Search - Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Not For Children, Substance Abuse Movie Release: 1957 DVD Release: 05/20/2003 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English, French, Spanish Subtitles: English, Spanish SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 1 hrs 46 mins Studio: 20th Century Fox Members Wishing: 10 Genres: Comedy Drama, Romantic Drama, War Drama, Odd Couple Film

A two-person character study directed by John Huston, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison stars Robert Mitchum as a World War II Marine sergeant and Deborah Kerr as a Roman Catholic nun. Both nun and sergeant are marooned on a South Pacific island, hemmed in by surrounding Japanese troops. Mitchum does his best to make the nun's ordeal less painful, but is torn by his growing love for her. Kerr is equally fond of Mitchum, but refuses to renounce her vows. Their unrealized ardor mellows into mutual respect as they struggle to survive before help arrives. Based on a novel by Charles K. Shaw, Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison was coproduced by Eugene Frenke, who later filmed a low-budget variation on the story, The Nun and the Sergeant (62), which starred Frenke's wife Anna Sten. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Deborah Kerr - Sister Angela
Robert Mitchum - Mr. Allison

John Huston's offbeat adventure comedy/drama Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison comes to DVD in a stunning letterboxed transfer (2.35-to-1 aspect ratio) that is so rich in color that it could be used as a demonstration disc for those unpersuaded about the digital disc format. The movie never made it to laserdisc in any configuration, so this is the first real chance that anyone born since the mid-1940's will have had to see it properly, or to appreciate Huston's work, much less that of cinematographer Oswald Morris or composer Georges Auric. For those unfamiliar with the movie, try to think of a work in the same vein as Huston's The African Queen, set a generation closer to the time it was made. Robert Mitchum melts into the role of the Marine trying to avoid capture by the Japanese, and quietly dominates the entire movie. He and Deborah Kerr (playing the nun who ends up accompanying him) are less mannered than Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were in the earlier movie, but just as interesting to watch. The movie has been so well preserved and presented that it's kind of a must-own for fans of the director or of either star, or of war movies. Both of the stars were nominated for Oscars and Mitchum could only have lost because he was up against Alec Guinness in Bridge On The River Kwai that same year. One sorely wishes that Deborah Kerr were in good enough health in 2003, or that Mitchum or Huston were still around to have talked about the movie and the shoot. As it is, the studio has included a few extra features here -- the original trailer plus those for five other movies in the Fox War Classics release cycle for May of 2003 (Sink The Bismarck, The Enemy Below, 13 Rue Madeleine, The Desert Fox, The Blue Max); and a quartet of Fox-Movietone News newsreels dealing with the fighting on Tarawa and Saipan, which is the background against which the movie takes place. All are accessible in a three-layer menu that opens automatically with the "Play" option in the default position on start-up. The 106 minute film has been given 15 chapters, which is adequate given its somewhat episodic nature. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide