La belle des îles

Anyone want a free trip to Tahiti in 1962? James Mason and John Mills did, so they made Tiara Tahiti. It's a silly comic romp, but at least you'll get to see some pretty beaches and scenery.

The movie starts off during WWII. John Mills is the head honcho among his troops, until an unexpected visit from James Mason shakes everything up. James is just so likable, everyone's loyalty shifts. Add in that John used to work for James before the war and still has a chip on his shoulder, and there's a bit of bad blood between them. To get even, John anonymously blows the whistle on James's smuggling racket.

Or is it anonymous? When they're reunited years later after the war, by a chance meeting in Tahiti, what will happen? Does James know his old friend is really his enemy? Is the friendly smile covering up hard feelings, or is he really as happy-go-lucky as he seems to be? If you liked his adorable cleverness in A Touch of Larceny, you've got to catch James in this movie, too. He has lots of fun shirtless, smooching scenes with his Tahitian girlfriend, Rosenda Monteros, to show that even in his fifties, he's still got it!

Lt.Col. Southey (John Mills) is an officer promoted a rank,or,perhaps,two above his abilities - not an uncommon occurrence in wartime - Capt.Aimsley(James Mason) a natural leader and charming rogue a class above Southey in every respect but one.He treats his nominal military superior as he might the ageing family labrador.Popular and charismatic,Capt.Aimsley is everything Col. Southey is not but aspires to be.The scene where,alone in his office,he practises copying Aimsley's accent is brilliantly observed. Unfortunately money is Aimsley's Achilles Heel and his profligacy sees him removed from Southey's command. Some time after the war Aimsley's comfortable exile in Tahiti is rudely interrupted by the arrival of his old adversary now director of a hotel chain looking to expand into the burgeoning South Seas market. What was virtually a two-hander featuring two of Britain's best film actors then,regretfully,broadens out into a not particularly funny or engaging comedy with stereotyped minor characters and a largely superfluous love interest.Some of the exchanges between Mills and Mason shine through the fog of ordinary,but the film loses most of its impetus. James Mason has exactly the right air of supreme self-confidence that the public school man exudes,the sense of being comfortable in his own skin whether in an Officers' Mess or on a South Sea Island. John Mills,probably a Grammar school boy,certainly not quite a gentleman.He may have money and business acumen but he will never be one of "them" no matter how rich and successful he becomes and that rankles. Whenever they are on the screen together "Tiara Tahiti" comes alive. Without them it would be very thin gruel indeed. If you want to see another film with James Mason exiled on an island try to catch the little-known British comedy "A Touch Of Larceny",it's clever,funny and altogether enchanting.John Mills out - acts Alec Guiness's bravura performance in "Tunes of Glory" as Col Barrow,on the face of it rather a cold fish,but with unsuspected sensitivities,not unlike Col Southey

The essence of this delightful comedy is the English class system that was of the time. The film's added ingredient, that makes it so watchable, is aspiration. The twin themes of class and aspiration also run throughout the sub-plots.

Driven by his desire for success, John Mills' Clifford Southey models himself on James Mason's suave Brett Aimsley, imitating his smart dress, polished speech, and his sophisticated upper-class manner. But Southey frequently reverts to type whenever pressured: as a colonel reprimanding a junior fellow-officer Southey, having worked his way through the ranks, loses his charming manner and barks "get your 'air cut"; later in Tahiti Southey forgets himself when dealing with Marcel, the French policeman, and his flashes of uncontrolled temper and charmless outbursts land him even deeper in it. On each occasion Southey recovers and, as he has trained himself to do, quickly re-adopts the persona of Aimsley to dig himself out.

Southey will never quite achieve the confident, effortless, upper-class charisma that Aimsley exudes in spades - after all it's down to breeding. Captain Aimsley easily disarms Southey's best-rehearsed dressing-downs: "That's Philpott - I take it the firm has lost her too?" exclaims Brett as he notices a picture of the Colonel's wife upon his desk; "But I interrupted you, do forgive me". Brett's innocent interruption blunt his Colonel's attacks and render him lost. Throughout the film, Aimsley stems Southey's flow with such polished interjections.

Ironically, Southey's real persona isn't all that bad: a mixture of gritty determination and acquired manners, he has the right blend for success - no wonder he's the MD! During the scene in which he wins over his fellow directors he mixes the rounded vowels and confident line borrowed from Brett: "Gentlemen, don't do anything I wouldn't do, which of course leaves you free to do absolutely anything"; with the steely flash of quick-fire rhetoric "We've always seen stumbling blocks as stepping stones...". Just like any successful Yorkshire businessman!

