Review of Island of Lost Souls

From the H. G. Wells story, "The Island of Dr. Moreau," this film is part horror story, part science fiction, and part moral fable. If the film works, it's because of Wells's writing and because of the simultaneously comforting and disturbing presence of Charles Laughton as Dr. Moreau. He is another sort of Dr. Frankenstein, a scientist whose hunger for discovery transforms genius and egotism into a pathology. Moreau has discovered a means of accelerating evolution by hundreds of millennia. His experiments with plants were harmless enough, but, banished to a tropical island, he forces beasts to evolve into men through sessions in the operating theatre he calls the House of Pain. The creatures are given the law, which they chant responsively: "Are we not men?" Into this scenario comes an innocent outsider, Parker (Richard Arlen), who rejects Moreau's vision and stands for truth and dignity-Arlen is a typical 30s hero, a bit of a stick figure, really, with good posture and a pretty fiancée Ruth (Leila Hyams) who shows up on the island to save him, and in turn to be saved herself, but he's not a great actor. On the other hand, Laughton is. He invests the part with a complex mix of charm, sprawling awkwardly on an operating table to show how fully at ease he is, or smiling with a boyish expression of amusement, not unlike Fatty Arbuckle-but he's also able to exude menace by holding absolutely still, an effect emphasized by shadow, and by saying terrible things with a bland expression. Also remarkable is Kathleen Burke as Lota, the Panther Woman, Moreau's most advanced experiment: she weeps, she loves, she protects her beloved and dies in the effort. The beast-people-Parker and Moreau call them "natives," Parker sincerely and Moreau ironically-are disturbed, and Moreau says "They are restless tonight." Is this the origin of the familiar phrase? When they discover Dr. Moreau is willing to break the law, ordering the death of an intruder, they realize he can die, too, and take him to the House of Pain. Rowing away from the burning island, Dr. Moreau's assistant, the repentant Dr. Montgomery (Arthur Hohl) tells them, "Don't look back." Another source for yet another familiar phrase? The story is not really about political events of the 30s at all--the story was written much earlier--but about the human limits of science, a theme dating back at least to Faustus and Frankenstein.