The Beachcomber

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.

Romantic drama adapted from a story by Somerset Maugham stars Glynis Johns and Robert Newton, who make a good pair, though vastly different from each other , as one's a hard drinking beachcomber and other is a psalm-singing missionary nurse, but that's part of fun cause you know that adage "never Twain shall meet" slowly ebbs away, especially when they end up battling cholera-infected island. This British film also stars Donald pleasance, who does a fine job as governor's adjutant, and Donald Sinden.

The story -Mr. Gray (Donald Sinden) is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life; the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans(Glynis Johns and Paul Rogers), and the Honourable Ted (Robert Newton) - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.

The Beachcomber is a well-made, well-acted British romantic comedy with great performances from all the actors, especially from Glynis and Robert - they are both charming and comical. The island and its inhabitants and the tribulations they experience is nicely-etched. A pleasant afternoon film.

Glynnis John, Donald Sinden, and Robert Newton all give sterling performances in this delightful Somerset Maugham story about a neer-do-well and a missionary in the South Seas. I have read everything that Maugham has written, as I was obsessed with Tahiti and the South Seas in my youth. No one writes about this venue better than Maugham. He gets the European colonial and he also gets the natives down as well. This is a simple tale of gradual seduction (but we really don't know who is seducing who). John has one of her career best roles, as does Newton. Sinden is perfect as the magistrate of the island. If you like Maugham, you will enjoy this film immensely.

"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.

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'