Never the Twain Shall Meet

Never the Twain Shall Meet is a 1931 American drama film produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Leslie Howard and Conchita Montenegro. It is based on the novel of the same title by Peter B. Kyne. The film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and was filmed in Tahiti like Van Dyke's two previous south sea adventures The Pagan and White Shadows in the South Seas. The film is a remake of a 1925 silent film of the same name. Plot Dan Pritchard is a partner along with his father in a San Francisco-based shipping company. His socialite fiancée Maisie Morrison avoids setting a wedding date, much to his frustration. Dan is called to the ship of his father's friend, Captain Larrieau, who informs him he has contracted leprosy. He wants the Pritchards to act as guardians for his daughter Tamea, whose mother was a Polynesian queen. Tamea is a barefoot native girl, skimpily dressed, her hair wild and her aspect wilder. Once Pritchard agrees to take care of Tamea and see to it that she marries respectably, her father goes topside and jumps overboard. Over the next few days, Dan cannot help becoming infatuated with Tamea, who constantly throws herself at him. She proceeds to shock Dan with her uninhibited behavior. While attending a party, Dan is put off by his friends' prejudice and his affections transfer from his fiancée to Tamea, who then seduces him. Dan's father, afraid that his son is losing control, puts Tamea on the next boat back to the islands. Dan soon follows. The two live together happily at first, although it is evident from the start that Dan feels out of his element in the tropics, with nothing to do but lay about all day and drink in the local bar. Things start to go terribly wrong when Dan realizes that because Tamea has none of the sexual repressions of his Western world, she is a bit too free with one of the barely dressed native boys, Tolongo, and Dan becomes jealous of her attentions towards him. Dan becomes an angry drunk.