Movies To Beachbum By
Some say Beachbum Berry doesn't do anything but cadge drinks, scrounge food, and sleep face-down in the sand. It simply isn't true. He also stares vacantly at his TV set (usually through the window of the pawn shop to which it has been consigned). Here are some of the movie beachbums he has seen and admired:
THE BEACHCOMBER (1938)
BEACH: Agor Island, Dutch East Indies.
BEACHBUM: Edward Claude "Ginger Ted" Wilson.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: "The reckless way he squanders the priceless treasure of life."
FEATS OF SLOTH: Even though he is always unwashed, unshaven, and high on Holland gin, he still manages to incite young native girls "to be wicked."
BEACHBUMMER: He survives angry creditors chasing him through town, and banishment to an island where there is no alcohol, only to be reformed by prim English missionary Martha Jones (Elsa Lanchester, Laughton's real-life wife).
WORDS OF WISDOM: "That hangover's beating its wings in my head ... if my head wasn't so vacant, there wouldn't be any room for the wings to beat."
Charles Laughton & Elsa Lanchester in "The Beachcomber"
CASTAWAY (1987)
BEACH: Tuin Island, off the coast of Australia.
BEACHBUM: London resident Gerald Kingsland (Oliver Reed), who places a want-ad in Time Out magazine for a "wife" to live with him for one year on a deserted tropical island.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Brooding. Staring into space.
FEATS OF SLOTH: Instead of building a shelter and growing food, Gerald lies on the beach all day, smoking, napping, and eating the lobsters his female companion catches and cooks. She gets back at him by parading around naked and refusing to have sex with him.
BEACHBUMMER: When even that isn't enough to get him off his ass, she goes on a nonstop nagging jag: "You lazy sod!" "The way you just lie there, useless, hopeless, thoughtless!" Eventually he's henpecked into building her a rickety lean-to.
WORDS OF WISDOM: "A screw and a cold beer right now is the summit of my whole life's ambition."
Oliver Reed & Amanda Donohue in "Castaway"
DONOVAN'S REEF (1963)
BEACH: Haleakaloha Island, somewhere in the South Pacific.
BEACHBUM: Tommy "Boats" Gilhoolie (Lee Marvin), who, once a year for the past 22 years, ritually engages his old buddy Gus (John Wayne) in their "annual birthday brawl."
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: "Six hitches in Uncle Sam's Navy."
FEATS OF SLOTH: Spends so much time drinking and fighting in Gus's bar that Gus eventually just signs the bar over to him.
BEACHBUMMER: Now that he's a man of property, he's considered husband material by his old flame Flora (Dorothy Lamour).
WORDS OF WISDOM: "Now look, Flora, you know you're the love of my life, you're the only dame that ever meant anything to me, but I already told ya, I got a wife in Hoboken. You wouldn't want me to go up on a bigamy charge, would ya?"
John Wayne & Lee Marvin in "Donovan's Reef"
FATHER GOOSE (1964)
BEACH: Matalava Island, off the coast of New Guinea.
BEACHBUM: Walter Eckland, who's caught stealing gas from the Australian navy in the early months of World War II. They maroon him on Matalava and order him to report signs of a Japanese invasion.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: "Drinking and swearing."
FEATS OF SLOTH: The only way the Australians can get him to do his job is by hiding bottles of whiskey all over the island. Each time he radios in an enemy plane sighting, they radio him the location of another bottle.
BEACHBUMMER: He's saddled with seven refugee schoolgirls and their teacher (Leslie Caron), who offers this assessment of his character to her students: "Mr. Eckland is a rude, foul-mouthed, drunken filthy beast ... an undisciplined, self-indulgent escapist." And she doesn't even mean it as a compliment!
WORDS OF WISDOM: "Several years ago I made peace with the world. Now if the world isn't bright enough to make peace with itself it'll have to settle things without me."
GIDGET (1959)
BEACH: Santa Monica, California.
BEACHBUM: Kahuna (Cliff Robertson), mentor to a loyal posse of "surf bums" (Moondoggy, Hotshot, Waikiki Stinky, Loverboy, and Lord Byron, whose beard "means he digs existentialism").
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Following the sun. Hanging ten with a lit cigar in his mouth.
FEATS OF SLOTH: Survived a hitch as a fighter pilot in "that Korean bit" to build a shack on the beach for himself and his mynah bird Flyboy ... and "ride the waves, eat, sleep, not a care in the world."
