Beautiful prose, for a relatively slight story.
Wonderful to read. ( )

Dylan Thomas is one of my favorite authors, but I will admit his work is often difficult to understand. I believe this isn't intentional; his gift with words meant he simply did not phrase things the way most people did. This aspect of his work is found least often in his screen treatments. The Beach of Falsea is my favorite of these, for many reasons.

The story is that of conflict between two traders on a South Sea island. One is attracted to a native woman who is shunned by the other natives, the other seems to wield a strange power over the natives. The first "marries" the woman in a mock ceremony, but as he grows more attracted to her he begins to unearth the truth about both the woman and the rival trader.

This is not written in the traditional format for a screenplay; it reads like a novelized version of the story. It captures the feel of the island as well as the menace of the trader, and it is all in a wonderful version of the words Thomas can use so well. I have not read the Robert Louis Stevenson orignal of this work, but whatever the original was like this more than does it justice.