Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Encyclopedia
Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is a 1957 CinemaScope
CinemaScope
CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

 film which tells the story of two people stranded on an island in the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

The movie was adapted by John Huston
John Huston
John Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...

 and John Lee Mahin
John Lee Mahin
John Lee Mahin was a prolific screenwriter and producer. He was the son of John Lee Mahin, Sr. , a Chicago newspaper and advertising man, and Julia Graham Snitzler....

 from the novel by Charles Shaw
Charles Shaw (writer)
Charles Herbert Shaw was an Australian journalist and novelist.Shaw was born in South Melbourne, Victoria. During the Depression years he held a variety of jobs in the countryside and his interest in writing led him to work at a newspaper in Forbes, New South Wales...

 and directed by Huston. It was nominated for Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

 (Deborah Kerr) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

Plot

In the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...

 in 1944, U.S. Marine
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 Corporal
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....

 Allison (Robert Mitchum
Robert Mitchum
Robert Charles Durman Mitchum was an American film actor, author, composer and singer and is #23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male American screen legends of all time...

) and his reconnaissance party had been in the process of disembarking from a U.S. Navy submarine when they were discovered and fired upon by the Japanese
Imperial Japanese Army
-Foundation:During the Meiji Restoration, the military forces loyal to the Emperor were samurai drawn primarily from the loyalist feudal domains of Satsuma and Chōshū...

. The submarine's captain was forced to dive and leave the scouting team behind. Allison got to a rubber raft and after days adrift, reaches an island. He finds an abandoned settlement and a chapel with one occupant: Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr, CBE was a Scottish film and television actress from Glasgow. She won the Sarah Siddons Award for her Chicago performance as Laura Reynolds in Tea and Sympathy, a role which she originated on Broadway, a Golden Globe Award for the motion picture The King and I, and was a three-time...

), a novice nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...

 who has not yet taken her final vows. She herself has been on the island for only four days; she came with an elderly priest to evacuate another clergyman, only to find the Japanese had gotten there first. The frightened natives who had brought them to the island left the pair without warning, and the priest died soon after.

For a while, they have the island to themselves, but then a detachment of Japanese troops arrives to set up a meteorological camp, forcing them to hide in a cave. When Sister Angela is unable to stomach the fish Allison has caught, he sneaks into the Japanese camp for supplies, narrowly avoiding detection. That night, they see flashes from naval guns being fired in a sea battle over the horizon.

The Japanese unexpectedly leave the island, and in both celebration and frustration, Allison gets drunk on some sake left behind. He blurts out that he loves Sister Angela and that he considers her devotion to her vows to be pointless, since they are stuck on the island "like Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve
Adam and Eve were, according to the Genesis creation narratives, the first human couple to inhabit Earth, created by YHWH, the God of the ancient Hebrews...

." She runs out into a tropical rain and falls ill as a result; Allison, now sober and contrite, finds her shivering with chills. He carries her back, but sees that the Japanese have returned, forcing them to retreat to the cave again. Allison sneaks into the Japanese camp to get some blankets for her, but has to kill a soldier who discovers him in the act, which alerts the enemy to his presence. In an effort to force him out into the open, the Japanese set fire to the vegetation.

When a Japanese soldier finds the cave, Allison and Sister Angela are left with two choices: surrender or die from a hand grenade
Hand grenade
A hand grenade is any small bomb that can be thrown by hand. Hand grenades are classified into three categories, explosive grenades, chemical and gas grenades. Explosive grenades are the most commonly used in modern warfare, and are designed to detonate after impact or after a set amount of time...

 thrown inside. However, the ensuing explosion is not a grenade, but a bomb; the Americans have begun attacking the island in preparation for a landing
Amphibious warfare
Amphibious warfare is the use of naval firepower, logistics and strategy to project military power ashore. In previous eras it stood as the primary method of delivering troops to non-contiguous enemy-held terrain...

. Allison comments that the landing will not be an easy one because when they returned, the Japanese brought with them four artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...

 pieces
Howitzer
A howitzer is a type of artillery piece characterized by a relatively short barrel and the use of comparatively small propellant charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories, with a steep angle of descent...

 whose positions are well-concealed.

In what he attributes to a message from God, Allison comes up with the idea to disable the artillery during the barrage that will precede the American assault, while the Japanese are still in their bunkers. He is wounded, but manages to sabotage all the guns by removing their breeches
Breech-loading weapon
A breech-loading weapon is a firearm in which the cartridge or shell is inserted or loaded into a chamber integral to the rear portion of a barrel....

, saving many American lives.

After the successful assault, Allison and Sister Angela say their goodbyes. He has reconciled himself to her dedication to Christ and she reassures him that they will always be close "companions", as Allison is carried down the hill on a stretcher.

Production

The movie was filmed in Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

 allowing Huston and Fox to use blocked funds in the UK, receive British film finance and qualify for the Eady Levy
Eady levy
The Eady Levy was a tax on box office receipts in the United Kingdom, intended to support the British film industry and named for Sir Wilfred Eady. It was established in 1957 and terminated in 1985.- Background :...

. The film was set later in the war than the novel that had Allison escaping from the Battle of Corregidor
Battle of Corregidor
The Battle for Corregidor was the culmination of the Japanese campaign for the conquest of the Philippines. The fall of Bataan on 9 April 1942 ended all organized opposition by the U.S...

. In the film, the Allies are on the offensive and U.S. Marines capture the island.

The screenplay compares the rituals and commitment of the Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

 and the United States Marine Corps
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

. The National Legion of Decency
National Legion of Decency
The National Legion of Decency was an organization dedicated to identifying and combating objectionable content, from the point of view of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, in motion pictures...

 monitored the production of the film closely, sending a representative to watch the filming; knowing this, Kerr and Mitchum deliberately ad-libbed a scene (not included in the final print), in which their characters wildly kissed and grabbed at each other.

The Marines provided troops for the invasion climax. Six Japanese living in Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 played some of the leading Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese characters, while Chinese
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

from the laundries and restaurants of Trinidad and Tobago filled out the rest of the Japanese soldiers.

External links

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