BEACHBUMMER: Guilt-tripped by a petit bourgeois teenaged square (Gidget, played by Sandra Dee) into selling out and getting a job at "Trans-State Airlines."
WORDS OF WISDOM: "It's like this, man. If you're really serious about making it as a full-time surf bum like me, well then ya gotta learn to take what you can get."
IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963)
BEACH: Silver Strand, California.
BEACHBUM: Sylvester Marcus (Dick Shawn).
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Part-time lifeguard, full-time "stupid muscle-headed moron."
FEATS OF SLOTH: The mere mention of his name sends his brother-in-law Russell (Milton Berle) into apoplectic fits: ""Your son Sylvester is an irresponsible, unreliable, big loudmouth no-good bum, who if he isn't a crook is only because he hasn't got the brains or ambition even to become a crook."
BEACHBUMMER: While doing the twist in his tiki hut with a bikini-clad go-go girl, he's summoned by Russell and his mother to help them find $350,000 in buried cash. He ends up in traction. (Then again, he might have ended up in traction with the go-go girl too).
WORDS OF WISDOM: "Don't bug me man!"
MAN FRIDAY (1975)
BEACH: An uncharted desert isle.
BEACHBUM: Friday (Richard Roundtree), the native tribesman civilized by Robinson Crusoe (Peter O'Toole). This revisionist version of Defoe's famous tale is told not from Crusoe's point of view, but Friday's.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Songwriting ("Oh, swimming in the water / is good, good, good").
FEATS OF SLOTH: Friday tries to rid Crusoe of his work ethic, since it mostly consists of putting Friday to work. When getting Crusoe to sing and dance doesn't do the trick, Friday goes on strike: "Friday fishes, Friday hunts, Friday cooks, Friday lights the fires, Friday mends the clothes. It is master's turn to work."
BEACHBUMMER: Finally sails away from Crusoe's island, but since Crusoe built the boat, he gets to go with him.
WORDS OF WISDOM: "You must sit on the ground. All day long."
Peter O'Toole & Richard Roundtree in "Man Friday"
THE SANDPIPER (1965)
BEACH: Big Sir, California.
BEACHBUM: Laura Reynolds (Elizabeth Taylor), a bohemian nonconformist who swigs grappa and poses nude for "Boy Beatnik" sculptor Cos Erickson (Charles Bronson) in her beachfront property, a weather-beaten cabin teetering on worn wood pilings.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: "Lady artist"; "the village atheist."
FEATS OF SLOTH: Tempts an uptight minister (Richard Burton) into adultery, turning him from a pillar of the community of San Simeon into a disgraced pariah.
BEACHBUMMER: Said community takes her child away from her. (On the other hand, any self-respecting beachbum would have abandoned the kid at birth anyway.)
WORDS OF WISDOM: "I didn't want to wake up fifty-years-old some morning and peer across the pillow at his face peering back."
Richard Burton, Liz Taylor & Charles Bronson in "The Sandpiper"
THE SECRET OF EASTER ISLAND (1991)
BEACH: Anakena, Easter Island.
BEACHBUM: Moai.
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Draining beer bottles in one gulp. Crossword puzzles. Putting out cigarettes on his head.
FEATS OF SLOTH: Since he's the only stone god on the island who's come to life, you might think he'd do more with his.
BEACHBUMMER: Travels to the modern world, only to find it's no place to be worshipped.
WORDS OF WISDOM: We didn't catch any, but try for yourself with your own copy of the movie from the Trading Post.
The Moai in "The Secret Of Easter Island"
THE TUTTLES OF TAHITI (1946)
BEACH: Vai Popo, Tahiti.
BEACHBUM: Jonas Tuttle (Charles Laughton again), "the most wasteful, lackadaisical, improvident lout in the whole of Tahiti."
UNMARKETABLE SKILLS: Unprotected sex. (And lots of it, judging by his 14 children.)
FEATS OF SLOTH: By putting his brood to work on his fishing boat, he no longer has to do any fishing himself. This frees him to explore alternate sources of revenue, such as betting everything the family owns - and then some — on a cockfight.
BEACHBUMMER: His contender has a glass beak.
WORDS OF WISDOM: "The way I look at it is this. Us Tuttles were never meant to have any money. All we'll ever have is fun."