Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison
Region 1 DVD cover
Directed by	John Huston
Produced by	Buddy Adler Eugene Frenke
Screenplay by	John Huston John Lee Mahin
Based on	Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison 1952 novel by Charles Shaw
Starring	Deborah Kerr Robert Mitchum
Music by	Georges Auric
Cinematography	Oswald Morris
Edited by	Russell Lloyd
Distributed by	Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
Release date	March 13, 1957 (1957-03-13)
Running time	106 min
Country	United States
Language	English Japanese
Budget	$2,905,000
Box office	$4.2 million (US)

Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison is a 1957 DeLuxe Color, a CinemaScope film which tells the story of two people stranded on a Japanese-occupied island in the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

The movie was adapted by John Huston and John Lee Mahin from the novel by Charles Shaw and directed by Huston. It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Deborah Kerr) and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

The movie was filmed on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Producer Eugene Frenke later filmed a low-budget variation on the story, The Nun and the Sergeant (1962), starring Frenke's wife Anna Sten.

In the South Pacific in 1944, U.S. Marine Corporal Allison (Robert Mitchum) and his reconnaissance party had been in the process of disembarking from a U.S. Navy submarine when they were discovered and fired upon by the Japanese. The submarine's captain was forced to dive and leave the scouting team behind. Allison got to a rubber raft and after days adrift, reaches an island. He finds an abandoned settlement and a chapel with one occupant: Sister Angela (Deborah Kerr), a novice nun who has not yet taken her final vows. She herself has been on the island for only four days; she came with an elderly priest to evacuate another clergyman, only to find the Japanese had arrived first. The frightened natives who had brought them to the island left the pair without warning, and the priest died soon after.