The Beachcomber

There were two reasons why I looked forward to seeing 'The Beachcomber'. They were Robert Newton and Glynis Johns. Newton, off-screen a roisterer in the Richard Burton, Trevor Howard mould gave full-blooded performances in movies like 'Blackbeard the Pirate' and 'Treasure Island' and I loved his outrageous, eye-rolling style. And Glynis Johns has one of those scratchy, sexy voices that I find almost irresistible.

Imagine my disappointment to find Ms Johns playing a pious missionary nurse with a Welsh accent and no opportunity to sound sexy. Mind you she was nothing if not versatile, at one stage performing an appendectomy while later healing an elephant's injured trunk. And Newton, ideally cast as a drunken remittance man (the 'black sheep' of an upper class English family being paid to stay away) is at half power throughout, missing every chance for histrionics.

There's some pleasant location Technicolor photography in the pacific islands and a bar-room brawl hammier than anything john Ford ever choreographed for Messrs. Wayne and McGlagen but the practice of blacking up Donald Pleasance, Ronald Lewis and possibly others to play natives is always offensive.

The plot from usually interesting Somerset Maugham is just the old chestnut about the redemptive power of a good woman's love. Though there is another moral to the story – 'an elephant never forgets'

Ah, unlikely romance. The perky Glynis Johns plays the sister of a rather sanctimonious missionary in the islands while the Honourable Ted, Newton, is the beachcomber. He gets drunk and destructive and is sent off to a penal island and teams up with Glynis Johns to fight a cholera outbreak. Romance blooms and the perky albeit up-tight missionary links up with the good-hearted beachcomber with a great happy ending. The team of cute, pert and perky Glynis Johns (memorable from her roles in No Highway in the Sky, The Sundowners and others) and Newton (Long John Silver), the compleat epitome of piratedom is great. Sadly, no video available but catch it as I did, on the late show. You won't regret it.

The Beachcomber is a sloppy piece of storytelling made even worse by having to watch a dissipated Robert Newton go through the motions in the title role. More stomach churning than rollicking it employs all the island comedy situations (whites interacting with indigenous as exploiters and soul savers) with flaccid heavy handed results.

Mr Gray has come to the Welcome Islands to shake things up for the Crown. A laid back place to say the least it has its polar opposites with a brother sister missionary attempting to save souls and a hapless reprobate, "The Honorable Ted" there to soak in the sun and as much liquor as possible. Gray develops a love hate with Ted who he drinks with but also has to sentences to hard labor. The Missionaries feel even less Christian for the fellow. When a cholera epidemic breaks out though Ted is called upon to save the day and maybe even get the girl.

Muriel Box's direction is haphazard and stilted with her cast all tightly fit into stereotypes to play against the racial insensitivity of the "ignorant islanders". Her big sell is getting Newton to be irascible with the proper bores but with about a year left in the tank tragic Bobby can hardly lift a saw, never mind get his enthusiastic con-man inflection up to speed.

Donald Pleasance in a small role scores while Glynnis Johns as one of the missionaries does as well with a touch of cuteness and confidence But with Newton struggling The Beachcomber never even approaches high tide.

"Anyone who drinks water deserves all they get," says drunkard Ted as he travels to cholera-plagued islands with missionary/nurse Martha.

This is not dazzling film-making, but it is well-done and engaging, with a solid Maugham story, a marvelous turn by Donald Pleasance in his first role (as a perpetually smiling Indonesian clerk), and three notable stars:

Glynis Johns is a delight to watch, and she brings a lot of heart, soul, and spirit to Martha, a woman so inexperienced that she keeps her eyes wide open when a man kisses her for the first time.

Entering with a torn hat, filthy jacket over filthy undershirt, and five o'clock shadow, Robert Newton establishes himself immediately as an irresistible reprobate. Introducing himself to the new colonial kingpin, he scrounges a whiskey, announces that he's been banished from England, and says it's not so bad on Barru island: "There are ways of passing the time. Are you married? (answer no) Well, any time you feel like a little bit of fun, just let me know."

The third star, truly, is the locations in Sri Lanka and the colonial British islands of the South Atlantic. Not just gorgeous—fearfully gorgeous. There is a remarkable scene of an alligator attacking an elephant as it drinks. Hell of a fight, splashing, bellowing. The alligator wounds its trunk, but the elephant soon tramples the reptile, and then-- and this is wonderful—kicks its attacker ashore, and then, instead of just walking away, it kicks the corpse back into the water. That final kick, which is clearly unnecessary, seems almost punitive. And thrillingly deliberate. That elephant is a genuine character in the film-- not a big role, but a crucial one because of the ending, which reminds us that an elephant never forgets.

Muriel Box's first film in Technicolor is conspicuous by its absence from the current season on the South Bank; the presence of Donald Pleasance and Michael Hordern in blackface (the latter rendered almost recognisable under huge moustache) probably doesn't help. This second version of the novel by Somerset Maugham can however be seen by discerning viewers thanks to the miracle of Talking Pictures.

Although inevitably it can only fail to rise to the heights of the 1938 version but Robert Newton is a more than adequate substitute for Charles Laughton, while Glynis Jones (soon to celebrate her hundredth birthday) entirely lacks the eccentricity of the unique Elsa Lanchester but amply supplies her own cow-eyed charm.