.
It’s also compelling to discern whether Black’s intentions are merely conquest-driven or if he actually harbors an attraction to Lee beyond the physical.
