Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Organnall Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

arthur_tafero Charles Laughton was a short, fat, and ugly man. He was the complete anthesis of what you would expect a lead actor to be. However, despite these considerable handicaps, his tremendous acting ability and amazing range of emotions catapulted him to the top of the acting chain in the 1930s. His wife, Elsa Lancaster, was also a very fine actress, as evidenced by her superior work in The Bride of Frankenstein, an underrated film. Add these two giants to the unparalleled writing talent of Somerset Maugham, and you have an unbeatable combination for a classic comedy in The Beachcomber. No one ever did colonials better than Maugham. His incisive writing captured the true essence of missionary work and its irritating side-effects on native cultures. All of his characters have great depth. This is the best of all beachcomber films. It is not to be missed. Also billed as The Vessel of Wrath.

Cristi_Ciopron Well, I admit being an insatiable Laughton buff …. Laughton was a genuine giant, like the Frenchmen Simon and Baur.Laughton, his cute wife, the '30s, a Maugham adaptation—this should be the 4th Laughton movie I am reviewing, and the 2nd Maugham adaptation (--South Seas, missionaries, religious intolerance vs. dissolute life …--). Mean, ugly, fat, playful—I'm just stating the obvious—Laughton was an English Simon—the same abundant talent …. Also obvious is the degree to which he enjoyed playing his colorful roles ….THE BEACHCOMBER is a pretty remarkable movie, snappy and fresh, and leisurely made; Elsa Lanchester was 36 in this flick, she had married Laughton in '29—that is, 9 yrs earlier, when she was 27. Daddy Wells had written short movies for this babe.Elsa Lanchester does an interesting performance, if in a role limited.THE BEACHCOMBER is also genuine cinema—exciting, it has gusto and fun. As subject, it is a satire against puritanism. In a Pacific island, a womanizing drunk is hell-raising and causing scandal to the community. He attracts the antipathy of a couple of religious missionaries who ask for his deportation. Sentenced for 3 months on Agor island, he becomes the ruler of an earthly heaven, a ruler spoiled by the merry natives. Maugham frankly considered the Christianity to be a plague, and praised the sensual involvement of the South Seas natives.One of the missionaries is a miss; the climate and circumstances do much to moisture and soften her senses. She falls in love with the drunk.

bkoganbing 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

raskimono 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.