SEA WIFE is an initially interesting, eventually and increasingly absurd adventure drama from 1957, worth a look for the people in it, its settings and its unrealized ambitions, a shipwreck story sunk by torpedo-sized holes in the script. George K. Burke’s screenplay was based on the novel “Sea-Wyf and Biscuit” by adventurer/author James Maurice Scott.

Sometime after WW2, ‘Michael Cannon’ (Richard Burton) places repeated personal ads in London newspapers, using the code name ‘Biscuit’ to try and locate ‘Sea Wife’, a companion from a harrowing journey during the war. Flashback to 1942, somewhere in the Indian Ocean: four people share a life raft after their ship fleeing Singapore has been sunk by a Japanese sub. Enduring the elements, and their assorted attitudes, they find some relief on a deserted island. Their world reduced, they mutually decide nicknames are enough. ‘Biscuit (Burton) becomes enamored with ‘Sea Wife’ (Joan Collins), not knowing she’s actually a nun. ‘Bulldog’ (Basil Sydney) is trouble from the get-go, not least because he makes no secret of racial animosity toward ‘Number Four’ (Cy Grant), who happens to be black, possesses nautical ability and is protective of the lady’s secret.

An interesting start in London is followed by fairly well-handled scenes of the Singapore evacuation and panic during the ship sinking; later there is eye-pleasing tropical atmosphere from location filming in Jamaica near Ocho Rios; that locale, including Dunn’s River Falls, can also be seen to advantage in Dr. No, All The Brothers Were Valiant and Island Of Desire. Sequences of the raft at sea (and in the studio tank) vary in quality. Burton looks hale and hearty (his boozing hadn’t taken a full-on plunge to perilous), Sydney is good playing the rotter, Grant is okay (offscreen he was much more interesting). *

Collins, deglammed, is not well served by the script, and it—more than Bob McNaught’s mediocre direction—is the banana peel in the bunch. Contrivance commands—there’s no reason the nun would conceal her vocation, too many of the incidents are tossed away with lack of urgency or common sense, and the finale feels pointless.

Ranked a dud, in the States a $1,500,000 take put it 132nd for the year, which—movie coincidence playing tag—hosted two other shipwreck pictures, both winners. The Admirable Crichton is a delightful comedy that similarly pits disparate characters against shared circumstances (with happier results) and the excellent Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison also features a nun (undisguised and forthright) in a WW2 island-bound predicament. Next to those coconut cream pies, Sea Wife is a soggy biscuit.

With Ronald Squire, Harold Goodwin and Kenji Takaki. 82 minutes.

* Cy Grant, Renaissance Man. Look him up.  https://cygrant.com/about-cy-grant