SPOILERS ** Two Loves stars Shirley MacLaine as "Anna", the teacher, off teaching in an exotic foreign land, where one of her students is the grandson of a tribal chief... sound familiar? I wondered if this were written by the same author as "Anna and the King of Siam"... but it is not. In this story, Anna also has the extra element of dealing with a troubled suitor Paul (Laurence Harvey), who keeps showing up and causing a disturbance, both physically and emotionally for Anna. Another more subtle suitor is the school headmaster Abercrombie. Then about halfway through the story, we start to see another issue arise. One of her teenage students, Whareparita, played by the beautiful Nobu McCarthy is pregnant with twins. Anna talks to the chief, who is happy with this news, and asks Anna why she herself has no man and no children. Keep in mind the title of the original book is "Spinster". At one point, Paul tries to kiss Anna, and when she puts a stop to it, he says "what you have is incurable". The production code was just about all gone by the late 1950s, but we have to try to decide just what is holding Anna back. Clearly she doesn't want to have sex before marriage, and says so several times. But is she afraid of falling in love? Or is there a bigger issue here? When the chief says men are the water to support her tree, Anna says she had always thought of men more like "lightning". I think the title of the book should have been Three Loves ( Paul, Abercrombie, and teaching). At the (abrupt) ending, we are shown a ray of hope, that there has been a breakthrough of sorts for Anna. I'm guessing there was more in the book that is not shown in the film. But you'll have to watch it for yourself and see what you think.
MacLaine did this lesser-known one in between her two biggies "The Apartment" and "The Children's Hour". DIrected by Charles Walters.
MacLaine did this lesser-known one in between her two biggies "The Apartment" and "The Children's Hour". DIrected by Charles Walters.