There’s a Twilight Time Sayonara Bluray arriving within a month or two. Based on a 1954 novel by James Michener, which stemmed from Michener’s experiences during the American occupation of Japan in the mid to late ’40s, Sayonara was an exercise in enlightened liberal portraiture — a tale of racial bigotry and interracial love, and particularly the prevailing attitudes about same during the mid-Eisenhower era. Obviously tame and even a bit so-what-ish in today’s p.c. climate. Plus I’ve never liked Marlon Brando‘s affected, high-pitched Southern accent. And yet — this is very weird — I’ve used his character’s last name, “gruver“, as my email handle for 20 years now. Sayonara was shot in Technirama (large format images created from 35mm film running sideways through the camera). If the new Bluray actually uses the original Technirama materials, it could be something to behold. But there’s no changing the fact that this Joshua Logan drama is slow, talky and a little too preachy. Franz Waxman‘s score is probably the single best element.