Bernie, a self-destructive alcoholic, is given watch over his niece Winnie. He tests the patience of the various people he knows and Winnie is often left on her own.Bernie, a self-destructive alcoholic, is given watch over his niece Winnie. He tests the patience of the various people he knows and Winnie is often left on her own.Bernie, a self-destructive alcoholic, is given watch over his niece Winnie. He tests the patience of the various people he knows and Winnie is often left on her own.
Beatie Edney
- Winnie
- (as Beatrice Edney)
Peter Sellers
- Stallholder
- (as A. Queen)
Thomas Heathcote
- Dice Player
- (as Tom Heathcote)
Bertel Lauring
- Louis
- (as Bertil Lauring)
Sisse Reingaard
- Daughter of Cafe Proprietress
- (as Sisse Reingärd)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRoman Polanski was present during the entire filming of A Day at the Beach. He was editing the picture and shooting inserts with the director, Simon Hesera, when news came of his wife's murder in California. He left England that night. The film was hastily finished without him, put on the shelf and has only recently been rediscovered.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Unknown Peter Sellers (2000)
- SoundtracksWhere Are We Going
by Kenny Lynch and Mort Shuman
Featured review
On Foot Beach Road Movie
Ironically, while Roman Polanski was in Europe the same year The Manson Family would violently crash Sharon Tate's party, he was preparing for two movies with the word DAY in the title: scouting to direct THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN while adapting an obscure Dutch novel for A DAY AT THE BEACH, a film so independent it feels like something more of the John Cassavates wheelhouse...
And this BEACH centers on a raving drunken British man's beeline trek through a mostly barren Danish beach tourist town during sporadic rain bursts, and instead of tourists are an abandoned lot of outdoor and indoor cafe or curio shop or liquor store or pub owners wherein he gets more intoxicated and thus more pontificating and moody along the way, mostly trying for as much drink for as little money possible: a kind of progressively-blasted human coupon...
The primary twist is he's not alone... Tagging along is his niece who's really his daughter from surly starting point ex Fiona Lewis, and while future HIGHLANDER beauty Beatie Edney is a good enough child actress, providing both realistic screaming tantrums and gaping toothless grins whenever needed, her mere existence is to underline just how flaky, downright selfish and dangerously neglectful Mark Burns's Bernie's traipsing-around plight really is...
For example, in one scene he's being hit-on by an openly gay/super effeminate storefront couple... one played capably by Peter Sellers billed as A. Queen; at the same time, right outside, little Winnie gets stuck in some netting along the beach's planked walkway... a path that winds through the sand in a location that's even more art-house from the incessant tempest...
It's never entirely clear what the actual plot or purpose is, but Burns's character is a terrific drunk that'd make Charles Bukowski envy with a mobile, existential life all mapped out, at one point telling a pretentious (passed-out) poet's sexy wife, "I'll be hungover tomorrow, but the next day meet me at noon at..."
As this lost-for-decades curio is, by the end, a dizzying odyssey by first time director Simon Hesera and, while frowned upon by writer/producer Polanski for lack of proper composition, it's through a rip-roaring drunkard's eyes that we're eyeing everything, so in actuality the location is more what the character experiences than the audience visualizes.
And this BEACH centers on a raving drunken British man's beeline trek through a mostly barren Danish beach tourist town during sporadic rain bursts, and instead of tourists are an abandoned lot of outdoor and indoor cafe or curio shop or liquor store or pub owners wherein he gets more intoxicated and thus more pontificating and moody along the way, mostly trying for as much drink for as little money possible: a kind of progressively-blasted human coupon...
The primary twist is he's not alone... Tagging along is his niece who's really his daughter from surly starting point ex Fiona Lewis, and while future HIGHLANDER beauty Beatie Edney is a good enough child actress, providing both realistic screaming tantrums and gaping toothless grins whenever needed, her mere existence is to underline just how flaky, downright selfish and dangerously neglectful Mark Burns's Bernie's traipsing-around plight really is...
For example, in one scene he's being hit-on by an openly gay/super effeminate storefront couple... one played capably by Peter Sellers billed as A. Queen; at the same time, right outside, little Winnie gets stuck in some netting along the beach's planked walkway... a path that winds through the sand in a location that's even more art-house from the incessant tempest...
It's never entirely clear what the actual plot or purpose is, but Burns's character is a terrific drunk that'd make Charles Bukowski envy with a mobile, existential life all mapped out, at one point telling a pretentious (passed-out) poet's sexy wife, "I'll be hungover tomorrow, but the next day meet me at noon at..."
As this lost-for-decades curio is, by the end, a dizzying odyssey by first time director Simon Hesera and, while frowned upon by writer/producer Polanski for lack of proper composition, it's through a rip-roaring drunkard's eyes that we're eyeing everything, so in actuality the location is more what the character experiences than the audience visualizes.
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- TheFearmakers
- Aug 26, 2021
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Un dia en la playa
- Filming locations
- Copenhagen, Denmark(kinema weekly 26/4/69)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 33 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
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