Musical Monday: South Pacific

Yes, it's South Pacific! The Rodgers and Hammerstein salute to horny, half-naked men and racism! Our movie starts here, on some unnamed South Pacific island in the waning years of WWII, where the men are horny and not afraid to turn to each other for comfort.


It is then that we meet he who should have been the star of this film, Stew Pot. Ahhh, Stew Pot. God bless you for sleeping with the cast director to get this part and God bless you for not wearing any underwear during your scenes. Stew Pot, My Favorite Martian, and the rest of the chorus boys break into song.


They all sing about how there's nothing like a dame while flexing and ripping off their shirts. It's like the South Pacific chapter of the Westboro Baptist church.


Then Stew Pot has his solo and Tom and Lorenzo shift uncomfortably in their seats. In truth, his solo lasts all of 5 seconds, but we paused and rewound so many times that it feels like he sang an entire aria while we stared at his belly button.

Mmmmm. Stew Pot.


After the men are done with their flexing, we meet Lt. Cable, a marine assigned to the island on a special mission. He runs into local racist caricature, Bloody Mary.


She declares him a "sexy man." Then the color filters kick in big time (as they do every time someone opens their mouth to sing) and she sings to him of the mysterious Bali H'ai, the island across the way.

Lorenzo thinks this song is gorgeous, by the way.


Cable is suitably shocked at this middle aged woman's candid sexual overtures and embarrassed that everyone is looking at him while he turns yellow.


We know it's supposed to look mysterious and inviting, but frankly, you couldn't pay us to go there. You just know there's dinosaurs on that island.


Meanwhile Nurse Nellie is having lunch with local plantation owner Emil, whom everyone pretends is French even though he's clearly Italian.


She sings a little bit.


Then he sings a little bit.


Then they seal the pact of their love by drinking the blood of a virgin while the sky burns. After that, he tells her he once killed a man. Nellie, completely ignorant of the concept of "red flags," shrugs and deals with it.


Later, the brass calls in Nelly for a meeting. "Nelly," they say, "Seeing as how there's a war on and you're running around dressed like you're on a cruise ship all the time, we figured you're the right gal to spy on that Italian guy that everyone says is French."


Confused and frustrated, Nelly accidentally wanders into the lesbian shower area and sings about washing that man out of her hair, to the delight and titillation of her sapphic sisters. They're not listening to a word she's saying. They're just picturing her naked.


Emil shows up and dazzles her with his Italian accent. Rossano Brazzi = hot.


Meanwhile, Cable and My Favorite Martian take a boat over to Bali H'ai, where they are greeted as kings and not the least bit freaked out by that. Seriously, we would have been running back to the boats. These people are totally going to eat them.


Bloody Mary saves Cable from the cannibalistic islanders and takes him to Pier One Imports. He's willing to sex her if it means not being eaten, but fortunately, she has other plans. She introduces Cable to her daughter, Liat.


Liat spelled backwards is "tail" and that's just a little of what Cable gets.

This is without a doubt, the sexin'est musical ever made.


Emil throws Nelly a party and she shows her appreciation in her own adorably naive way - by thrusting her breasts into his face.


Emil then introduces her to two adorable native children. Nelly thinks they're darling when she assumes they're the children of Emil's servant.

But reacts in a slightly less enlightened manner when she finds out that they are in fact, his children. We'd've dumped her racist ass at this point, but Emil is smitten. Killed a man? No problem! Got it on with a non-white at some point? Deal-breaker!


"Listen, you stupid racist cracker, I LOVE YOU!"

But it's not meant to be. Nelly melodramatically runs off with a swirl of her completely-inappropriate-for-WWII-fashion crinolines.


Back on Bali H'ai, Mary is taking far too much of an interest in her daughter's sex life. Oddly, Cable seems to like being watched.


They introduce him to their local sex customs, like putting on finger puppet shows in lieu of more traditional forms of foreplay, like oral sex. Cable is charmed, but once he realizes he's got a lifetime of no blowjobs ahead of him, he cuts out of there, reasoning that he's got a better chance of getting his carrot waxed with the tight-assed girlfriend back in Philadelphia, rather than with the hot native girl with the weird mother.


Mary is not thrilled and in true racist caricature fashion, she places a curse on him in her suddenly guttural voice.


Later, there's a USO-type show for the troops, which is suitably lame until Stew Pot (*sigh*) comes out dressed like Tarzan and suddenly, it's the Battle of the Bulge all over again.

Thank god for Stew Pot, we say.


After the show, Cable and Nelly get together for the inaugural meeting of the South Pacific Chapter of the Aryan Nation. First item on the agenda: "God it like, totally sucks when you're hot for non-whites!"


Emil crashes the meeting in his charming Italian-accented English masquerading as French-accented English and asks Nelly just what the hell she's doing with her hand up Cable's ass. Nelly has it out with him and finally says what she's been thinking all along.


"I can't love you because you put your thing in a brown girl!"

Who can argue with reasoning like that, right? So she runs off melodramatically again.


Cable sings a lovely little song about hate and then comes up with a brilliant plan.

"Say...since your girlfriend's a stinking racist and since I lost my girlfriend because I'm a stinking racist, what say you and I go and volunteer for that incredibly dangerous top secret mission?"


"Brilliant idea, Einstein. You couldn't just recommend we get drunk and hire a couple hookers like normal servicemen?"

Cable dies and Liat is doomed to a life of putting on puppet shows for a long line of American servicemen. Emil is lost for a long time, but Nelly realizes the mistake of her ways and since this is a musical, that's all you really need to solve any sort of problem that comes your way.


Emil comes home, dirty and sweaty and Nelly becomes the 1940s version of Madonna, complete with Euro husband and brown children. Together, they found the Benneton clothing line and live happily ever after on the sweat of thousands of Pacific Islanders willing to sew cheap clothes together for pennies a week.

Next week: Gene Kelly's magnificent ass finally makes an appearance in Brigadoon!