I, like most others in this forum, happen to love this little movie. There's something about its good-naturedness that is captivating, and its open-air-and-sea setting that gives it a timeless quality. The idea of being a capable young woman who travels around the Caribbean on a boat with a genial parent, leading an unstructured life with plenty of little adventures, must be quite attractive to young female viewers. And then there is Hayley Mills, the effortlessly charming English actress who forever inspires crushes. And why? Perhaps because she's pretty but not too pretty, English but not too English, quite lively but not brassy, and quite natural without the child actor show-offiness or affectations. Truly the girl you want to have next door. For fans of Hayley (note "HAYLEY": for some reason many in this forum can't spell her name correctly) this film has an air of poignancy about it because this is the last of her teen parts. After this she moved on to young adult parts ('That Darn Cat,' her next film, dolled her up and gave her a boyfriend right from the start --- and it was also her last Disney film). Here she'd just turned eighteen and co-star James MacArthur (son of Helen Hayes and famed screen & stage writer Charles MacArthur) was about 27. There had been a contest held by Hayley fans at the time as to who should co-star with her in this film and MacArthur (a Disney alumni) was given the top vote. He was married at the time so no off-screen romance developed. But they are cute together. In my opinion the scene where a trapped Hayley is teased with a rope that MacArthur drops down to her is a small showcase of Hayley's natural and economic comic timing: a kind of ability that Disney could never find again. And one of the pluses of this film is that it is NOT a Disney production, meaning that it has more of a laconic, low-key English flavor to it. It certainly could be mistaken for Disney, and might have made a bigger splash at the box office (it was a dud) and be easily available today on DVD or VHS if it had been, but as a trade-off, it has an easygoing charm without the Disney tendency to offer explosive, slapsticky finishes, or cartoony musical flourishes (e.g. 'In Search of the Castaways' or 'That Darn Cat'). There's also the pleasure of watching outstanding English character actors like Lionel Jeffries and Harry Andrews clearly enjoying themselves. And there's the obvious pleasure of watching the real father-daughter team of John and Hayley playing off each other. John Mills recounted how enjoyable it was making this movie because it was like one long holiday. And note that although the film's story takes place in the Caribbean, in fact, the movie itself was filmed along the southern coast of Spain. In addition, it was released in the UK as 'The Pirates of Spring Cove' and is available on video from England under that title (unfortunately, England uses the PAL video format, thus you have to have a video player that can play that format to view it). I agree that Universal Home Video has foolishly let this movie slip through the cracks, but sometimes movies have copyright problems, so it's possible that Universal would like to release this film but some rights issue is snagging things. Certainly this is not a lost masterpiece worthy of mass petitions or Congressional action, but I think it should be brought to Universal's attention that there ARE buyers out there waiting for a chance to own this little gem.
Review of The Truth About Spring
