THE DONN OF TIKI

FILMMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE! THE DONN OF TIKI explores the exceptional life of Ernest Raymond Beaumont Gantt, popularly known as Donn Beach or Don The Beachcomber, via a creative blend of traditional and stop-motion animation, archival footage and photographs, and interviews with authors, researchers, and cocktail experts. Famous for telling entertaining, if unverifiable, stories about his life, Donn’s tales must be heard to be believed. By combining audio from a 1986 interview, with stop-motion animation reminiscent of a 1960s Christmas special, Donn comes to life and is given the opportunity to tell his story in his own words. As Donn and other featured guests tell us about his travels through The South Seas, bootlegging in 1920s Hollywood, scavenging for liquor in Europe during WWII, and creating authentic travel experiences in Hawaii in the 1950s, we begin to understand who he was as a person, what drove him to do the things he did, and how his influence is still felt today. Scorned by ex-wives, the Chicago mob, and victim to industrial copy-cats for most of his life, Donn finally settled down after finding true love. In his later years, he enjoyed the simplicity of a quiet life in paradise, finally embodying the Beachcomber persona he had created so many years earlier. One of the great ironies of his life was that he lived just long enough to see the most well-known part of his legacy, Tiki, fall from massive pop-culture phenomenon in the fifties and sixties, to obsolescence by the mid-eighties. By the time of his death in 1989, Tiki had all but died as well. Had he lived ten years longer he would have witnessed its revival. Today the subculture is enjoying a resurgence and newfound popularity that he could only have imagined. THE DONN OF TIKI uses Donn’s tall tales to reflect on universal truths: life is ultimately about love, humor, and paying attention to the details. $17 advance, $20 day of show.DocumentaryPT1H40M2025-08-18

Max Well

Alex Lamb

THE DONN OF TIKI"THE DONN OF TIKI"

Showtimes

August 18, 6:30 pm