THE TRUTH ABOUT SPRING.
UK, 1964, 102 minutes, Colour.
Hayley Mills, John Mills, James MacArthur, Lionel Jeffries, Harry Andrews, Niall Mac Guinnes, David Tomlinson.
Directed by Richard Thorpe.
The Truth About Spring is a pleasant concoction aimed at teaming Hayley Mills with her father John Mills and providing family entertainment. Father and daughter had appeared to great effect in the 1958 thriller Tiger Bay. Hayley Mills had then gone to Hollywood and made an extraordinary impact with Pollyanna and The Parent Trap, being awarded a juvenile Oscar. During the first half of the 60s she made quite a number of films for Disney including Summer Magic, In Search of the Castaways, That Darn Cat. She had a mixed adult career, spending more time in her later years on stage touring with The King and I. John Mills lived into his 90s, a stalwart of British and world cinema from the 30s to 2003 where he appeared in Stephen Fry’s Bright Young Things. He won an Oscar for best supporting actor in 1970 for Ryan’s Daughter.
Helen Hayes’ son James MacArthur appeared in a great number of Disney films including The Swiss Family Robinson. Lionel Jeffries played a number of rogues on screen during the 1960s and enjoys himself here. David Tomlinson appeared as the father in Mary Poppins.
The film was directed by Richard Thorpe, a veteran of MGM dramas and of action films in the 1950s including Knights of the Round Table and Quentin Durward and some dramas including Tip on a Dead Jockey.
1. The appeal of this film? For what audience?
2. The title and its focus on Spring, its ambiguity?
3. The contribution of the Caribbean settings, the unusual characters, colour etc?
4. How attractive was Spring? Why? Hayley Mills’ personality? Her youth, adolescence and adolescent questions, a vigorous heroine, the father and daughter relationship, her strength of character, her learning, her friendship with Bill, the clashes and the growing in love, the discovery of her femininity, the sharing of dangers, the class distinctions at the end? How much did she change and grow during the film? What brought this about?
5. How attractive was Tommy Tyler? The seafaring type, the confidence-man, his capacities as a sailor, father and daughter relationship, the way that he had brought up his daughter, his own capacity for wandering, searching out treasure, a dreamer, wealth fantasies, his skill in playing off his cronies, sharing dangers?
6. Bill as a hero? The difference in background, the challenge of the voyage, his relationship with Tommy falling in love with Spring, helping Tommy with his confidence tricks, encountering the danger, the discovery of his love for Spring and the proposal of marriage? Bill as seen in the background of wealth and society?
7. How real were the villains? Or fiction villains of the modern Caribbean? Cark, Cleary and Sellers? Their rivalry amongst themselves? Ambitions and fantasies in their dream of wealth? Their deals and double crossings? Humour, melodrama?
8. What picture of Shelton and his snobbish friends? The contrast with the ordinariness of the Tylers?
9. How enjoyable was the film as comedy, adventure, romance? The picture of growing up and learning to live?
