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<\/p>\nAlex Lamb and Max Well didn\u2019t set out to make a documentary. Fans of tiki bars, their goal was a web series, one that looked at the colorfully decorative tropical bars in Southern California. What they discovered, however, was an only-in-Hollywood tale that not only cut to the heart of the scene\u2019s roots, but foretold the modern cocktail movement, changed tourism and spawned a subculture. <\/p>\n
Now available to rent or buy on most major streaming platforms, \u201cThe Donn of Tiki\u201d looks at the life, much of it grounded in self-made myths, of Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, otherwise known as Donn Beach or Donn the Beachcomber. A bootlegger, World War II veteran and nightlife impresario, Beach, as he legally changed his name to, was a sort-of cocktail-focused answer to Walt Disney. He was a pioneer of an industry who trafficked in experimentation, big ideas and, eventually, heavily thematic environments that centered the guest experience. <\/p>\n
\u201cDonn and Walt Disney, they\u2019re both hosts,\u201d Lamb says, noting that many have referred to him as the \u201cWalt Disney of rum.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey create this experience that people are going to come to and not just see, but they\u2019re going to feel it and hear it,\u201d Lamb says. \u201cIt\u2019s for all their senses. They\u2019re very similar in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Documentary \u201cThe Donn of Tiki\u201d uses stop-motion animation to help tell the tale of Donn the Beachcomber. <\/p>\n
(Surf Monkey Films \/ Beachcomber Productions)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Donn of Tiki,\u201d<\/a> first released in 2024, also portrays Beach as a bit of a schemer. Some of his bar inventions, for instance, were less grand thematic ideas and simply tricks to keep patrons indoors and ordering. The filmmakers credit Beach with helping to commercialize the luau, now a staple of many a Hawaiian vacation, and bring his story to life via stop-motion and 2D animation, historical footage, and fresh interviews, including with his widow and some of those who worked for his latter-day establishments. <\/p>\n Yet Lamb and Well are primarily interested in how a once tiny Hollywood bar on McCadden Place became ground zero for a movement that over the decades has regularly come in and out of popularity. Tiki bars have been celebrated, and criticized, but at least here in SoCal many have survived and defied trends.<\/a> Today, the tiki scene is thriving, a hub for craft cocktails but also a reflection of our city\u2019s penchant for dreaming and escapism. <\/p>\n A tiki bar, at its best, is often a mash-up of cultural ideas and myths \u2014 bits of the Caribbean, Polynesia and Asia, and less a reflection of any real place or heritage. It\u2019s an imaginative environment, something that feels dreamed up for a movie.<\/p>\n That\u2019s what drew Well, a cinematographer by trade, to the space.<\/p>\n \u201cSome people are really into the music, the fashion or the cocktails,\u201d Well says. \u201cBut the thing I was into was just the visuals. You go into one of these places, and it\u2019s like walking into a film set. It\u2019s been transformed into an experiential thing.\u201d<\/p>\n As a filmmaker, says Lamb, it\u2019s hard not to be transfixed by a well-done tiki bar.<\/p>\n An undated historical image of Donn Beach, credited as starting the tiki movement, from the film \u201cThe Donn of Tiki.\u201d <\/p>\n (Surf Monkey Films \/ Beachcomber Productions)<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk in off the street, and it may be daylight outside, but you walk into a dark room, turn a corner and smell burning cinnamon or baking spices and it seems like it\u2019s raining outside. It\u2019s a story,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd Donn\u2019s drinks were stories. Rum from all these different places, and spices and fruits. It opens up a world of locations.