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Warning: This review contains details that may be considered spoilers by some.
Even though the fourth Monday of June has passed us, I'm still dedicated to giving you the Book-To-Movie review of the month and so I have it here today. My apologies for missing last week; I had family come from out of town. In a Book-To-Movie (BTM), we review a work of prose fiction and its movie adaptation. As far as I’m aware, there have been three movie adaptations of H.G. Wells's novel of science fiction horror, "The Island of Dr. Moreau". I'd like to do a BTM on each, but I thought it would make sense to start with the original first. The others will follow in future BTMs, I just don't have set dates for them yet. The original movie adaptation is the black-and-white 1932 one titled "Island of Lost Souls". The novel "The Island of Dr. Moreau" and movie "Island of Lost Souls" are both sci fi horror, but the former is more about realistic human survival whereas the latter more about romance.
The Book: 'The Island of Dr. Moreau'
The story to Wells' novel begins with the protagonist (who also serves as the narrator), Edward Prendick, rescued as the only survivor of a ship that’s gone down under water. His rescuer is Montgomery, a passenger of a ship who he is assisting his employer on transporting a menagerie of wild animals to their laboratory on a remote island. Edward is stranded on the island in the two scientists’ care until another ship can come along which no one knows when that will be. It isn’t long before he discovers who Montgomery's employer is--Dr. Moreau, a criminal who has been exiled from England to the island for his cruel experimentation on animals. Not long after that, Edward finds out that Moreau is performing these experiments to speed up the evolutionary process in the animals in order to create a super-human race.
Until he can get off the island, Edward struggles to protect his sanity from the evil of Dr. Moreau and his life from the terror of the beast people. Even after he finally does escape and return to England in the end, he is post-traumatised by the nightmarish events of the island yet learns to ease himself from them and move on with his life.
“The Island of Dr. Moreau” is a story of both physical and psychological survival in a strange and terrifying environment separated from civilisation by the vast Pacific Ocean. Wells does a good job holding the reader's attention in the narrational structure of the story, the timing of the events and the protagonist's pre-conceptions of the mad doctor and his perverted creations.
The Movie: 'Island of Lost Souls'
"Island of Lost Souls", directed by Erle C. Kenton, is faithful to the novel's basic plot. Many of the scenes of the book are recognisable in the movie. But Kenton added several more characters and changed ones from the book making the story more of a horror romance than a horror survival tale. One added character is Ruth Thomas, Edward's fiance who goes to Moreau’s island to search for him. In doing this she somewhat breaks the passive female stereotype yet she seems to have been thrown into the story as a screaming female to serve as a horror device.
One of the changed characters is Lota the Panther woman who is basically the unnamed puma woman of the novel. In the movie she is far more human in appearance and so seems to have been written into the script as such to add another Hollywood female beauty for a male audience. Montgomery is much more level-headed and friendly than his character is in the novel in which there he is more of a disturbed person who’s always resorting to alcohol. In the movie he's also much more adverse to Moreau's evil experiments and, in being so, is more of an ally to Edward. Moreau himself is portrayed as a much more typical villain than he is in the book..
Edward’s surname in the film has been changed from Prendick to Parker, but more significantly there's no apparent trauma in his character like there is in the book. Much less is any post-trauma in him since the movie ends at the escape of himself, Ruth and one more person who I'm not naming so as not to create any more spoilers than I already have.
“Lost Souls” is an adaptation that Kenton uses a Hollywood romantic-horror formula for that simplifies the storyline. The characters and parts of the story have been changed to meet this convention that was just getting started around that time. Yet the style of the filming itself is really good. Kenton does a great job utilising Noir elements to enhance the mystery and horror. The sets are convincing for the movie's time: a dark, steaming jungle and a labyrinthine, dungeon-like "House of Pain", as the beast people call Moreau's house like they do in the book. The overall acting is also convincing and so is the makeup job on the monsters. So, it's still good viewing for any classic horror fan.
As good as Erle Kenton's "Island of Lost Souls" is at the visual level, its romanticism, simplified plot and added allies to Edward's marooned situation take away much of the psychological terror that its source material conveys. While I recommend this movie to serious viewers of classic horror, I strongly recommend reading the book at least once. It’s too good to miss!
Be here Wednesday for the monthly Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop! And for those of you in the US, have a Happy Fourth of July and be sure to celebrate our freedom to read and write!
Until next time. . .
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