Stubs - Island of Lost Souls

Island of Lost Souls (1932) starring: Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi; Directed by Erle C. Kenton; Screenplay by Waldemar Young, Philip Wylie. Based on the novel The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (London, 1896). Producer: None Credited. Run time: 70 minutes. Black and White. Drama, Science fiction, Horror

While Universal gets credit for the early 30s craze for horror film with Dracula in 1931, they were not the only studio to make that genre of films. Paramount Pictures had released Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and wanted to make a follow-up with more horrific and sexual themes. On June 1, 1931, Paramount paid $15,000 (equivalent to $300,500 in 2023) for the rights to H. G. Wells' novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, first published in 1896. Along with the novel, the studio also had access to an unproduced play by Frank Vreeland that was based on Wells' story and titled His Creatures.

The Paramount version of the story differed from the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, on which it is based. One of the differences was the addition of a character called The Panther Woman. This was used in pre-production as publicity with a talent search for the actress to play the role. Paramount publicist Arthur Mayer developed a contest that involved giving the winner a trip to Hollywood, $200 (equivalent to $4,470 in 2023) a week for five weeks, a home at the Ambassador Hotel, and a role in the film.

A copy of the form women could fill out to be considered for the role.

Contestants were required to be between the ages of 17 and 30 years old, to be in good health, between 5 feet 4 inches and 5 feet 8 inches tall, and not have worked, or be related to anyone who had worked, at Paramount. In his memoir, Merely Colossal, published in 1951, Mayer claimed that the contest attracted 60,000 contestants. There were four finalists; Lona Andre, Gail Patrick, Kathleen Burke, and Verna Hillie and the judges were Cecil B. DeMille, Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, Norman Taurog, Stuart Walker, and Erle C. Kenton, who took over directing the film from Taurog.

On September 29, 1932, Kathleen Burke was summoned to the casting office and told she had won the contest. Two days later, the film went into production. There was location shooting on Catalina Island for a week, and on the SS Catalina, which encountered real fog as called for in the script. Shooting lasted until early November, with retakes of the scene of Ruth with Ouran on December 8. Bela Lugosi was added to the cast in October, replacing George Barbier as the Sayer of the Law. The film was first released in Chicago on December 23, 1932.

Shipwrecked traveler Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is rescued by a freighter and nursed back to health by Montgomery (Arthur Hohl), who is a passenger on the ship and in charge of the cargo, which turns out to be a variety of animals. Parker asks Montgomery to send a telegram to his fiancé, Ruth Thomas (Leila Hyams), to let her know he’s survived and that he should be in Apia, where she’s waiting for him, that he has survived and that the boat should be in port in a few days.

But those plans get changed. Captain Davies (Stanley Fields), who drinks, does not care about Parker for three days. When Davies mistreats M'ling (Tetsu Komai), a crew member with some bestial features, Parker gets into a fight with Davies, knocking him out. Montgomery tells Parker to lay low, as Davies will hold a grudge.

Dr. Moreau’s (Charles Laughton), Montgomery (Arthur Hohl) and Edward Parker
(Richard Arlen) after Parker has been thrown off his boat by Captain Davies.

When the boat drops off its cargo onto Dr. Moreau’s (Charles Laughton) boat, Davies notices Parker on the deck and tosses him overboard onto the boat. Despite Moreau’s attempts, Davies refuses to take Parker back. Moreau promises that he’ll let Parker take his boat to Apia the next morning.

When they arrive at the island, Montgomery tells Moreau that he’ll spend the night on board the boat with Parker, but Moreau has changed his mind. He takes Parker to the main house, where M'ling is his butler. Moreau confides in Montgomery that he wants to see how Lota gets along with a man, since neither of them appeal to her. After dinner, Moreau retrieves Lota (Kathleen Burke), giving her specific instructions on what she can and cannot talk about with Parker, including the House of Pain. He then introduces Parker to Lota, a beautiful young woman who Moreau claims is of Polynesian origin. But when they’re alone, she claims to be from the island, the only woman on the island.

Parker sees Dr. Moreau and Montgomery performing a vivisection on a living creature.

She and Parker hear screams coming from another room, which Lota calls "the House of Pain." Parker investigates and sees Moreau and Montgomery operating on a human-like creature without anesthetic. Convinced Moreau is engaged in brutal vivisection, Parker tries to leave, but encounters savage-looking humanoids resembling beasts emerging from the jungle.