\u201d <\/p>\n Beach\u2019s origin story can differ based on who is doing the telling, but he was born in 1907 and spent his early youth in Texas. Instead of college, he traveled, thanks to a windfall of cash from his father. That would eventually dry up, and Beach found himself in Hollywood, pairing with his brother. When Prohibition hit, he found himself a makeshift career as a rum runner. When it ended, he opened his Hollywood bar that would eventually morph into Donn the Beachcomber. <\/p>\n As for why rum, the filmmakers note it was likely the easiest \u2014 and least diluted \u2014 liquor to acquire at the time. Beach took the formula behind, say, a Planter\u2019s Punch, and essentially expanded it, increasing the level and mix of ingredients to create, the co-directors say, well over 60 cocktails, many that still today define the tiki bar menu.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can go back to a daiquiri, before Donn Beach, which is just rum, lime and sugar,\u201d Well says. \u201cBut you go to a Donn Beach cocktail like the zombie, and it might have 10 ingredients. You take a blueprint, and completely blow it up.\u201d<\/p>\n Beach had a significant impact on the craft cocktail movement, says Nick Oehlers, a former music manager turned nightlife maven, who recently opened the tiki pop-up Savage Seas<\/a> at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, which will run at least through the end of the year. Just a few blocks from the original Beachcomber, Oehlers says he designed his bar as a modern ode to the McCadden Place locale. He even tried to copy the exact dimensions of Beach\u2019s debut bar. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so complicated and complex,\u201d Oehlers says of a tiki drink. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t eyeball anything. All the drinks are jiggered. It\u2019s precise, a very complex art form. Other bars seem easy once you work in a tiki bar.\u201d<\/p>\n Beach was also a showman, a trait that perhaps developed as something of an accident. \u201cThe Donn of Tiki\u201d documents how occasionally Beach would head to the roof of his bar and spray water down on its windows to create the effect of a rainstorm. An attempt to conjure a tropical vibe, or just a way to persuade patrons to run up a tab by avoiding a drenching? Many a tiki bar, such as Disneyland\u2019s popular Trader Sam\u2019s<\/a>, today have rain effects. <\/p>\n Animation from the film \u201cThe Donn of Tiki,\u201d which by telling the story of Donn the Beachcomber traces the beginnings of the tiki movement. <\/p>\n (Surf Monkey Films \/ Beachcomber Productions)<\/p>\n Tiki bars aren\u2019t without criticism, having occasionally been attacked as escapist fantasy that appropriates Hawaiian or Polynesian iconography. Lamb and Well take a more biographical approach rather than dipping heavily into broader cultural conversations. They also make an effort to capture Beach\u2019s genuine passion for travel and Hawaiian culture, especially in a Honolulu outpost that had a marketplace feel, complete with attempts to create a traditional luau. The excessive proliferation of totems and masks as decor is more closely associated with Beachcomber offshoots and descendants in the \u201950s and \u201960s. <\/p>\n \u201cSome folks take a hard line that this is just flat-out cultural appropriation,\u201d Well says. \u201cI think it\u2019s a little more nuanced than that…. But we should be talking about it, and we think it\u2019s good to have that conversation. Hopefully the film can help with that. It gives people the history, the backstory.\u201d<\/p>\n Directors Max Well, left, and Alex Lamb of \u201cThe Donn of Tiki\u201d at Tustin\u2019s Stowaway, a modern take on the tiki bar formula. <\/p>\n (Ariana Drehsler \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n Today\u2019s tiki scene is vast, encompassing everything from historical venues like Silver Lake\u2019s Tiki-Ti<\/a>, modern takes on the form such as Tustin\u2019s Stowaway<\/a> or Highland Park\u2019s Lucky Tiki<\/a>, or twists such as the seafaring tone of Anaheim\u2019s Strong Water<\/a>. It\u2019s also worth noting that Beach\u2019s initial bar flourished during the Great Depression. <\/p>\n \u201cMost people were never going to go to Hawaii or Jamaica or the Caribbean. So Donn brought it to them. There was a need for that then, and there\u2019s a need for that now,\u201d Lamb says.<\/p>\n Fantasy, ultimately, never goes out of style, despite challenging economic times. <\/p>\n ![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788170668_611_.png\")
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