Knuckleheads and cockeyed optimists.
Even though it's gargantuan in length, this is actually a "small" screen adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Broadway play. Met with indifference by the critics of the time, it has however come to be loved by many a musical fan. I'm not one of them though...
There's no denying that the songs are superb, mostly top draw, but there are so many irritating issues within. The much discussed colour filters that were used by director Joshua Logan and cinematographer Leon Shamroy, are overkill, trying to supplant whimsy when really a static set can't carry the treatment. Pic is easily 45 minutes too long, thus when the war sequences come so late in the play they feel at odds with what has transpired in the previous 2 hours of film.
Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi as our loved up lovers are polar opposites on character terms, but also in acting skills. She is radiant for the key musical numbers, but her character away from the musical numbers starts to grate the longer the pic goes on. He, well he's as stiff as one of Logan's camera set-ups is. Even some of the dancing choreography comes off as something that was originally thrown away during production discussions.
The tunes carry you through to the end, for they demand to be given our attention, but really this is one musical that I really could never watch again. 5/10