Honolulu Baby

This is as racy as A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG gets, in 1967 — married Marlon/Ogden spends the night — sleeping — in a single bed beside Sophia’s. And is then awoken in startlement by that damned buzzer again.

He now has to rush about, like one in a “Keystone farce comedy,” getting out of that bed and putting Patrick Cargill in it, since Cargill is supposed to be Mr. Loren. And, quite amusingly, he seems to lose the power of speech, communicating with Cargill by franticness alone, with chivvying gestures and only the rustling of silk pyjamas as soundtrack. The silent era rises from a slumber far longer than Ogden’s.

Quite a nice performance from the steward who is — perhaps excessively — freaked out by Cargill still behaving as a valet to his spouse. A shame though that it wasn’t Chaplin again playing this role.

And then the shock of actual blue sky! Location footage! Oxygen and sunlight and exhaust fumes! Alien phenomena for the past 84 hours this film has been trundling on for. Honolulu appears courtesy of either second unit or sheer stock footage, with a documentary reality to it that’s somewhat bracing. An image with no directorial personality to it whatsoever somehow becomes the most surprising thing we’ve seen, equivalent to the blinking eye in LA JETEE.

Now the Captain (John Paul, recovered from being broken on the wheel earlier this week) arrives with the bad news that, without papers, Sophia cannot get off at Honolulu (No exteriors for you, Sophia!) and the marriage to Cargill is null and void, which we all think it would be anyway.

So Sophia quick-changes into Hawaian drag and dives into the harbour, still without leaving the studio. Her emergence, soaking wet and somehow retaining her strapless dress by sheer force of voluptuousness is not quite as eye-popping as the wet shirt routine she pulls in BOY ON A DOLPHIN but it’s spectacular nonetheless. The background is grainy rear projection and the water was the studio tank at Pinewood (“There’s dysentery in every ripple” ~ Noel Coward).

But just before that happens, the very late-in-the-day guest star turns up — Tippi Hedren, in a nothing role which repeats that of the queen in A KING IN NEW YORK. No real drama to work with. But Hedren at least had a better time here than with Hitchcock, and looks happy to be free of her golden handcuffs.

It’s late, I’ll stop there. The film seems to be getting longer: I thought I had 17 minutes to go but it’s turned out to be 27. But now there’s only 19. One day, this film will end.

TO BE CONTINUED