zardoz-13 The history surrounding director William Clemens's "Devil's Island" emerges as far more interesting than the 62-minute Boris Karloff film itself. Initially, Warner Brothers had hoped to follow up an earlier movie, the studio's 1937 release "The Life of Emile Zola," about the incarceration of a Jewish officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army, who had been unfairly convicted of selling military secrets to the German Army. The Dreyfus affair instigated a spectacular scandal, too. Like all of France's high profile political prisoners, Dreyfus had been sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island. Similarly, the protagonist of Clemen's film is a French physician, Dr. Charles Gaudet (Boris Karloff of "Frankenstein"), who is convicted of treason and shipped off to Devil's Island. Gaudet does what any prisoner would attempt after he is confined to the dreaded island. He rebels against the harsh discipline, and his cohorts resort to violence that lands them in even greater trouble. Eventually, Gaudet is prevailed upon to perform surgery on the young daughter of the commandant. The prison physician Dr. Duval (Edward Keane of "The Roaring Twenties") lacks the experience in treating head injuries, while Gaudet has acquired a reputation for treating prior his imprisonment. The commandant, Colonel Armand Lucien (James Stephenson of "Beau Geste"), isn't as grateful to Gaudet for his service as his wife, Madame Lucien (Nedda Harrigan of "Scandal Sheet"), is. She believes her husband has dealt too harshly in his treatment of the doctor. She turns against him and brings about his demise as a consequence of his corruption. When Warner Brothers finally got around to making "Devil's Island" in 1938, the French government had stopped sending prisoners to the notorious prison. Back in those days, Hollywood went out of its way to accommodate foreign governments. Specifically, the Production Code Administration refused to tolerate studios that alienated any foreign country by showing their institutions in a deleterious light. Despite the prison's heinous reputation for cruelty beyond imagination, "Devil's Island" soft-pedals the punishment meted out to the prisoners. At one point, a prisoner is condemned for his rebellious activities, and he finds himself on the guillotine. Mind you, Clemens couldn't depict the awful death by beheading that execution on a guillotine involved. Similarly, Hollywood was not allowed to condemn American institutions. The only way the studios could circumvent this dictum was to alter with their narratives so the institutions and the governments that operated them could not be implicated. Instead, Devil's Island isn't the cause for the inhuman treatment of its inmates. The blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the corrupt Colonel Armand Lucien, and Lucien has documented his own corruption in a notebook that Gaudet discovers. This way Hollywood could indict an individual rather than an institution. Lucien's wife goes above and the beyond the call of duty to intervene on behalf of kindly Dr. Gaudet. Interestingly enough, the circumstances that culminated in the arrest and imprisonment of Gaudet have parallels in the case of another physician, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who encountered Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth when the latter sought medical treatment for an injured leg. Mudd knew nothing about Booth's notoriety until it was too late, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. "Devil's Island" is reminiscent of John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936). The gritty depiction of "Devil's Island" paved the way for later yarns, specifically Franklin J. Schaffner's movie "Papillon" (1973) with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The description of Devil's Island and the impossibility of escape as well as the dreadful conditions are presented here for the first time. Later, Humphrey Bogart would star in a World War II movie "Passage to Marseilles," about prisoners who escaped from the camp to fight for France. Typically, Karloff movies delivered shivers, but "Devil's Island" delivers shivers of another type. No, this isn't so much a horror movie as it is a social protest drama, a genre that Warnes Brothers had specialized in since the studio's infamous "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932) with Paul Muni. Karloff plays neither a monster nor a mad scientist here, but he is cast as a respectable doctor with a flawless background.

utgard14 Excellent vehicle for the great Boris Karloff to branch out from playing horror roles and play the hero in a drama. Karloff plays a French brain surgeon who attends to a friend shot by the police. The friend is considered an enemy of the state so Karloff is tried and convicted of treason. He's sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island, where he suffers under the brutal conditions and the corrupt commandant in charge.Warner Bros. was no stranger to making prison dramas. They made some of the best. This may not take place in a traditional American prison or chain gang but, make no mistake about it, this has many of the familiar plot elements you expect from those types of films. It's a B picture that barely clocks in at an hour but it's well-paced with terrific acting from Boris Karloff and a solid cast backing him up. It's one of Karloff's best non-horror roles and definitely something his fans will want to see.

TheLittleSongbird Boris Karloff was my reason for seeing Devil's Island, and when I did see it I found myself liking it very much. Of Warner Archive's Boris Karloff Triple Feature collection, it is easily the best of the three films, having liked West of Shanghai and hated The Invisible Menace(Karloff is the best thing about both those films though). Devil's Island, to me, is not without its faults either, the beginning did seem rather tacked on and the music was annoying and often not really appropriate. Devil's Island however is an atmospherically shot film and the settings are suitably moody. The dialogue is thoughtful and to the point, also written in a way that allows you to care for the characters, while the story is well-paced, sustains the short length(in the way that The Invisible Menace failed to do), is tightly structured and sticks like glue to its subject rather than going on a tangent. The acting is good, very good in the case of the two leads, the supporting cast are not faced with sketchy characterisations like with West of Shanghai and there is no annoying comic relief like in The Invisible Menace. James Stephenson makes for an understated and urbane villain, something that he seemed very well-suited for, while Boris Karloff is forceful and dignified in a role different to what we are used to seeing from him. All in all, a very impressive film, worth checking out. 8/10 Bethany Cox

MartinHafer This Boris Karloff movie was very entertaining though it seemed strongly inspired by the earlier film, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND since there were so many similarities between the two movies. SHARK ISLAND is an account of the real life man, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was sentenced to a harsh American prison in the Tortugas after he gave medical treatment to a fleeing John Wilkes Booth. Whether or not Mudd knew that Booth had just killed the President is debatable--especially since word of the assassination may not have reached Mudd's home in rural Maryland.In much the same way, Boris Karloff plays a doctor who attends to a seriously injured man. Although Karloff knows the man was guilty, as a doctor he'd taken an oath to heal and couldn't just let the man die. As a result of his kindness, he's arrested and sent to Devil's Island, where he is abused and treated like an animal. What happens next you'll have to see for yourself, but I was very impressed by this simple film that wasn't really a horror film but a film about the human spirit and justice. Karloff, in particular, did a nice job in his role as the hapless doctor, though the script was also very good--making the viewer really care about these men in prison.The only negative, and it's a small one, is the prologue. Because the war in Europe was just beginning, the producers wished to distance themselves from condemning this French institution and so they tacked on a nice prologue saying that this film didn't represent the French people of today. This seemed rather unnecessary, as other prison films don't have similar introductions.