Charles Laughton plays Edward C. Wilson Esq, who despite his title, is the town character. His drunken debauchery puts him at odds with Mr. Gray, the resident in charge of the welcome islands. It also puts him at odds with the other Europeans, especially Martha Jordan, the local missionary. Martha and “Mr. Ted” become an unlikely pair as they face a typhoid epidemic that has taken over the islands.
This movie finds Charles Laughton in a quite different role than his most famous Captain Kidd.
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What a really great movie!!! Charles Laughton at his best and I’d never seen Eobert Newton so young. Elsa Manchester is quite pretty here. I truly loved this movie!!! Brilliant
“Elsa Manchester is quite pretty here”. I must agree. She was wonderful in “The Bride Of Frankenstein”, one of my all time faves. IMHO Beachcomber was a fun movie. Very British. Elsa is quite fetching, even when she is being prim.
[Insert wolf whistle sound clip]
I was surprise to see Charles Laughton in this movie doing a nice roll.Mercie JULES. ps cOMEDY FLICK.
Marvelous. Charles Laughton proving why he is one of the best! Elsa Manchester looking very fit aswell
An entertaining film… with seeds of greatness in it….
While I appreciate the opportunity to view this story… It would be great to see a better quality copy of it… what I mean is, I love black and white films…. and I think some of those scenes would be fantastic if they were a little more clearer…. especially the scenes inside the hut… where there are strong shadows and bright lines across the actors’ faces….
Ginger Ted had one line … something that concludes with ” in this God Forsaken place ” and the gal says ” This is NOT a God Forsaken place… ” … and it reminded me of one of the opening scenes in The African Queen … Bogart and Hepburn have a similar exchange…. and then I started to think this story has more than few similarities with The African Queen….
Does anyone else see these similarities…. or am I just suffering from a long evening of “being in my cups”….
All in All… a fun movie to watch…. and I really appreciate Retrovision.tv for making this available to us !!
And… another side bar sort of comment….
Remember in My Fair Lady…. shortly after Eliza is “reformed” so to speak… she goes to the horse races…. and Eliza talks in a “high sounding”, reserved, stilted sort of way…. the way the Leading Lady spoke in this film reminded me awfully much of that…. do you suppose Audrey Hepburn took her inspiration from Elsa Manchester ?
Perhaps more halucinating on my part…..
I’d really love to find a better copy of this film, but like a lot of these films copies are often from public domain film houses in the 1980′s…. dubbed to VHS… The problem is the old nitrate film stock and it’s chemical decay. Nitrate film is very dangerous. Thousands of films have been lost because of being improperly stored and many more are lost every day because of the danger and expense in storing them.
Film archives have been set up to copy and restore many vintage films to safety film stock, but the capacity to do that is curtailed by finance and copyright laws.
I could think of quite a few movies that rely on the pithy exchange of banter in the male and female leads. I don’t know if “The Beachcomber” serves as an inspiration for other films, but the “battle of the sexes” seems to be a recurrent theme in movies starting in the 30′s. Maybe we could go all the way back and consider William Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Screw”.
One modern movie that I really enjoyed comes to mind. It’s “As Good As It Gets“, a 1997 film with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. I won’t be showing it here, but you should put this one in your rental cue.
Some other films here that carry the same sort of jovial enmity are “His Girl Friday“, “My Favorite Brunette“, “She Done Him Wrong“, “My Little Chickadee” and “The Lady Says No“.
Laughton has always been number one on my list of accomplished actors and he’s never slid down, not even a micro inch! This man could be nearly any character, and believable, from a high class snob to the excellant character in the Beachcomber. And look at his magnificent performance in Mutiny on the Bounty. I was a kid when I first saw that and Laughton had me terrified. Thank you for bringing the Beachcomber.
On another subject, is there any way you can bring Anna Lucasta to Retrovision? Eartha Kitt and Sammy David Jr star in it. I tried viewing it on Fancast but even when I click on the “full movie”, it cuts off after a few min. I’d love to see it brought here.
I tried to watch Anna Lucasta too. It failed the same way you said. I sent a request for a fix to Fancast. If it gets fixed, I’ll post it.
I haven’t seen the Eartha Kitt version, but I liked the version with Paulette Goddard.
GOOD MOVIE! THANKS KEVIN.
Kevin,
Thanks for trying with Anna Lucasta at Fancast. Hope they fix it. Just to let you know,
Over a month ago I sent Fancast a comment about Anna Lucasta not functioning. Apparently they have done nothing about it.
Elsa Lanchester, not Manchester. She is a beauty though. Hard to imagine anyone being that proper but I’ve met a few who are.