Review of Adventure Island

Rhonda Fleming was yummy, and the girl from the island was good-looking, too, and these two women, together with Napier's nonchalance and smooth performance as the soft-spoken governor are the good things in the movie, and it takes Newfield to make such a trite one, and to this half-wit have been handed very many movies, and his use of pseudonyms might perhaps give off that he was aware of his quality; a few actors, like Napier and Kelly, do what they can with the novel's leftovers (Napier's look seems a wry homage to the novelist). But Newfield was so obviously insensitive and indifferent to the plot, and uninspired to manage it, it's like having the cameras on automatic pilot; yet the business was such, that even Newfield got hired, and made tens of movies with Crabbe, McCoy, Steele, several with Brown, Boyd, Zucco, and in movies like this one you can see that he wasn't making concessions, but was simply wholly untalented. The sailors arrive on the island after more than half of the movie.

Napier plays the insane governor who has bewitched the natives of an island.

I have seen it copyrighted '42.