Moreau appears, cracks his whip and orders them, following their hairy-faced Sayer of the Law (Bela Lugosi), to recite a series of rules ("the Law"):

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

Dr. Moreau: What is the law?

Sayer of the Law: Not to spill blood, that is the law. Are we not men?

Beasts (in unison): Are we not men?

Back at the main house, Moreau tries to assuage Parker’s disgust by explaining his scientific work, describing how years before in London, he had begun experiments to accelerate the evolution of plants. He points to some of these in his garden. He then progressed to animals, trying to transform them into humans through plastic surgery, blood transfusions, gland extracts and ray baths. However, when a dog hybrid escaped from his laboratory, it horrified people and he was forced to leave England. He took Montgomery, a former medical student who was up on charges, with him.

Moreau tells Parker that Lota is the sole female on the island, but hides the fact she was derived from a panther. Later, Moreau privately expresses his excitement to Montgomery that Lota is showing human emotions in her attraction to Parker. So, he can continue observing this process, Moreau destroys the only available boat, ensuring Parker cannot leave, and blames this on his beast-men.

Lota's animalistic claws shock Parker.

Later, Lota who has fallen in love with Parker, throws a book he’s reading into the water, thinking the book might take him away. Even though Parker is engaged, they kiss. After Lota hugs him, Parker examines her fingernails, which are reverting to animalistic claws.

Parker storms into Moreau's to confront him for hiding the truth about Lota. Moreau explains Lota is his most-nearly human creation, and he wanted to see if she was capable of reproducing with a man. Enraged by the deceit, Parker punches Moreau and demands passage off the island. Moreau observes Lota weeping and showing human emotions; his hopes are raised and he screams he will "burn out" the remaining animal in her in the House of Pain. But Montgomery promises her that she won’t have to go through that.

Meanwhile, Ruth has gone to meet the boat Parker is supposed to be on and when the captain gets off the ship, he’s very dismissive of her concerns. She goes to the American consul (George Irving), who brings the captain in for questioning. He admits that he dropped Parker off on a small island and gave the coordinates, claiming he had done his duty taking the rescued man to the nearest port. But the consul isn’t buying it. The consul brings in Captain Donahue (Paul Hurst), who agrees to take Ruth to the island.

Captain Donahue (Paul Hurst) escorts Ruth Thomas (Leila Hyams) on Moreau's island.

When the ship arrives, Donahue takes her to Moreau’s house, where she is reunited with Parker. Even though Parker is anxious to leave, Moreau persuades the party to stay the night, as it’s already getting dark outside. Moreau later tells Montgomery that Parker may not be needed to provide experimentation with fertility.

That night, the ape-like Ouran (Hans Steinke), one of Moreau's creations, tries to break into Ruth's room, but is driven away by her screams. Montgomery confronts Moreau about it and implies Moreau arranged Ouran's attempted break-in.

Parker, Ruth, and Donahue discuss the situation and Donahue offers to go back to his ship and fetch his crew. Moreau, seeing him depart, dispatches Ouran to strangle him. Before Donahue can reach the docks, Ouran attacks and kills Donahue.

The Sayer of the Law (Bela Lugosi) leads the other beast-men in revolt.

Ouran brings Donahue’s body back to the village and tells the others that Moreau has allowed him to break the Law by spilling blood. This affects the others as they figure out that men, even Moreau, are mortal. They no longer feel bound by the Law; as the Sayer declaims that Moreau made them into things, neither man nor beast, they set their huts ablaze, presumably kill M'ling (Moreau's loyal dog-man), who fights them.

Dr. Moreau loses control of his beast-men, who end up torturing him to death.

Moreau tries and fails to regain control and the beast-men drag him into his House of Pain and brutally hack him to death on the operating table with his own surgical knives.

With the help of Montgomery, who wants off the island, Parker and Ruth escape through a back gate. Parker fetches Lota and the four of them make their way to the docks. However, Ouran has other ideas and after them. When Lota sees Ouran about to attack, she ambushes him. In the fight, both of them die. Parker goes back to look for her, and in her dying moments, she tells Parker to flee to the sea.

Montgomery, Parker and Ruth escape by boat as the island goes up in flames, presumably destroying Moreau's work and eradicating the beast-men.

