Tamahine (1963)

After her English father dies, a half Polynesian girl (Nancy Kwan) is sent to England to complete her education under the guidance of her father's cousin (Dennis Price), the headmaster of an all boys school. The girl finds that her island background conflicts with the staid social mores of proper English society. Based on the novel by Thelma Niklaus and directed by Philip Leacock (THE WAR LOVER). It's amusing at first as Kwan's free spirit pricks holes in the stiff upper lip pomposity of the British upper classes but it soon settles down to routine romantic shenanigans and becomes rather tiresome. Kwan is delightful but her vivaciousness can go only so far in propping up the lackluster script. Some of the talent behind the camera are first rate like the cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth (2001 A SPACE ODYSSEY), composer Malcolm Arnold (BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI) and costume designer Julie Harris (DARLING), Oscar winners all but their combined talent only seems to accentuate the thinness of the plot. With James Fox, Coral Browne, John Fraser, Michael Gough, Allan Cuthbertson, Justine Lord and Derek Nimmo.