Photo by Christian Brown
, strands his American brahmins smack into alien territory – post WWII Japan. Could there be a better place for his privileged and pampered noblesse oblige to confront, to be mesmerized, to be confused by the Other? It is a place of sliding paper shoji screens, unusual-sounding musical instruments, the exotic world of Suzi Wong and Madam Butterfly, the sex bars of a defeated occupied enemy, all filtered through western eyes not used to such foreign currency.
Unfortunately, the essence seems blunted by Gurney's own distance from his characters, although apparently drawn from his own wartime experiences in the far East. Lieutenant Sparky Watts , young naval officer and stud, is not innocent or impressionable. Huerter plays him smug and rather arrogant.