Island of Doomed Men (1940)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

Charles Barton

Writer:

Robert Hardy Andrews (writer)

Release Date:

20 May 1940 (USA)

Genre:

Thriller | Drama

Tagline:

Women shuddering at his cruel caress! Men dying under his torturing lash!

Plot:

Sadistic Stephen Danel owns a penal island, and when he is not humiliating and mistreating his wife...

Plot Keywords:

Island | Slave Labor | Beautiful Woman | Stabbed In The Back | Arms Tied Overhead

Cast

Peter Lorre	...	Stephen Danel
Rochelle Hudson	...	Lorraine Danel
Robert Wilcox	...	Mark Sheldon
Don Beddoe	...	Brand
George E. Stone	...	Siggy
Kenneth MacDonald	...	Dr. Rosener
Charles Middleton	...	Capt. Cort
Stanley Brown	...	Eddie
Earl Gunn	...	Mitchell

Runtime:

68 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park - 4730 Crystal Springs Drive, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

The scenes of miners performing slave-labor for Peter Lorre were filmed in L.A.'s Griffith Park inside an area known as Bronson Canyon.

Goofs:

Plot holes: Mark Sheldon (Robert Wilcox) is convicted of the murder of Jackson (Addison Richards) because he's found with the body holding a gun. Jackson's actual killer used a different gun, and ballistics tests (which existed in 1940) would have shown that Jackson was not killed with Sheldon's gun.

Quotes:

Stephen Danel: [to Capt. Cort who's about to flog Mark Sheldon, a.k.a. Mr. Smith] Don't overdo it, Captain. There's a lot Mr. Smith ought to tell me and he may want to tell me before you finish. Oh, and be sure that he's able to work tomorrow.

Lovely lashings of Lorre!

This delicious low camp kinkfest proves that studio-era censorship wasn't nearly as thorough as it's purported to have been. In what seems almost like a rehearsal for the tormented lustmurderer Dr. Rothe in "Der Verlorene," Lorre gives unexpected depth and nuance to the melodramatic villain Stephen Danel, with just a dash of his patented quirky humor. Though the film itself is crude and pulpy, with an extreme BDSM quotient (Danel's prisoners are kept in line with cat o' nine tails, as, it's strongly implied, is Mrs. Danel) Lorre's deft performance lifts "Island of Dommed Men" from the realm of the ridiculous into sublimity.