The Proud and Profane Reviews

THE PROUD AND THE PROFANE was neither. Matter of fact, it should have been called "The Putrid and the Predictable." Kerr and Holden were supposed to have a certain chemistry, but it was not in evidence at all. After the success of FROM HERE TO ETERNITY, the producers thought they might get the same audiences to flock to this wartime weeper (which actually made some money). It's the middle of WW II and Kerr, a Red Cross worker, has come to the Pacific to locate the grave of her late husband, who died in the battle of Guadalcanal. She wants to find out how he died and some details about his final hours. She's part of a Red Cross group led by Ritter and including Brox, Stevens, Hall, Cotton, and Morriss. Holden is a rough Marine who thinks these women should be home knitting or, at least, packaging bundles for Britain. Kerr meets Holden, and there is a brief attraction. She wants him to tell her about her late husband, and he wants to sleep with her. Soon Kerr is carrying Holden's child. Then she learns that he has a wife back in the U.S., and that news triggers a suicide attempt which results in a miscarriage. Holden, wearing a mustache and portraying a part-Indian, returns to active combat duty. His wife dies off-screen, and when he comes back from the front wounded, Kerr is there to help him and presumably to be his life's companion. In the interim, Kerr has been approached by Martin, who also finds her sexy, but he is soon killed by the Japanese. In small roles, note Frank Gorshin (the impressionist), Claude Akins, and Ross Bagdasarian, who was the pianist-composer in the apartment across the way from James Stewart in REAR WINDOW. Bagdasarian would later create "The Chipmunks" and make so much money that he would never again have to appear in acorns like this. The film earned Oscar nominations for Best Art Direction and Best Costuem Design.