Review: The Spiral Road


Rock Hudson plays an ambitious, stridently non-religious young doctor in the 1930s who manoeuvres his way into joining famed doctor Burl Ives’ team dealing with leprosy and the like in colonial Indonesia. His goal is to get Ives to share his notes so that he can put them into a journal to be published, and presumably make Hudson famous. Unfortunately, he may end up losing his sanity in the process. Gena Rowlands is Hudson’s pretty girl back home, whilst the inimitable Reggie Nalder plays an imposing tribal leader/witch doctor named Burubi, and Geoffrey Keen is a missionary whom the somewhat pig-headed Hudson offends with his suggestions that the field of medicine should be taken away from missionaries.

 

Based on a Jan de Hertog novel, this 1962 flick from director Robert Mulligan (“To Kill a Mockingbird”) and writers John Lee Mahin and Neil Paterson has long been neglected if not derided. It’s not a perfect film, but for the life of me I can’t work out what everyone’s problem is. It’s an engrossing film that gives the normally lightweight Rock Hudson a chance to try something a bit deeper, and aside from one or two missteps, he comes out of it quite successfully as the agnostic (some say atheist, but I think that’s an overstatement), ambitious doctor. I liked the rather arrogant, egotistical element to his characterisation, although the character becomes a bit more sympathetic the longer the film goes on. Along with “The Lawless Breed”, I think it’s the best performance of his rather mediocre career, and he’s nowhere near as wooden as people have suggested. He’s just not playing a nice, affable guy for a change. He’s kind of a prick for most of the film, to be honest, albeit pretty spot-on in most things if you ask me.

 

Even better is the scene-stealing Burl Ives (one of the best character actors of all-time) in a choice part. He’s the one you’ll remember here above anyone or anything else, even if he, nor Hudson, sound terribly Dutch to me. Geoffrey Keen (perhaps best known for his later appearances in the Bond series in the 70s and 80s) is pretty good too as a Salvation Army guy, although his shock of white hair is either a really bad rug or a really bad fashion statement.

 

It goes on a bit long at the end (yet rarely dull), but I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Perhaps it’s time for a rethink? Excellent, occasionally thunderous Jerry Goldsmith (“A Patch of Blue”, “Planet of the Apes”, “The Omen”) score is a definite highlight. Give it a look, I think most critics are dead wrong on this one.

 

Rating: B-

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