A Day at the Beach Reviews

Director Polanski wrote the screenplay to this mess "for want of anything better to do" (as he states in his 1984 autobiography). The result is a tedious drama wherein a young, alcoholic drifter, Burns, and a crippled little girl, Edney (actress Sylvia Sims' daughter), bounce around the picture getting into trouble until the drunken sot collapses in the street with the crying tot tugging at his sleeve. What little compassion there is for Polanski's main character is lost by an incredibly inept performance by Burns (it was his first film and Polanski felt he was "miscast") and by Hesera's weak direction. In fairness, Polanski states that the studio saddled the production with a small budget and haphazard support, but perhaps the executives saw what was happening before the filmmakers did. Sellers makes an unpaid cameo as a homosexual kiosk-keeper at the beach.