The Proud and Profane (1956)

"Lee" (Deborah Kerr) travels to the French colony of New Caledonia to do what she can for the war effort and after a brief conversation with her boss "Kate" (Thelma Ritter) we discover that she's gone all that way because her husband was killed at Guadalcanal. She's advised to focus on her nursing responsibilities and not to risk getting involved with any of the soldiers, and that goes fine until she butts heads with "Col. Black" (William Holden). He knew her late husband, or so he tells her, and as she clamours for more information about when, where and how he died the inevitable happens. Of course, we all know that something built on a pack lies isn't going to prove very robust, and as the deceit - and there's plenty of that on both sides as the story advances - is exposed, their relationship faces turmoil and tragedy. It's only when she finally reaches her husband's grave that things are put into true perspective. Might it all be too late by then? Thelma Ritter is always a reliable character actress but she has too little to get her teeth into here to make enough difference to whet is otherwise a rather pedestrian melodrama that neither Kerr nor Holden seem to be able to enliven. Even at their most torrid, their romance comes across as dry as a bone, indeed there's not much likeable about their characters and so I didn't really care what happened to either of them as this frankly quite thin story is stretched out for at least twenty minutes too long and seems contrived to introduce unwelcome baggage at just about every turn. To be fair, it's quite tightly cast and the story remains focussed on the two of them well enough, but I found the whole thing just too soapy and disinteresting.