Isle of the Dead (1945)

Wonderful Movie

Such a frustrating disappointment

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Mark Robson directed this Val Lewton production starring Boris Karloff as Gen. Nikolas Pherides. The time is the war of 1912, General Pherides goes to an isolated Greek isle to visit the grave of his wife. His is dismayed to find it disturbed, and discovers that because of the plague, all bodies had to be dug up and burned. In fact, the isle is in quarantine, and now the General(as well as the visiting journalist who was interviewing him) are as well. A superstitious old woman believes that a young woman staying at the Inn with them is responsible. Is she right, or is it something else? Eerie and well acted film has good atmosphere but is awfully slow and lacking in action. Karloff makes the difference though, as he is excellent as usual, and makes up for the faults of pacing and story.

In this movie Boris Karloff plays a straight role and not a super natural or demented one. He is a very cold general who cuts no slack even to his friends. He goes to the island where his wife has been buried for many years. He finds her tomb and others have been violated and looted. Turns out it is caused by an archaeologist who was paying for artifacts. The plague shows up so everyone is restricted to the island. Boris is determined to keep everyone on the island so he disables the only boat. As things progress and people start to die he gets even more restrictive and even hostile. He eventually beliefs that a young maid/attendant is some kind of Greek evil spirit that is the cause of every thing that is happening. They entomb a woman who is catatonic, she wakes up and manages to break out but the experience has driven her insane. She kills the house keeper and gives Boris a fatal wound but it is not instant. Finally she jumps to her death when cornered by the two remaining healthy men. When everything is over the two young lovers and the archaeologist are the only survivors. Now my question about all this is they state in the film that they know fleas are the cause of the plague. What the heck is it with the winds?

Although Val Lewton's "Cat People", "The Seventh Victim" and "I Walked with a Zombie" are some of the most intriguing films ever, I don't think he and his team were able to breathe much life into "Isle of the Dead".The film takes place in 1912 at the conclusion of a battle between Greece and an unnamed enemy. Most of the action, and I use the word advisedly, happens on an island where a group of people are quarantined to stop the spread of a deadly plague. A superstition begins to take hold that the plague is linked to a demonic creature, a Vorvolakas, which can inhabit one person and feed off the spirit of another. Many die before the sickness ends.The one and only large scale set, the battlefield at night, is unconvincing and stagy. The so-called septicemic plague that strikes down the group consists of victims staggering around and then dying rather serenely. Maybe the real effects of septicemic plague with limbs changing colour as the body's blood supply is rapidly poisoned was just too horrific in 1945 even for a horror film.Although many ideas are espoused, "Isle of the Dead" is an interminable talkfest. The actors project the stillness and lack of animation that was a hallmark of Lewton's films. The exception is Boris Karloff, who as General Pherides, commander of the Greek Army, brings a powerful presence to the proceedings. Unfortunately he is let down by the overwrought script. With so much depending on dialogue, it is surprising that the screenwriters had so little feeling for military life and the importance of Pherides as the commander of the Greek army. Ridiculously he is able to walk off the battlefield with only a reporter in tow to visit his wife's grave on a nearby island. They do this so casually, despite walking through piles of bodies, that it wouldn't have seemed sillier if they had hailed a taxi. One aspect of the film that is particularly distracting is when the General, although marooned on the island by the plague, somehow manages to send for a doctor, but otherwise makes little attempt to tell his army where he is nor indicates that he might even be missed. It's certainly not the way George S. Patton would have handled things.The basic elements that made other Lewton tales so effective are here, but assembled in such a lacklustre fashion that they do not elevate the film above it's barely serviceable sets. Along with "The Ghost Ship", I find "Isle of the Dead" the least appealing of his films. Lewton's best work may have been behind him by this stage, although, "The Body Snatchers" and "Bedlam" would go a long way towards recapturing past glories.

Isle Of The Dead is set on a Greek isle during the First Balkan War in 1912–1913. When General Nikolas "The Watchdog" Pherides (Boris Karloff) and American war correspondent Oliver Davis (Marc Cramer) visit the isle, they find that Pherides' wife's tomb has been desecrated and the body gone. Upon hearing the sweet singing of a female they are led to a household consisting of the Aubin's, St & Mary (Alan Napier & Katherine Emery), Mary's nursemaid Thea (Ellen Drew), archaeologist Albrecht (Jason Robards) & his housekeeper Kyra (Helene Thimig), and salesman Andrew Robbins (Skelton Knaggs). As the talk turns to a mysterious Greek vampire called a vorvolaka being responsible for bad deeds on the isle, a septicaemic plague breaks out. Pherides sends for Dr Drossos (Ernst Dorian) and promptly quarantines all on the isle. But as the group wait and hope for the wind to come and blow the plague away, death and madness starts to take a hold.We open with a scene in Pherides' shadowy tented command point. Dark unflinching eyes stare out at the soldier in front of him, Pherides doesn't utter a word, he merely pushes a pistol forward, holding his gaze. The soldier takes up the pistol and leaves the tent, the outcome we know from Pherides' manner is obvious. The moody marker has been set, this is a Val Lewton {producer} & Mark Robson {director} picture.Working from a script from Ardel Wray that was inspired by Arnold Böcklin's painting of the same name, this was the fourth of five pictures Robson directed for Lewton, and the first of three pictures that Karloff made with the talented producer. Originally titled "Camilla," the production was not without problems. Karloff suffered a back problem that required surgery and thus delayed the film for a while and a central female character called Catharine was jettisoned from the original script. So not without problems it seems, but it doesn't show because Isle Of The Dead ended up as an atmospheric pot boiler dripping with the sense of unease so synonymous with the Lewton/Robson partnership.No doubt about it, this is a very talky piece, with the makers choosing fright suggestion and mooted superstition over actual actions for the most part; with Robson deliberately keeping the pace claustrophobic-ally sedate. It all then comes alive with horror relish as a premature burial {the audience are aware of this fact} brings about an upturn in pace. Which simultaneously gives the horror genre one of its best and most unsettling sequences from the 1940s. We then blend seamlessly into the last quarter of the piece where the mystery and horror unfolds amid shocks and hypnotic like fulfilment. 8/10