What's wrong with this movie? I'll tell you!
It's not the uninspired casting (Mitzi Gaynor, star of a handful of B-musicals in the early 50's lands THE plum musical role of the decade? John Kerr? Dubbed?), nor is it those corny color filters that appear at the drop of a song cue to blur and negate the gorgeous location photography. The excessive use of close-up tends to be somewhat oppressive but is not fatal,and it's not the draggy screenplay that retains all of the stage dialogue and then some, but we're getting warmer. It is the fact that the powers that be re-arranged the order of what had been the opening scene on stage so that it appears 37 minutes into the film, there by destroying what had been the perfect example of how to write an engaging book musical in mid-century America.
On stage we meet Nellie and Emile at the top of the show. They play a beautifully written scene that contains the hit song from a maginificent score (one reviewer of the stage play said that the eleven o'clock numbers started at 8:05 and kept coming), he proposes marriage to her and admits to killing a man, she leaves the stage dazed and confused and two half-caste children appear and call Emile "Papa! Papa!", then BOOM! - this information is ignored for the next hour as we are left to contemplate how the young nurse from Arkansas will react to being the instant mother of two non-Caucasian children. Then BAM! we are on the beach, meeting Bloody Mary, Luther Billis and Lt. Joe Cable who introduce a whole new batch of songs including the second big hit from the show, "Bali Hai". Wonderful structure, excellent playwriting.
In the film, after some gorgeous Todd-AO shots of various island locations, we are suddenly in a plane, dirty and dingy, with some military men discussing a secret msiion. Huh? Next we movie to that beach crowded with some horny CB's and, oh, yeah, the leading lady jogs by, just one of about twenty pretty nuirses, and she picks up her laundry. Well I guess she showers and changes pretty quickly because in the very next scene (which takes place maybe 12 minutes later, she - you guessed it - has finished eating lunch and strolls on screen in what had been the opening introductory scene on stage, and the film never reovers from this confusing draggy opening.
Then, way into Act 2 the fillmmakers decided to dramatize what had been a hilarious monologue on stage, delivered by Luther Billis and telling of his exploits in creating a diversionary tactic that confused the Japanese. By showing instead of telling the screenplay adds another fifteen minutes or so to what is already and over-long and inert second act. South Pacific suddenly becomes a service comedy a la No Time For Sergeants.
How could Joshhua Logan (the director) make so obvious a mistake as to tamper with what had been a milestone in musical theatre? Film adaptations of stage musicals are rarely as exciting as the live show, but by sticking so close to the play's script (out of necessity, movie dialogue must be different from stage dialogue)and then re-arranging what had no need to be rearranged Logan et al ruined what could and should have been a movie musical classic. This film in most quarters has a terrible reputation, though it did make money, and lots of it. As the NY Times said: Big for sure. And a fine earful. But you'll have to look hard to find any magic.