The Revenge of the 31 Days of Cheese Day 7 - The Island of Lost Souls

Cheese doesn’t always have to be bad – at least as far as I am concerned. It’s a certain something like swing it either has it or it doesn’t have it and oh boy does 1932’s The Island of Lost Souls have it. In spades.

Based on the H.G. Wells book The Island of Dr Moreau where a mad scientist played with amazing gusto by Charles Laughton – really he chews just about every bit of scenery he can get his teeth into. And as so many of the pre Hayes code films there are a lot of very very weird hints of insane deranged kinkiness going on here.

I understand that Wells – who was still alive when this film was made hated it. Well they did make some changes – notably the introduction of the Panther Woman – we’ll get to that in a bit.

The story follows the male lead who after being rescued by a ship heading for the Doctor’s island ends up as the doctor’s guest. The natives seem very strange to him eventually he discovers that the doctor has made human out of animals (he’s more successful in some than in others). Moreau is utterly cold blooded about it. He never drugs the subjects of his experiments (aided by a self loathing drunk doctor) who refer to the libratory as the house of pain.

At first eager to get rid of his guest Moreau seizes on the idea of introducing him to Lota – who was always noted in the credits as “the panther woman” (the actress Katherine Burke had a lot of problems getting other roles as well how many panther woman roles are there in movies?) with the idea that they might breed. Parker , the male lead is at first taken with Lota but senses something odd about her.

His time with Lota is interrupted by screams – he investigates and finds Moreau and the other doctor cutting up what looks to be a man then in a frightening dash in the jungle at night Parker meets the rest of the beast men – and just as they are about to do bad things Moreau shows up with a whip and banging a nearby gong shouts “what is the law!”

And from somewhere behind a whole lot of hair Bella Lugosi’s unmistakable voice shouts out “Not to walk on all Fours. Are we not Men?”

Side note – sometime in the 70’s in Akron a young man was watching this film on TV and if he’d been drinking coffee would have done a spit take when he heard this line – it crystallized in his mind the nascent strands that would become DEVO. But I digress.

Parker learns the truth that Moreau is making these men out of animals and then later figures out (parker’s not really quick on the uptake here) that Lota is also a beast man or woman in this case.

Meantime – there is always a meantime in these films – parkers finance has enlisted the aid of a friendly ship caption to go to the island to find parker. She does and Moreau gets an even worse idea as he watches the beast men follow the young blonde in the jungle – he won’t need Parker after all to conduct his breeding experiments.

He doesn’t’ get the chance as he manages to bring the whole wrath of the beast men down on him. He has one of the beast men kill the captain (which had been one of the no-no’s he’d laid down for his creations) and after the captain has been killed they figure out Moreau can be killed and well everything goes hell in a very large hand basket – Bella makes another speech – “You made us in the house of pain. Not man. Not beast. Things.” and then they rush Moreau, end up in with him on the surgical table in the house of pain and then they make with the scalpels.

Parker and his fiancé and the self loathing doctor with a past make their escape in the chaos aided by the scarf ice of the tragic Lota.

They row to the waiting ship as the flames rise on the island.

The film has a wonderful energy that olds up even after 80 years and I personally am very grateful for criteon films for putting it out in a wonderfully restored version.

Enjoy with some nice cheddar or even brie, and a nice wine. It’s worth it.