L'Excentrique Ginger Ted

Maybe not one of W. Somerset Maugham's more complex stories, but it still gives us a chance to watch Robert Newton, Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester give us a bit of the reverse "Sadie Thompson". It's the unlikable "Ginger Ted" (Laughton) who manages to upset the rather puritanical "Martha" (Lanchester) and her minister-brother "Owen" (Tyrone Guthrie). She demands that local magistrate (Newton) throw the book at him after his latest drunken outburst, but the wily old administrator sees an opportunity to ensure peace breaks out by managing to have the pair stranded on a remote island amidst his Indonesian archipelago - and maybe the two can get past their initial mutual loathing and find some common ground? It's a bit too long, even at ninety minutes, and much of it struggles against a background of ropey production and poor editing, but there are some funs scenes between an on-form and perfectly plausible Laughton and a Lanchester whose character you would cross at your peril - even if you were completely sozzled. It does rather peddle the superiority of the Christian faith as against those more pagan traditions held by the natives, but in it's aggressive piousness lies some of it's best humour - especially now it's eighty-odd years later and we can use new eyes to poke fun at it's daftness. Newton's accent isn't the best, but fans of characterful cinema might enjoy these three - and Erich Pommer - having a bit of fun in the sun (though clearly nowhere near the actual South China Sea!).

I really enjoyed this movie. Laughton looked like he had a great time with this one playing the indolent womanizer as well his wife as the uptight missionary. Fun!

It is hard to watch this movie without noticing its similarities, intentional or not to the so-called American classic "The African Queen". I will have to say I enjoyed this movie more. The director whose credits state this as his only movie directs this 1930s movie as it were made in the sixties and seventies when the motif of camera movement became essential. Hand-held cameras are used to good effect. Charles Laughton who is the best film actor of the 20th Century shines again as he totally immerses himself in the part of the scalawag drunk. Elsa Lanchester, a woman with perfect demeanor and grace and wearing absolutely no make up shines as the woman whose aim is to tame the natives and tame the irascible Laughton. Good support from the cast round up this romantic drama. Bogart won an Oscar for doing a role very similar to this one, but Laughton is better. Catch it if you can. It's nice, smartly written, subtle and an English treat.

Edward Wilson (Charles Laughton) is a drunkard and womanizer who lives somewhere in the Dutch East Indies (today known as Indonesia). Oddly, he and EVERYONE apart from the natives are very British...but no matter. Regardless, he's a pretty worthless drunk and is constantly in trouble with the law. But the local magistrate realizes Ed is pretty harmless and even likes him. However, their relationship is sorely tried when a couple incredibly moralistic Brits arrive and keep insisting that the government do something with Wilson...such as deporting him. However, this attitude changes when the uptight lady (Elsa Lanchester) is briefly shipwrecked with Wilson. Oddly, she almost instantly sees him as a flawed man with great potential...and she's not about to see him continue life without her guidance and care.

There are several problems with the film--most notably how quickly the lady goes from loathing Wilson to adoring him. This just didn't make any sense and would have worked had it been like the film "Swept Away" where a pair of folks who hate each other are stuck on a deserted island for a very long period. Additionally, Lanchester's character is a bit too shrill and too stereotypical to seem real in the least.

The bottom line is that the film is a time-passer and, unfortunately, nothing more. It is mildly interesting to see the husband/wife pair of Laughton and Lanchester acting together once again but apart from that this one just disappointed considering the actors and nice Southern France location shoot (yes, Southern France doubled for Indonesia).

Compared to Charles Laughton in Vessel of Wrath, Cary Grant in Father Goose and Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen look they stepped out from a Savile Row tailor.

They don't know what to do with him over in the Dutch East Indies. He's a lazy, shiftless bum who won't work, won't pay his debts and is leading the natives that good Christian missionaries Elsa Lanchester and her brother Tyrone Guthrie are trying to convert into sober, hardworking Protestants.

My guess is that Laughton is in the Dutch territories because he's been kicked out of British island possessions for exactly the same reasons. As it is he has a friend in the local magistrate Robert Newton. But Newton's patience is being tried. The British would say he'd gone native.

He exiles Laughton after Laughton tried to disgrace one of Elsa Lanchester's pupils. But wouldn't you know it, fate casts Elsa right on the island that Laughton is exiled to, doing 'hard labor.' A few things happen and she decides maybe she should try to reform him as opposed to ostracism.

Laughton and Lanchester give a couple of cute performances about some middle-aged people finding romance, of course anticipating The African Queen by 13 years. Lanchester has a much tougher reforming Laughton than Kate Hepburn did with Humphrey Bogart. Bogey may have been seedy, but he did own his own business.

In a way this story is sort of Somerset Maugham's yin to the yang of Rain. Both stories are based in the tropics with missionaries as their leading characters, but this one is essentially comedic, although there are some serious events here like a typhoid out break, where Laughton proves invaluable in dealing with the natives.

Charles and Elsa give us a grand show, don't miss it.

Lanchester has a much tougher job