Review of Never the Twain Shall Meet

Leslie Howard plays Dan Pritchard, a wealthy young man who appears ready to follow in his father's (C. Aubrey Smith) footsteps until he meets a Polynesian island girl(Conchita Montenegro) and flips head-over-heels for her. Against his dear old dad's sternest advice, he leaves his American girlfriend and heads off to the islands to live "in sin" with the sensual and free-spirited Conchita. But Dan soon gets a severe case of "buyer's remorse" after he tastes the food (raw fish), begins to get heatstroke from the constant sun and (lastly) finds out that Conchita is having a blast with other native sons of the island. This leads to Dan's drinking problem and he spends most of the rest of the film in an alcoholic stupor. Danny boy ends up beating on one of her boyfriends and finally whipping poor Conchita. Not surprisingly, she actually loves the attention and she's all for kissing and making up even before her welts are healed. "Never the Twain Shall Meet" was probably written and presented as a cautionary tale in its day. White Anglo-Saxons weren't supposed to be cavorting with the natives back in the 1930s and our hero Dan learns that fact the hard way. According to this movie, sticking with your own "kind" is the smartest thing to do because when it comes to white folks and native peoples, "Never the Twain Shall Meet." As for the performances, both Leslie Howard and C. Aubrey Smith have worked on much better films. They give it their best effort here, but it's not enough to keep the movie afloat.