Reviews at the time were generally positive. Variety predicted a hit: "Paramount will make money with this picture, and so will every exhibitor, including the first big runs, who pays some attention to its exploitation. Literally the proper title is 'Island of Lost Freaks.' It is decidedly a freak picture. But it is not in the class of freaks which have lost money."

In his review in The New York Times, Mordaunt Hall seems to be most impressed by Charles Laughton, “The general effect of the film is enhanced greatly by Mr. Laughton's urbane impersonation.” However, he is not as horrified as Variety would have suspected, instead writing, “Although the attempt to horrify is not accomplished with any marked degree of subtlety, there is no denying that some of the scenes are ingenuously fashioned and are, therefore, interesting.”

Philip K. Scheuer of Los Angeles Times called the film "extraordinarily bristly work", and noted its "suffocating atmosphere" and the performance of Laughton as Dr. Moreau. The reviewer called the film a "genuine shocker" that is "hard to shake off afterward" and concluded: "As art, it begins and ends with Charles Laughton.”

An unnamed critic for The Hollywood Filmograph said on December 10, 1932, after a pre-release screening, "All that can be done in the way of horror pictures has now definitely been done", and that the film "tops all the rest. It out-Frankensteins Frankenstein, and relegates all other thrillers to the class of children's bedtime stories …"

I will say that the film still does hold up as far as shock value goes. The images are still very disturbing and the creatures, thanks to Wally Westmore's extraordinary makeup, certainly make a lasting impression.

Other reviewers, according to TCM, were reluctant to recommend the film due to its disturbing sexual undertones in the Lota-Parker relationship and the unrelenting sadism which is recurrent in the vivisection experiments. There are some things that even in Pre-Code Hollywood were almost out of bounds.

State censors in the U.S. edited the film upon its release. As an example, dialogue of Moreau asking Montgomery about the Panther Woman was cut in Pennsylvania as well as British Columbia and Quebec, Canada; and Australia. Scenes showing Moreau cutting into a screaming man were cut in Chicago; and in Alberta and British Columbia. The film was also banned in several countries, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa. It was also banned in Tasmania, Australia. The film was banned in the UK, for being "against the laws of nature,” and the ban wasn’t lifted until 1958. In the 1958 re-release, the censors cut the entirety of Laughton's death scene.

Charles Laughton excels in the role of Dr. Moreau.

Charles Laughton brings a certain urbane air to a very horrible and mad scientist. Moreau seems to have no regard for his beast-men and treats them as less than human, despite their question, “Are we not men?” It is another example of Laughton’s acting skills, which are on display in nearly every film he’s in.

Richard Arlen, perhaps best known for his role as David Armstrong, a pilot, in Wings (1927), stars here as Edward Parker. He is good, but not a standout in the role. His performance is over shadowed by Laughton’s.

Leila Hyams had been a star in films since achieving success in MGM's first talkie release, the now lost Alias Jimmy Valentine (1928) opposite William Haines, Lionel Barrymore, and Karl Dane. She would have a varied career appearing in such films as The Thirteenth Chair (1929), The Big House (1930), Freaks (1932), Red-Headed Woman (1932) and The Big Broadcast (1932). She would retire from films in 1936 at the age of 31, after 50 films. Here, she’s pretty, but not really used much in the role of Ruth. Her best acting comes when Ouran tries to break into her room.

Bela Lugosi is almost unrecognizable as the Sayer of the Law.

Fame was not apparently kind to Bela Lugosi. On October 17, Lugosi declared bankruptcy, the year after starring in Dracula. In this film, he’s playing a glorified extra in The Island of Lost Souls, picking up a paycheck of only $875. He is almost unrecognizable as Sayer of the Law. You almost feel sorry for him for having to take such a role when his career should have been riding high.

The role of Lota was Kathleen Burke’s first in film, having won the contest to play the Panther Woman. A former model, Burke is not given that much to do in the role, but looks weirdly attractive as a mostly human woman. Burke would go on to appear in such films as The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935) opposite Gary Cooper, and The Last Outpost (1935) with Cary Grant. Her final film role was in 1938, whereupon she retired from screen acting at the age of 25.

The film’s horror certainly holds up after over 90 years since its release. While it might not be everyone’s cup of tea, if you enjoyed Freaks, you’ll probably like this film, too. The images of the man-beasts are not easy to forget and they make a lasting impression. And if the recitation of the Laws makes you think of the band Devo’s first album, you’re not alone.