Watch Until They Sail For Free

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Great Film overall

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

wonderful filmThe cast is incredibly attractive. You have Joan Fontaine, Jean Simmons, Sandra Dee all in beautiful black and white. People look so much better in black and white, as it evens the skin tone. Probably a provocative movie in its day, and Michener sure has a way of weaving a story around history. The people are so pretty in this movie, and their voices are so nice too. Love to see a young Paul Newman, he is a very feminine, very unusual man. I don't see movies that cover this much in 90 minutes now. I feel as if films today are afraid to cover ground too fast, and that the art of cinema has become overemphasized over storytelling, which this movie does rather well.

Very good Paul Newman about the effect that war has on people's lives as they try to cope with their loneliness due to separation.It was a great ensemble cast with Newman and Jean Simmons (Oscar nominations for The Happy Ending and Hamlet), Joan Fontaine (Oscar for Suspicion, and nominations for Rebecca and The Constant Nymph), Piper Laurie (Oscar nominations for Carrie, Children of a Lesser God, The Hustler), and Sandra Dee.For a 1957 film, it really took on issues such as infidelity and illegitimate children and the casualness of sex during wartime.Newman was great as the officer charged with investigating girls who soldiers wanted to marry and take back home. He played a character very familiar in his films - one that had a close relationship with the bottle.

This film was written by famous writer James Michener and also a very famous director Robert Wise along with a great cast of actors who made this into a great 1957 Classic to view and enjoy. The story revolves around sister's who live in New Zealand during the war and most of the men have gone into the service of their country and left a small town without any men and strictly women. As the war continues, these women seek men and when the United States troops arrive in New Zealand many women want to get married, some have babies out of wedlock and the war upsets the morals of all men and women in this small town. Jean Simmons, (Barbara Leslie Forbes); Joan Fontaine Anne Leslie and Sandra Dee, (Evelyn Leslie) are all sisters, some married and some simply living with one man after another. Sanda Dee plays the role of the baby sister in her teens who also begins to fall in love. Paul Newman, (Capt. Richard Bates) has a great interest in Barbara Leslie after her husband is killed, but he will not commit himself to her and is really afraid to start a relationship because he has to fight in the Pacific against the Japanese Government. This is a very emotional film and shows the horrors of war and the suffering it causes men and women. Enjoy.

Literate, well-acted, depressing story of the effects of wartime upon a family of six (parents and four daughters) in Christchurch New Zealand.For some reason, the four New Zealand daughters are played by two Englishwomen (Joan Fontaine and Jean Simmons) and two Americans (Piper Laurie and Sandra Dee). The casting of the Englishwomen at least marks a contrast with the Americans soldiers - the casting of the Americans as daughters is just terribly strange - particularly Sandra Dee who only sometimes attempts some kind of accent. (One's left to wonder why more plausible English actresses such as Barbara Steele or Dana Wynter weren't cast).**** SPOILERS **** The family's losses are staggering. Both parents, one of the two husbands of the four daughters, one daughter's fiancé, and one sister killed by the other husband -- all dead on separate occasions. You begin to feel that these daughters have the mark of death upon them - anyone they touch -- will be killed. And this makes for a very dark story.In addition to the actual deaths, one sees the deaths of the moral ideals of the four girls. Unfortunately, it is not really made clear why this is so - except that "the men have been away for X months". That's the only explanation. And the viewer thinks, well, so? If the men were home, then, uh, what? Presumably the film means that if they were home, the girls would not be dying of their lusts -- but why? This central theme of the film is simply odd. There just isn't an explanation of why the women MUST have sex in X months despite the vows some took to God and before all those they knew, to remain faithful until their deaths.It's a dark film in a number of ways. The four daughters seem to know or care for no one outside their own family.There is no larger society of which they are a part -- no aunts, no friends, no uncles, no cousins, no bosses or former bosses, no co-workers, no neighbors, to ease loneliness, participate in social functions, see films and plays, play cards, etc. No one.And in apparent result, two of the three surviving daughters leave the country permanently.So the happy family of six in New Zealand becomes by the end of the film -- a single person remaining in the entire country. It's as if some bomb had hit the family.The film is very muted, worried, fraught with usually untold dreary unhappiness. Yet it's a well-made film -- Joan Fontaine, Piper Laurie, and Jean Simmons (and Paul Newman as her suitor) are particularly fine.So, I can't say I particularly recommend it - but it's not bad if you're feeling you need to come down from some over-ebullient mood.