The Donn of Tiki is a documentary that spans decades and deals with something most people would take for granted, Tiki Culture. Tiki Culture just didn’t come from nowhere. It had an origin like everything else in history. That origin is as complicated as the man who created it, Don Beach aka Ernest Gantt. He had a long and interesting life which led to the creation of Tiki Culture.

Don the Beachcomber as he was described by many had such a vast and storied life that it is hard to differentiate fact from fiction. He started coming into his own as a bootlegger in the 30s. He traveled around a lot so he found that various island countries had different kinds of liquor.  When he came back to Los Angeles he used what he learned and put it to good use as a bar owner, once prohibition ended. He created original drinks and cocktails using rum and fruits from the island oases he visited. These drinks and his island-centric bar caught on. He called it The Beachcomber. This subculture was dubbed Tiki Culture by the locals.

With one person’s success, more people want to copy it. Women tend to latch on to successful men as well.  That’s what happened to Donn Beach. He met and married a woman, Sunny Sund, his first wife and she stole half his business and partnered with mobsters in Chicago. Where she set up the second Beachcomber bar and restaurant. It happens all the time in business.  The McDonald’s story, The Founder, is a prime example of this.

The directors Alex Lamb and Max Well along with the writers have created a documentary they can be proud of. There are so many elements that help make this film stand out. Like most documentaries, this one has a lot of talking heads. It’s littered with family members like Peobe Beach, members of the Tiki Culture, Tim “Swanky” Glazer, and historians such as Sven Swirten, Rebecca, and Martin Cate, Garrett Richard, Sam Miller, Shannon Mustipher, Ying Chang and Robert Adamson.  The list goes on and on. The film has a who’s who of Tiki Culture and people who knew Donn the Beachcomber very well. They have a lot of incites into his life which was very fascinating.

Another thing the film does is use a puppet of Donn the Beachcomber to help narrate his story. The puppet looks and sounds just like him. It is a pretty cool sleight of hand regarding the storytelling and filming of this man’s life. They also used a lot of animation and archival footage to help fill out this film. All the various tricks that they use help me make this one of the best documentaries of the year. It’s such a creative and fascinating film about a very interesting man and his legacy.

I used to hang out in bars a lot and drink quite a bit myself. In my travels, I used to see a lot of people wearing Hawaiian shirts and leis around their necks sometimes. I didn’t know it was part of Tiki Culture.  I thought they were fans of Jimmy Buffet and his way of life. Little did I know this was all part of an entire subculture. Now that I have seen this film I have a whole new appreciation of Tiki Culture. It’s a culture I myself wished I had been a part of. It seems like it could have been some fun times. At least that’s what the documentary showed me.

Donn the Beachcomber lived a long life and he did a lot of things that helped a lot of people in various countries and nations. He created resorts and gambling boats and revolutionized the way people thought of making alcoholic drinks and cocktails.  Using rum fruit and liquors created drinks like the Zombie which became a staple of the bars and restaurants it was associated with. Mostly The Beachcombers around the world. Donn kept his secrets close to the vest so not all of the drinks in these establishments were his concoctions. Nonetheless, his legacy has remained for decades to come since his passing away.

The Donn of Tiki documents a man and his legacy that has remained for decades since the early 30s. As pictured in this documentary he has a lot of people who still live by his ways today. There are many bars that copy his Tiki Culture still today as well. He had a long life that gave the world so many things it still has today such as fruity island cocktails,  resorts, gambling boats, and Hawaiian shirts. The world was a better place for having Donn in it and I am better off for seeing this film about his storied life. Alex Lamb and others did a superb job bringing this man’s story to life.

4 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen