ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

A winner in every way. Charles Laughton creates one of the screens creepiest villains, Dr. Moreau — a smirking ego-maniac who gleefully sets himself up as God on a remote island where he carries out horrible experiments that turn animals into deformed humanoids. Bela Lugosi plays the Sayer of the Law, the leader of the animal people.

After a nation-wide search for an actress with a distinctly bizarre kind of beauty, nineteen-year-old Kathleen Burke was cast in the part of Lota, a "girl" which Moreau creates by surgically and biologically altering a panther. Richard Arlen is the shipwrecked sailor with whom Lota is intended to mate.

Director Erle C. Kenton and cinematographer Karl Struss use the film's slightly hazy photography to excellent advantage, creating weird visions of a nightmare world where monsters walk upright and speak in the tongues of men.

The sets are bizarre and surrealistic. The climax, which takes place in the evil doctor's surgical "House of Pain" includes no gory scenes (naturally), but the audience is so totally aware of the terrible things which are happening there that it leaves them literally shuddering with horror.

No wonder it was banned in England for several years following its release! The screenplay was written by Waldemar Young and Philip Wylie.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[orzel-w]

[scotpens]

Kathleen Burke was no great actress, but she was perfect for the role of the Panther Woman. In the scene where she seductively snuggles up against Richard Arlen, you can practically hear her purr.





Nice kitty . . .

This is by far the best of the three film adaptations of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. The 1977 version with Burt Lancaster is tepid at best, and the 1996 film with Val Kilmer and Marlon Brando is an unholy mess.

[Pow]

I'm fond of the Lancaster version. Great make-ups, good cast & production values.

[Bud Brewster]

A good cast indeed! The thread for The Island of Dr. Moreau could use a little traffic, so I'll hurl the gauntlet right here with my take on that film, and we can continue the discussion over there:

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

That version made a valiant effort to stand on the shoulders of greatness and recreate the creepy thrills of The Island of Lost Souls.

Unfortunately I think it ended up standing in its shadow. But like you said, Pow, it certainly wasn't the fault of the fine cast.

Barbara Carrera had just the right combination of beauty and bestial strangeness (a subtle hint of darkness), and Michael York was excellent as always, playing the man who didn't realize that strange things were afoot on that remote island — until it was too late.

Burt Lancaster put his signature intensity into the role of a man driven to madness by the pursuit of knowledge. With Charles Laughton, it was more a matter of pride and ego.

My only complaint with the 1977 film was that it did too many things in broad daylight which would have been better in the dark — as the original film demonstrated.

The makeup was great, but the movie failed to be scary for the same reason people don't sit around campfires and tell ghost stories . . . at five o'clock in the afternoon.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Phantom]

This is a genuine classic of the bizarre and one of the grimmest science fiction-horror films of the decade. I can only think of Kongo (a remake of Chaney's West of Zanzibar) to equal its slithery atmosphere.

William K. Everson described Laughton's performance as a mad scientist crossed with a demented child with a god complex.

The scene in which the manimals, led by Lugosi, approach the camera, emitting a series of grunts, growls, squeals and unearthly sounds is the stuff of nightmares, topped only by the grisly finish in the House of Pain.

Kathleen Burke was only about 19 when she portrayed the Panther Woman. She's a knock-out.

I have the blu-ray edition. Unfortunately, it brings out all the defects in the cinematography, particularly grain that looks like a sand storm during certain scenes.

[Bud Brewster]

[The Spike]

There's an island somewhere out there in the goddamn foggy laden deep blue sea. Here resides Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton), he has a God complex and he is conducting experiments, turning animals into humans. Unsurprisingly and terrifyingly the results are not exactly a success!

Tod Browning's Freaks was released this same year, and when watching Erle C. Kenton's Island of Lost Souls, it makes for the perfect companion piece. Full of haunting imagery, aided no end by cinematographer Karl Struss' stunning photography, it's a film that stays with you long after the end credits have rolled. Berserker science marries up to human chaos to provoke and trouble in equal measure. Laughton gives top villainy, whilst Waldemar Young and and Philip Wylie adapt from the H.G. Wells novel with a cheeky glint in their eyes. The 1930s had some great horror movies, this is up with the best of them. 8/10
_________________
The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

IMDB has 40 trivia items for this movie. Here’s a few of the ones I found the most interesting, in the blue text.
________________________________

~ In response to British censors who claimed the film was "against nature", Elsa Lanchester (Mrs. Charles Laughton) is said to have stated, "Of course it's against nature. So's Mickey Mouse!"

Note from me: Wow, I can hear that statement being said in Miss Lanchester's voice!

~ This movie was refused a cinema certificate in 1933 by the BBFC and remained banned in the UK until 1958, when it was released with an X certificate with cuts made. Among the board's objections were references to vivisection and "cutting a living man to pieces", and Moreau saying, "Do you know what it means to feel like God?". The film was finally released uncut on DVD in 2011 with a PG certificate.

Note from me: These are such stark examples of how ignorant and blinded by religious dogma people can be. Things are different now, but we've still got a ways to go.

~ Author H.G. Wells disliked this movie adaptation of his novel 'The Island of Doctor Moreau'. Wells felt the film's emphasis on horror overshadowed the novel's philosophical themes.

Note from me: Perhaps it had a different message than Well's novel, but it still manages to deliver a power message.

~ To create the language of the mutants sound-man Loren L. Ryder recorded a mixture of animal sounds and foreign languages, then played them backwards at alternating speeds. The effect: the sound induced nausea and caused the audiences to vomit in the theaters.

Note from me: Forgive me, guys, but this sounds mighty damned bogus from start to finish. I just don't buy the idea.

~ The filmmakers wanted an unknown actress to play Lota, the Panther Woman. Kathleen Burke, their selection, was working as a dentist's assistant at the time. It was her first film role ever.

Note from me: Just a whimsical comment: I have trouble picturing Miss Burke in a white medical uniform, standing next me while I sat in a dentist chair, and saying, "Please open wide, sir. I need to poke around in your mouth . . . "

~ Inspired the 1981 song of the same name, recorded by Blondie

Note from me: By gum, I think I actually believe this!

_______________Blondie - Island Of Lost Souls


__________


~The film was made before the introduction of the Hays Code of film censorship in Hollywood, hence the racy poster and tag line.

Note from me: Perhaps this is poster the item refers to. It doesn't seem so racy now . . .

_______
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

Let's Create a Sequel!
________________________________

~ A Question for the Members: Would all the "manimal" slowly revert to their original or near-original forms? Or would they retain their altered conditions and learn to deal with their ungodly physicality?

~ Here's what I came up with.: The Wikipedia summary of H.G. Wells' novel is very different from the movie. The main character live the island for months with the "Beast Folk", and during that time they do in fact slowly revert to some degree.

The 1898 novel states that the animals are changed by "vivisection" — which wouldn't seem to explain how animals could be changed in so drastic a manner, especially the raising of their intelligence.


__________


However, here in the 21st century we know that the story is suggesting genetic modification, not just some kind of "plastic surgery" on animals to make them look human.

So, we should grant Wells some leeway and accept the results he describes as being accomplished by scientific methods Wells didn't try to explain to his readers, even if he knew about the research in that area himself.







Having said that, if the Beast Folk were created by advanced gene slicing (and some method of accelerating the change in the subjects), they might not actually revert to the animal state as time goes by.

In fact, the final transformation in some of the subjects might take several more years! If that were true, the island might end up with a group of very human-looking Beast Folk who retain very few characteristics of their original form.


__________

__________


For the sake of the sequel I'm creating here, I'd have a small group of "superior" Beast Folk establish a benevolent rule over the less well developed individuals. They would remember the cruelty of Dr. Moreau . . . and they'd vow never to be like him!

Imagine a community in which the near-perfect humans have organized the other Beast Folk into cooperative groups. Each individual would do the task for which they were best suited. Some would hunt the local wildlife, others would work in the gardens, etc.

In the movie, Dr. Moreau was having animals shipped to his island on a regular basis. He even allowed a "dog man" to go with Montgomery (his assistant) when they went to pick up a shipment of animals.


__________


Naturally, all this assumes a fairly large number of Beast Folk. We want this strange community to have a population of about 80 individuals, all working together to survive and adapt to their bizarre, changing nature.

But what this community lacks to ensure its long-term survival would be females who can bear young and increase the population. And that concept brings up some very interesting ideas. If human women were brought to the island, could the Beast Folk impregnate them?

The need for women on the Island of Dr. Moreau would be the premise for this sequel. I propose that a group of three near-perfect humans who were the Top Dogs of the group (so to speak) would leave the island on a mission to bring back several women to become the wives of the benevolent leaders of the colony.

These three "men" not only look remarkably normal (in most ways), they're blessed with a high level of intelligence — a result of a procedure Dr. Moreau developed in the last year of his research.

Fortunately, during the last year before Moreau died, these three highly prized individuals were encouraged to do a great deal of reading from the large library Moreau had assembled.





As a result, they're normal behavior evolved into that of three cultured gentlemen who could have easily interacted with people from the highest levels of British society! They eventually became the epitome of human achievement — despite the fact that they were actually modified animals, the result of a madman's cruel experiments on creatures he subjected to inhuman procedures!

In other words, the evil Dr. Moreau succeeded beyond his wildest dreams! And yet, he died before he saw the startling results of his cruel experiments.

When Moreau's compound caught fire (as it did in both the movie and the novel), the Beast Folk might have joined together and worked frantically to save what they could from the fire. This might have included a large number of books . . . along with a sizable cash reserve which Dr. Moreau kept in his library safe.

Based on the basic story presented in both the book and the movie, Moreau must have had some way to contact the mainland periodically to order supplies and additional animals for his experiments. A radio would be the most likely method.

So, the leaders of the Beast Folk also rescued the radio from fire and used it to maintain the illusion that Moreau was still alive. And they used the fortune they retrieved from his library safe to buy supplies for this struggling colony of strange, quasi-human beings.

In this manner, the three ruling Beast Men acquired fancy clothing and other items for their planned trip to London — as well as securing the services of a yacht which is captained by a man whose had dealings with Moreau in the past, even though this man knew nothing of Moreau's inhumane experiments.





Obviously this trio of manimals couldn't simply tell the women they would eventually select in London about their true natures . . . or why they wanted them to come to their remote island!

In fact, the only way they could bring a group of attractive ladies back from London would be . . . to kidnap them!

However, doing that to a group of innocent young women would be quite immoral for these intelligent and allegedly "benevolent" leaders of the Beast Folk community. So, the only way to temper the immorality of this act would be to have the ladies not be entirely . . . "innocent".

(No, I don't mean that they planned to kidnap prostitutes from the streets of London. I have something much more dramatic in mind. Something like this.)

Suppose there were three attractive, respectable young English women who'd been found guilty of committing the cold-blooded murder of a British citizen. The women claimed they did it because he was a cruel man who'd brutally raped each of them.

However, the court didn't feel that this justified the murder — so all three were sentenced to be hung!


__________


When our three Beast Folk gentlemen arrive in London, this is the hot topic which has all of Great Britain buzzing with activity!

Please note that our trio of Beast Men are impeccably dressed and totally convincing as wealthy gentlemen when the captain of the yacht first meets them on the dock at the island. Their fashionably long hair hides their pointed animal ears, and their stylish gloves cover their semi-claw-like fingernails.

The captain transports this uncanny delegation to London, where the yacht docks on the river Thames and stands ready to depart at a moments notice when his three gentlemen employers finish their "important business" — about which the captain knows nothing at all!


__________


Soon after arriving in London, the Beast Men learn that the London newspapers are filled with stories about the three convicted women and their revenge/murder of the savage man who raped them.

But the popular consensus among the public in London is that the justice system should have shown more leniency to the poor victims of the bestial man who wronged them so despicably.

After the three Beast Men visit the prison and present themselves as "relatives" of the poor convicted killers, they all agree that they've found the perfect candidates for their ambitious plans to expand their island colony of quasi humans.

After secretly bribing several prison guards, the three Beast Men sneak into the prison and break the ladies out of jail in the dead of night. They whisk the bewildered ladies off to their yacht — which is docked nearby on the river Thames.

I love this aspect of the story. It's a dramatic rescue of three poor damsels who would have been executed for a crime which, frankly, had considerable justification!

Once the ship has sailed and is far out at sea, the Beast Men tell the ladies that they're going to an island where they'll be safe, a peaceful community among gentle people living quiet lives — a place which seldom has contact with the outside world.

Their description is technically accurate . . . and it sounds wonderful when phrased in that manner. But these ladies are in for a shock when they learn the true nature of The Island of Dr. Moreau!

This is the kind of post I love to create . . . even when I don't get a single reply.

Gentlemen, should there be a sequel to this sequel?

Hey, do Dog Men bark at the Moon?
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[scotpens]

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________

I had to keep a doctor appointment at two o'clock today. I didn't get home for several hours.

Then I made changes in my post above when I finally got back, and I didn't see your reply until after I'd posted the final version — which includes all the pictures I spent several hours selecting, modifying, and finally adding to the text!

Please read my post again, Scot. I apologize for modifying it after you posted your interesting reply — but nothing you said contradicts the final version of my post.

I hope you and the other members will enjoy the concept I presented, and I look forward to your comments.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

Bud, what you've imagined is only the first act of the sequel....The first "half" of the story as it were.

After the brief "Intermission" where the audience was thrilled by the Bernard Hermann score the screen lightens up with the yacht docking on Isle de Moreau. The New Men lead the three rescued Maids to the mansion....Which time has left in a rather shabby condition. "Well no problem my dears...We give you full dominion over a host of servents to put things in order. They will answer to your every whim!"

Now these three women are all very much individuals and from different layers of British society. They've had very different life experiences and react to conditions in very different ways. Will they fall in love with their benefactors....Or will they be attracted to some of the more bestial members of the islands' denizens???

These three "New Men" no longer consider themselves "Beast Men" but a new, improved version of Man , an "Uber Mench" and all those below them (Including the three human women!) are "lesser creatures" fit only to further the glory of the New Men! But just how much are they "human" and how much are they still controlled by their beast instincts? How will these women react to them???

Should I continue??????
_________________
There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.