The happiest screen collaboration of Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton - they're both wonderful - is in this adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story, "The Vessel of Wrath." It's set on an island in the Pacific, which Maugham calls Baru, and it's concerned with the efforts of the prim missionary (Lanchester) to reform the carnal, ribald beachcomber (Laughton). The situation is the reverse of that in Maugham's Sadie Thompson story, but with a light, comic tone. The Hepburn-Bogart "African Queen" probably took a few notions from it. (Pauline Kael)

The happiest screen collaboration of Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton - they're both wonderful - is in this adaptation of a Somerset Maugham story, "The Vessel of Wrath." It's set on an island in the Pacific, which Maugham calls Baru, and it's concerned with the efforts of the prim missionary (Lanchester) to reform the carnal, ribald beachcomber (Laughton). The situation is the reverse of that in Maugham's Sadie Thompson story, but with a light, comic tone. The Hepburn-Bogart "African Queen" probably took a few notions from it.

Pauline Kael

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adaptation african collaboration comic few happy island light missionary pacific prim queen reform reverse ribald screen set situation somerset story take tone vessel wrath beachcomber thompson laughton charles maugham lanchester

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