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The Blue Lagoon (1949 film)

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2.8/5
Amazon

Genre
  
Adventure, Drama, Romance

Duration
  

Country
  
United Kingdom

6.8/10
IMDb

Director
  
Frank Launder

Music director
  
Clifton Parker

Language
  
English

The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) movie poster

Writer
  
Henry De Vere Stacpoole
,
Michael Hogan
,
Frank Launder

Release date
  
1 October 1949 (1949-10-01)

Screenplay
  
Frank Launder, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, Michael Hogan, John Baines

Cast
  
Jean Simmons
(Emmeline Foster),
Donald Houston
(Michael Reynolds),
Noel Purcell
(Paddy Button),
Cyril Cusack
(James Carter),
James Hayter
(Dr Murdock),
Susan Stranks
(EmmelineAs A Child)

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The Blue Lagoon is a 1949 British romance and adventure film produced and directed by Frank Launder, starring Jean Simmons and Donald Houston. The screenplay was adapted by John Baines, Michael Hogan and Frank Launder from the novel The Blue Lagoon by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. The original music score was composed by Clifton Parker and the cinematography was by Geoffrey Unsworth.

Contents

The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) movie scenes

The film tells the story of two young children shipwrecked on a tropical island paradise in the South Pacific. Emotional feelings and physical changes arise as they grow to maturity and fall in love. The film has major thematic similarities to the Biblical account about Adam and Eve.

The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) the blue lagoon 1949 dvd jean simmons Narkover

Plot

The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) THE BLUE LAGOON MOVIE POSTER JEAN SIMMONS 1949 LINENBACKED 14x36

In the late Victorian period, 1891, Emmeline Foster and Michael Reynolds, two British children, are the survivors of a shipwreck in the South Pacific. After days afloat, they are marooned on a lush tropical island in the company of kindly old sailor Paddy Button. Eventually, Paddy dies in a drunken binge, leaving Emmeline and Michael all alone with each other. Together, they survive solely on their resourcefulness, and the bounty of their remote paradise.

8 Years later, Emmeline and Michael become tanned, athletic and nubile young adults. Eventually, their relationship, more along the lines of brother and sister in their youth, blossoms into love, and then passion. Emmeline and Michael have a baby boy, and they live together as common-law husband and wife, content in their solitude. But their marriage is threatened by the arrival of two evil traders, who force the child to dive for pearls at gunpoint, before killing each other off.

Emmeline is reminded of the outside world and wants to leave the island. She fears for the child if she and Michael should die, and begins to think of his future. Michael finally gives in to her pleading and they pack a small boat and leave the island. But becalmed in the middle of the ocean, they succumb to exposure. They are found by a British ship, but the film leaves their fate ambiguous.

Background and production

  • The film was a remake of a black and white silent film shot in the United Kingdom in 1923, not long after the publication of the Henry De Vere Stacpoole novel on which it was based. The 1923 version was directed by W. Bowden and Dick Cruickshanks, starring Molly Adair and Dick Cruickshanks.
  • Donald Houston was selected over 5,000 applicants, 100 of whom were screen tested.

    • Herbert Wilcox bought the rights to the novel in 1935. However he did not make the film and sold them to Frank Laundner. The film was going to be made before the war but was called off when war broke out.

  • The evil traders were invented for this film and are not part of the novel.
  • The film was shot on location in Fiji, Yasawa Islands, and at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England.

    • Reception

    The film was the seventh most popular movie at the British box office in 1949.

    Other versions and sequel

  • The film was remade in 1980 starring Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins. The updated version of The Blue Lagoon, directed by Randal Kleiser, was much closer to the spirit of the novel for it included nudity and sexual content, although not as much as the book.
  • The updated version was followed in 1991 by the sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon, starring Milla Jovovich and Brian Krause. Although the sequel bears a strong similarity to the 1980 film, it bears very little resemblance to Stacpoole's sequel, The Garden of God. The pearl-greedy traders do not appear in Stacpoole's original novel. However, in Stacpoole's third book, The Gates of Morning, a pair of sailors attack the people of a nearby island for pearls after seeing a woman wearing a double pearl hair ornament, as Emmeline does in the 1949 film.
  • A "contemporary remake" of The Blue Lagoon was made for television in 2012. Called Blue Lagoon: The Awakening, it depicts two contemporary teenagers (played by Indiana Evans (Emmaline Robinson) and Brenton Thwaites (Dean McCullen)). The male lead from the 1980 film, Christopher Atkins appears in this film as one of the teachers on the ship-borne field trip where Emma and Dean are lost at sea and end up on an island. This film is available on DVD.

    • The blue lagoon 1949 pt 1 of 10 hq wmv


    The blue lagoon 1949 pt 4 of 10 hq wmv


    References

    The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA

    The Blue Lagoon (1949 film) IMDbThe Blue Lagoon (1949 film) Amazon.comThe Blue Lagoon (1949 film) themoviedb.org