Customer Reviews

Beachcomber,the [VHS]

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Erich Pommer, the most brilliant producer in Germany until he left it to the Nazis, joined with Charles Laughton to form Mayflower, a British production company which made three pictures with Paramount's participation and American release. The first, THE BEACHCOMBER was by far the most entertaining, and remarkable for having being directed by Pommer himself for once; also for giving Laughton and his wife, Elsa Lanchester roles of equal importance. They attacked them with histrionic relish wonderful to behold. Laughton's an alcoholic derelict lazing through life in the Dutch East Indies, Lanchester is a missionary's spinster's sister determined to reform him. Reacting variously to their clash of wills and eventual happiness together were Robert Newton, Tyrone Guthrie and Fred Groves. Bartlett Cormack adapted the W. Somerset Maugham story, which was re-made sixteen years later by Muriel and Sydney Box under the same title with Robert Newton and Glynis Johns in the leads; THE AFRICAN QUEEN, however, was not a remake but a coincidence.