Island of Lost Souls (1933)
Directed by Erle C. Kenton
Dr. Moreau presides over an island of human-animal hybrids that he has created.
The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen) is rescued by a cargo ship. Another passenger, Montgomery, is accompanying the unusual cargo – dozens of species of animals, from apes to ferocious dogs – to an uncharted island in the South Seas. Soon, Parker becomes a reluctant guest of its owner, Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton). Even before he sets foot on Moreau’s island, Parker marvels at its unusual inhabitants, who appear only half human; some of them climb trees, while others are covered in thick fur. After hearing tortured screams coming from Moreau’s “House of Pain,” Parker discovers the island’s horrendous secret: Moreau has experimented on animals, to “evolve” these species into thinking, speaking intermediates between animals and humans. He escapes into the woods, only to find the rest of the “poor, tortured creatures” reciting the island’s laws: not to walk on all fours, eat meat, or spill blood. Moreau detains Parker to determine if Lota, the panther woman, will be able to mate with him. Just as Parker’s appearance presents Moreau with a unique opportunity to study his female creature, the arrival of Parker’s girlfriend Ruth (Leila Hyams) provokes sexual curiosity from the males. In order to prevent the visitors from revealing his secrets, he allows his servant to kill, but this proves to be a fatal mistake: once they realize that one man can die, they reason that Moreau can die as well.
The addition of Parker’s love interest to the island shifts the plot from the novel’s original creator-creation conflict, to one complicated by the fear of miscegenation; stray creatures lurking outside Ruth’s window provoke anxiety and prompt Parker and the captain to hunt them. Viewings of this film might be enhanced by examination of contemporaneous literature addressing fears of racial miscegenation, as this aspect of the plot mirrors anxieties relating to ancestry so prevalent during the film’s period of production. This film was marketed as a horror movie, but the terror it evokes comes less from the creatures themselves than man’s capacity to create these monsters. Through the repetition of the “Laws,” Moreau aims to repress animalistic behavior by convincing his creations that they are men first. While Lota’s apparent regression to her animal origins presages Moreau’s demise at the hands of his creations, it is their human traits – the ability to speak and reason – that ultimately allow them to defy their master. Like the other “mad scientists” before him – Victor Frankenstein, for instance – Moreau’s experiments illustrate the dangers of scientific application without ethical regulations. Moreau considers neither the potential repercussions of his experiments, nor the effect of the torture on his creations. Moreau conducts his experiments prior to modern understandings of genetics, so the failure and failsafe of his project is the creatures’ inevitable reversion to animal origins. Still, the film hints at the dangers of genetic hybrids that could potentially destroy humans with their superior strength and capacity to reason.
Evaluation: Compared to the novel, the film spends considerably less time on the creatures living outside Moreau’s compound. However, Laughton’s Moreau comes across as creepier than his creations, thus making his own torture seem an appropriate ending.
– Natalie Champ