So, I enjoyed my recent first foray into old horror movies with Dracula enough to give it another whirl. Tonight, I was going to try the Mummy but last night TCM had some Lugosi movies on so I picked “The Island of Lost Souls.” This is a 1932 film starring Charles Laughton as Dr Moreau; a scientist who experimented on surgically converting animals into humans. Lugosi has a relatively small part as one of his experiments. He looks like a man-wolf and functions as, “The Sayer of the Law.” This movie is just a renamed version of H.G. Wells’ story, “The Island of Dr. Moreau.”
Okay, the first thing to take into account is that Laughton is a much better actor than your typical horror movie mad scientist. Now granted, this isn’t “Mutiny on the Bounty” so he has to work with what he’s given but Laughton sells it well. The rest of the cast is adequate to the task at hand. And the movie does deliver the climax that a fiendish Frankensteinian scientist will always reap; destruction at the hands of his tortured creations.
The highlights of the movie are of Moreau portraying an omnipotent ruler as he commands the obedience of his many creations. On a hill in the jungle, he rings a gong twice, cracks a bullwhip and shouts down to his assembled subjects repeatedly, “What is the law?” And the Sayer of the Law gives the various answers at each repetition of the question,
“Not to walk on all fours. Are we not men?”
“Not to spill blood. Are we not men?”
“Not to eat meat. Are we not men?”
And this is enough to quiet the beast within each “man” when the night awakens his blood. And if they become especially restless, he reminds them of “The House of Pain.” This is where Moreau rearranged their living flesh to simulate a human form and apparently anesthetic was not part of the program. Just the mention of it triggers howls of fear.
But when Moreau orders one of his creatures to murder an outsider, a man like Moreau, the creatures put together the pieces of the puzzle. Moreau ordered one of them to spill blood, so, “the law is no more!” And a man like Moreau was killed, so Moreau could be killed! And so, dragging Moreau into the House of Pain for some unskilled surgery of their own was now on the agenda!
The subplot where Moreau tried to get an outside human male to fall in love with the “panther woman” who was his most successful attempt at mimicking the human form is somewhat interesting. And the antics of the sailors who show up in a couple of sections of the story provide a slight amount of comedy. But the real story is Moreau playing god to his creations and the inevitable revenge reaction destroying him. H. G. Wells was a good writer so it is no surprise that his story is somewhat fun to watch in its first Hollywood portrayal. I very much enjoyed rewatching Island of Lost Souls. And I assume that Charles Laughton is the main reason. Now, without a doubt he hammed up his portrayal as needed. But his Moreau is a successful portrayal of the mad scientist. Kudos to Mr. Laughton.