So much for the main plot - Mills' character envies Mason's class, and strives to adopt what he can never quite have. But throughout the sub-plots there run similar themes: Belle Annie badly wants to be someone else; alternating between an English lady and an American model, either of which would be a step up the social-class ladder. Because Brett shows little sign of returning to England, her attentions switch to Joey, an American sailor halfway through his Charles Atlas course, who might just help her achieve her secondary ambition of treading the New York catwalk. What aspirations!

Of course, Joey himself has his own agenda, albeit a rather simple one: he wants to be a lover-boy; his womanising desires do not extend to carnal lust - what he really wants is to be an object of desire to like the body-building hunks in his muscle-magazines. A Cassanova image would elevate his status among his fellow crew-members, so he adopts the posturing style of his magazines to win the girl. Too busy showing off his muscles, and expounding his adopted morals, to notice Belle Annie offering herself to him on the beach, Joey finishes up satisfied with his newly-acquired status with his Captain ("What a Cassanova you turned out to be").

Still on sub-plots, what about Herbert Lom's (nowadays)politically incorrect Chinaman, Chong? Clearly he desires the girl, Belle Annie, and does his devious best to win her from Aimsley. But Chong's duplicity when dealing with everyone from American Tourists ("White trash!") to his Anglo-French card school ("All white Christian visitors are welcome on the island") reveals a toadying character to his masters and social betters. He imitates their good manners and behaviour in their company, whilst secretly despising them ("Their white skin! Urgh! And the Smell! Pooh!). Of course Chong can never be anything other than what he is - he is as restricted by his own background as is Southey, "that little clerk".

Look closely and you see other characters whose aspirations cause them to mimic others' behaviour. Roy Kinnear's Captain Enderby, of working class background but elevated army status, has adopted the clipped tones and lofty manner of his Colonel; and the French policeman Marcel's comical literary aspirations cause him, when dealing with Aimsley, to behave as he believes an English gentleman should behave (and relax the law). But Marcel reverts to type and becomes as difficult as any French official when dealing with Southey, who, makes the mistake of rudely declaring Marcel's novel childish.

So the sub-plots mirror the main theme of the film: class, and aspiration. There's a certain vanity throughout, which causes everyone to adopt out of character behaviour.

And Aimsley himself? Mason's character seems at first to lack any social agenda, money aside; perfectly assured and satisfied with his effortless Tahitian life. Yet he too has a secret aspiration - observe how he gazes wistfully at a plane flying overhead; and the fond way in which he reads trivia from his English newspaper. Like Ronald Biggs, Brett Ainsley longs to return to England. What sets him aside is that he will not pursue his particular aspiration - unlike others in the cast - because he has been "cashiered, disgraced" his class and breeding render any such return out of the question.

This doesn't preclude Aimsley from having a little sport with Clifford Southey, by allowing him to shoulder the blame for the attack (and thus pay-back some humiliation and disgrace on his former colonel) even after the penny has dropped that his attacker must have been Chong. Southey, angry and uncouth, departs the island but then (in the final twist), copy-catting Brett Ainsley to the last, takes it on the chin with a civilised farewell wave.

It is clear that the cast were having a great time effectively enjoying a paid trip to a tropical paradise.It is a shame that they didn't take the writers along to beef up the script.The problem is that the director seems to enamoured of the background that he is forgetting what is happening in the foreground.Mills gives his "Tunes of Glory" performance.Mason gives a performance which is sort of a refined Rokesby.The type of performance he would give throughout much of the next 20 years eg Age of Consent,Touch Of larceny.Lom plays an oriental,please get real.The attempted murder idea is simply a very poor device to bring the film to the desired ending.Most of the rest of the cast are allowed to overact to allow them to be noticed in front of the scenery.

Tiara Tahiti is a strange film and not one I think that should be something that James Mason and John Mills should be noted for. Their one film collaboration should have been something better.

Of course pictorially the film is fine. The South Seas in color cinematography is impossible to do badly.

Mason comes off far better. He's from the upper classes and at one time Mills clerked for his father. But when they got in the army the positions were reversed. Mills has risen to be a colonel and he's quite the little martinet. But when Mason comes into his command those old feelings of inferiority take over. When he gets a chance he rats Mason out during the post war occupation years as someone doing a bit of smuggling. Which gets Mason cashiered from the army and a disgrace to his family.

So here he is on Tahiti living the good life and here comes John Mills now a big hotel tycoon, but still with the same feelings about Mason. What happens next is quite frankly not to be believed on any level.

In many ways the character that John Mills is playing is a variant from one of his greatest films Tunes Of Glory. He's the same kind of uptight character in Tiara Tahiti. But works in a tragedy really does not go well in this comedy.

In fact there's jealousy all around as Herbert Lom all made up as an Oriental is also quite jealous of Mason's upper class breeding even though he's two steps above a beachcomber. Tables get turned on him as well.

Tiara Tahiti is a beautiful, but quirky film that never quite gels.