Bandera amarilla

This is a pretty broad comedy with some fun performances by Laughton, Lanchester and Newton. The plot's rather thin and really relies on the great character work by all involved.

Even though the characters seem to transform far too quickly for my tastes, you almost don't even care because it's so enjoyable to see.

Frankly, I'd almost recommend this film just to see Charles Laughton's classic facial expressions alone.

Obviously The African Queen owes much to The Beachcomber and while the former is the superior film, I'd recommend this to any fan of Laughton, Lanchester and 1930's romantic comedies.

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!

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!).

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

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.