CinemaSerf

The plot here is a bit on the convoluted side, but is does allow Trevor Howard to remind us that he could play a nasty character just about as well as anyone. He’s been caught with his hand in the till and so is shunned by his bosses and his Far Eastern community. Fortunately, “Willems” manages to hook up with the decent, maybe even naive, “Capt. Lingard” (Sir Ralph Richardson) who knows some shortcuts through the treacherous seas and offers to take him somewhere remote where he can work with his agent “Almayer” (Robert Morley) and make a fresh start. Pretty swiftly, though, “Willems” takes to the bottle and also a bit of a shine to the deaf chief’s daughter “Aissa” (Kerima) and soon is embroiled in not just a conflict with this traditional community, but with rival operators who want to know of his secret routes through the rocks for the trading goods. Egged on by the duplicitous “Babalatchi” (George Coulouris) he soon turns on the enthusiastic but ineffectual “Almayer” but meantime exposes himself to the wrath of not just the locals but of his benefactor, too. This is quite a powerful story of a man’s self-destructive streak let loose and fuelled by lust, manipulation and spirits and Howard conveys that rather odious “Willems” well. Morley, likewise, is on good form as a character who could just have readily taken holy orders as joined a trading company and who is ill-equipped for any sort of contretemps, even when he sees it coming a mile off. There’s something eerily potent about the effort from Karina too. With virtually no dialogue and just her eyes doing most of her acting for her, you are never quite sure just where she stands in all of this until quite near a denouement that I found fitting, but disappointingly inconclusive. It’s a dark, grimy and seamy look at colonial exploitation, venality and maybe even sanity, too, and Carol Reed uses his cast, the scenarios and Brian Easdale’s score to good effect.