Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Directed by Erle C. Kenton

Film Review

In those gloriously uninhibited days in Hollywood before self-censorship reared its ugly head and effectively outlawed all but the tamest depictions of sex and violence for a good twenty years filmmakers must have felt they could get away with anything, within the bounds of good taste and common decency.  The Production Code was introduced in 1930 but wasn't actively enforced until 1934, so in the first few years of the sound era there was an 'anything goes' mentality which writers and directors took full advantage of.  Nowhere is this more evident than in the horror films produced at this time, Paramount's Island of Lost Souls (1932) being a case in point that shows just how far an American film of this time could go in exploiting the freedoms available to it.

Within just a few years, a film of this kind - one that dwells on the possibility of human beings being mated with animals and shows  us vivisection being performed on living animals (whilst fully conscious) - would have been totally unthinkable.  Paramount's gruesome little shocker may have found its way onto cinema screens in America but it wouldn't be until 1958 that it was passed by Britain's Board of Censors.  Island of Lost Souls is one of the most notorious films of the pre-Code era and it remains, for pretty obvious reasons, one of the more disturbing entries in the horror genre.

Paramount was one of a number of studios in Hollywood that leapt aboard the horror band wagon after the runaway success of Universal Pictures' Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931).  Whereas Universal's early horror offerings had their origins in 19th century gothic literature, Paramount's Island of Lost Souls sprang from the literary roots of science-fiction, specifically H. G. Wells's 1896 novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, which had previously been adapted just once, as a silent French short entitled L'Île d'épouvante (1911).  Seldom one to be enthused by cinema's early brushes with science-fiction, Wells was highly critical of the film and considered it a betrayal of his novel's philosophical themes.  The film may not have impressed Mr Wells, but it is an intelligent and honest interpretation of his novel, directed with integrity by Erle C. Kenton, who would subsequently go on to direct some entries in Universal's popular series of horror films: The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945).

Bela Lugosi, the Hunagrian actor who had played Dracula with such sinister élan for Universal, was given a small but significant role in the film.  The combined effect of an impressive make-up job and the actor's strong physical presence ensures that Lugosi's appearance as one of Moreau's Beast People is one of the film's key horror elements, although the actor who receives top-billing is Charles Laughton, an inspired casting choice for the part of Dr Moreau.  Laughton had yet to make his name in Hollywood but was persuaded to take on the choice role during his first tour of America, when he was busily engaged with his stagework.  The actor would later distinguish himself in another memorable horror film, playing Quasimodo in RKO's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), but his portrayal of Moreau, whilst far less outwardly monstrous, has a far more sinister quality.  Laughton's quietly underplayed Dr Moreau represents a masterclass in contained villainy - one of cinema's truest and most chilling depictions of pure evil.

Not that Charles Laughton has any need to stress his character's monstrous nature - this is more than amply conveyed by the spine-chilling aura that permeates every inch of his despicable island, an aura laced with expectant menace and primal fear.  You feel it as soon as the hero Parker (blandly portrayed by Richard Arlen) first comes ashore, a vague but tangible sense of something unspeakably cruel and malignant in the air.  This the film owes to the atmospheric cinematography of Karl Struss, who had previously won an Oscar for his superb work on  F.W. Murnau's Sunrise (1927) and contributed a similar feeling of background malevolence to Rouben Mamoulian's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931).  With some simple but effective expressionistic touches, Struss conjures up a mood of oppressive claustrophobia, of the kind you would expect to feel if you should happen to find yourself trapped on an island with a mad scientist and the products of his diabolical experiements on animal evolution, including a biologically augmented wild cat who has the hots for you.

With Dr Moreau looking every inch the white colonialist, enslaving and exploiting the creatures he considers his evolutionary inferiors as he seeks to fashion the world in his image, it's not too difficult to read an overt anti-colonialist (perhaps even anti-Fascist) subtext into the film - it's worth noting that it originated the phrase 'The natives are restless tonight', often used with racial overtones.  But what it is really about is the folly of pursuing any form of scientific endeavour without moral restraint or awareness of where such endeavour will lead us.  It's a theme that is perhaps even more relevant today than it was back in 1932, and maybe this is why Island of Lost Souls still has the capacity to chill the blood.  What we have here isn't just a fantasy but a nightmare vision of what may ensue if man continues to play God with nature.  Welcome to the House of Pain...

Film Synopsis

When the liner he is travelling on is wrecked in the South Pacific, Edward Parker is picked up by a cargo vessel laden with wild animals.  The ship is bound for an unnamed South Sea island belonging to an English scientist, Dr Moreau.  After falling out with the captain, Parker ends up being stranded on Moreau's island but is welcomed as a guest by the seemingly hospitable scientist.  Moreau introduces Parker to an attractive young woman named Lota, keeping from him the fact that she is the product of one of his experiments, a human-like female created from a panther.  The scientist reveals that after years of dedicated research he has found a way to accelerate the evolutionary process, first in plants, then in animals.  The strange creatures that work for Moreau are the result of an earlier phase of his bio-anthropological research, Beast People whose sole function is to obey.  Lota is Moreau's greatest achievement yet - she not only looks human, she also exhibits human emotions, and the fact that she appears to have fallen in love with Parker is a vindication of his work.  The unexpected arrival on the island of Parker's fiancée Ruth, in the company of Captain Donahue, threatens Moreau's ambition to see Parker mated with Lota.  The scientist orders Ouran, one of his Beast Men, to kill the captain, but as he does so Ouran realises that he is no longer bound by Moreau's laws which forbid violence.  It is time for the evil doctor to get a taste of his own medicine...