The Blue Lagoon (1980 film)
The Blue Lagoon is a 1980 romance film/adventure film directed by Randal Kleiser. The screenplay by Douglas Day Stewart was based on the novel by Henry De Vere Stacpoole. The score was composed by Basil Poledouris. The film is followed by the 1991 sequel Return to the Blue Lagoon.
Tagline
A sensuous story of natural love.
Selected cast
- Brooke Shields - Emmeline Lestrange
- Christopher Atkins - Richard Lestrange
- Leo McKern - Paddy Button
- William Daniels - Arthur Lestrange
Plot Summary
Template:Spoiler In the Victorian period, two young children and a cook are the sole survivors of a shipwreck, and are stranded on a lush tropical island, a real paradise. The cook Paddy Button (McKern) teaches the children one valuable lesson: certain berries shouldn't be eaten because they will put you to sleep. Eventually the cook dies and together, cousins Richard and Emmeline Lestrange (Atkins and Shields) have to survive, which is quite easy as there are no dangerous animals on the island. Years later, they have grown tall, strong and beautiful. The two teenagers are living in a self-constructed hut, strange emotions start influencing their relationship. Although they have no grown-ups to educate them for all that time, their behavior always stays very civilized.
Richard and Emmeline fall in love because of both their solitude, and their real love for each other. They make love quite often for several months, and Emmeline gets pregnant, totally unaware of the fact that a child is growing inside her. On the night their baby boy is born, Richard finds out about the origins of the drums they hear from time to time from the forbidden side of the island. It comes from a savage group of natives who apparently practice human sacrifice.
One day the two young parents and their baby boy are out in a boat and lose their ores. Though not far from shore, they are unable to return due to the presence of sharks. After days of being adrift at sea, the baby eats some berries that were in the boat. The parents recognize the berries as being the ones that will put them to sleep. Hopelessly lost at sea, they decide to eat the berries as well. Somewhat later, a ship finds them floating in the boat. The ship is led by one of the children's father Arthur Lestrange (Daniels) who has been searching for them for years. He asks, "Are they dead?" and a seaman answers, "No sir. They are just sleeping." It is left to the viewer to decide whether they are in fact sleeping and can be ressusitatued or if they will die.
Reaction
Like her earlier Pretty Baby, this film featured numerous nude scenes for the young Shields, who was only 14 and 15 when the film was made. It also featured her and Atkins in sex scenes, something the earlier film had lacked. This led some to play on the film's title, inferring the "Blue" described the content, "blue" being a common euphemism for pornographic movies.
External links
- The Blue Lagoon at IMDb
- The New York Times movie review (registration required)
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