"Love is a Many Splendored Thing"

Color, 102 min.

Released: August 10, 1955 (20th Century Fox)

Cast: Jennifer Jones (as Han Suyin), William Holden, Torin Thatcher, Isobel Elsom, Murray Matheson, Virginia Gregg.


A few weeks ago I found a treasure in a book table at the Sally Anne. Three little books which included this one "A Many Splendored Thing". This was written by Han Suyin and was the precursor to this romantic war movie. I think of all the movies I watched as a child (I was born in 1954 when all we had was black & white tv) this made the most profound impression on me.

I don't know if it was the romance or the tragedy, perhaps just the first impression of watching a complete film in color and all its beauty but it has stayed with me all these many years. When I saw this little dog-eared set of three novels I had to buy them. My intention is to read this book and finally know the story behind my favorite 50's era film.

Much to my surprise, when I opened the book it had this page from the Broadsheet Review (Circa January, 1954) folded inside of it. Elation!! A little snippet of someone's forgotten history carefully preserved inside. My guess is the person who originally owned this book was also touched by this story and kept these two bits of memorabilia together. I'm quite sure they would be surprised that it would end up in the home of someone for whom it made such an impact or that just a year later,in 1955, it would become a major motion picture.

The story is tragic and based on her own life experience during WW II. The difficulties of being a Eurasian woman on her own in war-time europe. Our daughters have no idea what life was really like for women in this time. Women had definite roles in society and love between the races was most definitely frowned upon and could even lead one to be ostracized from their families and community.

Funny, but it brought out some childhood memories of the war when I started to skim through the article. I had forgotten about the air-raid sirens we used to hear periodically. The City of Winnipeg had huge air sirens mounted on telephone poles around the city that they would test. We had one at the Sinclair Park (children's playground) near our home. The idea being that in the event of a war or some other disaster I guess, we were supposed to all run home and hide in our basements/crawlspaces etc. with our radios on for further instruction. I only remember them till probably the early 60's and don't even know if they are still there now.

The war was a big part of our lives when I was a child because all of our neighbors were discharged soldiers and many emotionally carried the scars of it. I recall always hearing about the war and seeing the difficulties many families struggled with because of it. Our houses were called war-time houses and were built specifically for returning soldiers and their families. All identical and tiny with dirt crawl-spaces for basements. My Dad only rented this home for us and my Mom finally purchased it when he passed away. I think the governement felt sorry for her and didn't want to evict a widow and four kids with no income to support them. I now can only imagine how difficult a time it was for her.

I think that age and nostalgia brought forth this post and my intention now is to document more of these moments for my children and grandchildren to collect. I do believe my daughter will find these little bits of interest to her.