hipwrecked and adrift at sea, Edward Parker (Arlen) is thrilled to be
rescued by the S.S. Covena. He's surprised, however, by the Covena's strange
cargo: dozens of great cats, gorillas and other wild animals, all bound for
a mysterious, uncharted island.
Unfortunately, Parker runs afoul of the ship's brutal captain. As the
animals are unloaded onto a schooner from the island, Parker is tossed
overboard. He revives to find himself on the schooner surrounded by
strange-looking natives and their sly master, Dr. Moreau (Laughton).
Once inside Moreau's hilltop stronghold, the good doctor introduces
Parker to Lota (Kathleen Burke), the island's only woman. Unknown to Parker,
Moreau wants see whether Lota will display feminine emotions towards the
handsome stranger. But Parker responds to a scream of agony and stumbles
into Moreau's laboratory--where he finds a human vivisection in progress.
Appalled, Parker tries to flee, but he is surrounded in the jungle by the
animal-faced natives. He's saved by the dramatic appearance of a
whip-cracking Moreau, who reminds them of the Law: "No spill blood!" Later
Moreau explains to Parker that he has found way to force evolution ahead
thousands of years. The island natives are not humans, but animals Moreau
has forced to evolve.
Meanwhile, Parker's fiancee, Ruth Thomas (Hyams), has engaged Captain
Donahue (Paul Hurst) to search for Parker. Landing on the island, Thomas and
Donahue are invited to stay overnight, but after a creature breaks into
Thomas's room they realize their danger. Donahue runs back to fetch his men.
Moreau orders a creature to kill him, but this fatal mistake voids the Law
in the eyes of his creations. Chanting "No more Law!" they storm the
complex, intent on killing the humans inside.
A masterful performance
As with many of the films in which he appears, the centerpiece of
Island of Lost Souls is Laughton's performance. Dr. Moreau is a
daunting acting challenge; he must be cultured and intelligent, slowly
revealing his delusions of godlike power while retaining the veneer of a
reasonable man of science. Laughton's crafty, slippery Moreau is unsettling
and memorable.
Equally unsettling are the victims of Moreau's experiments. The
filmmakers took great care to establish these beasts as more than mere
extras in makeup. The turning point of the film comes when they realize that ritual of the Law, with its congregational response of "Are we not
men?" is meaningless. Because these characters have been brought to life,
particularly by Bela Lugosi in one of his more overlooked roles as the Sayer
of the Law, this moment is powerful and not a little frightening. Their
access of insight demonstrates that the real monster is Moreau.
The film does have a certain weakness, in that all the folks from off the
island are terribly bland compared to the creepy Moreau, his conflicted
assistant, and their disturbing creations. Arlen is required to play a
standard, square-jawed male archetype; Hyams is must wear a sun hat,
worry, and scream. This delineation between the islanders and the visitors
is deliberate, but it oversimplifies Edward Parker and his reactions to Lota
and Moreau.
Island of Lost Souls is the first of four renditions of H.G.
Wells' milestone novel The Island of Doctor Moreau. And the haunting,
gothic art direction and cinematography, the simple poignancy of the
victims' plight, and Laughton's commanding performance combine to make this the
definitive realization of the fable of Dr. Moreau.
