The bulldog has long been a symbol of British patriotism, and this Bulldog is a patriot of a particularly snarling, aggressive breed. Of perhaps more interest to us today is the Bulldog/Number Four relationship. It is said that Collins, when asked what she thought might have happened had she rather than Elizabeth Taylor been cast as the lead in "Cleopatra", replied "Well, I certainly wouldn't have run off with Richard Burton!" It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that there is little chemistry between them. The characters are played by the film's two big-name stars, Collins and Richard Burton, who by all accounts did not get on with one another. It might have been better had Biscuit known of her profession or had there been any indication that she was torn by a genuine conflict between her emotions and her religious vows. Of the two strands in the plot, the Biscuit/ Sea Wife story is perhaps the less interesting to modern audiences. In 1957, therefore, there was no reason why she should not have played a nun. Indeed, she played such a character in a film as late in her career as "Quest for Love" in the early seventies. Earlier in her career, however, she had a much wider range, and could equally well turn her hand to virtuous young heroines. Today we tend to think of Collins in terms of the sort of sultry villainesses she played in the seventies and eighties such as Fontaine Khaled in "The Bitch" and "The Stud" or Alexis in "Dynasty", ladies one could never imagine taking the veil. Some have also expressed surprise at the idea of Joan Collins playing a nun, but this is only an example of miscasting when seen in retrospect. This is not an outright lie, because by the "other" Sea Wife means God, but Biscuit understands- as she clearly intends him to- that there is another man in her life. She contents herself with telling him that she is "promised to another". What is less clear is why she does not reveal it to Biscuit perhaps she does not trust him not to reveal it to Bulldog. (She has already upset him by trying to discuss her Christian faith with him). It is fairly obvious why she does not to reveal this to Bulldog, an atheist who is just as bigoted about religion as he is about race. This secret is already known to Number Four but not to the others. (Her real name, or at least her "name in religion", is Sister Therese). Some reviewers on this board have expressed surprise that Sea Wife does not reveal her secret, namely that she is really a nun.
A powerful dislike grows up between the bigoted racist Bulldog and Number Four, and Biscuit falls in love with the beautiful Sea Wife, although she rejects his advances.
On the island there are two developments. The two other men are "Bulldog", a middle-aged British colonial, and "Number Four", the ship's black purser. The woman is "Sea Wife", from an archaic word for "mermaid". The four are known to one another by nicknames Cannon, whose nickname is "Biscuit", is the only one to reveal his true identity to the others. After a number of adventures the four survivors end up on a deserted island. His ship is torpedoed by a Japanese submarine and he finds himself on a life-raft with two other men and a young woman. The young man, whose name is Michael Cannon, is one of a group of British refugees trying to flee before the city falls to the Japanese Army. He never, however, receives a reply from her, and their story is told in flashback. A young man signing himself "Biscuit" places advertisements in the personal column of various in which he asks a woman referred to as "Sea Wife" to get in touch with him. The film opens in London during the years immediately following the end of the Second World War. "Sea Wife" from four years later is essentially an attempt to make a serious drama out of a similar scenario. The first was that fatuous "comedy" "Our girl Friday", aka "The Adventures of Sadie" from 1953.
In the 1950s Joan Collins made two films in which she played a survivor of a shipwreck in both she is marooned on a deserted island along with three men.
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