Isle of Missing Men (1942)

Best movie of this year hands down!

To me, this movie is perfection.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

****SPOILERS**** Gilbert Roland as prisoner #129 or Dan Curtis is stuck on the penal island of Curuba where his wife using a fake name Diana Bryce,Helen Gilbert,is planning to help him escape. That with the help of prison doctor Henry Brown, Alan Mowbray, by faking his death from typhoid and sneaking him off the island on a docked freighter delivering supplies. Diana got herself on the island by having the ship she was on attacked by a slow and lumbering Japanese bomber that she may have paid off to strife it and now is using her time on the island to get Dan or "Danny Boy" off it. It's just as Dan was about to get freed that Diana found out that he was really a low down and two timing creep and decided to leave him. That after paying off the captain of the freighter "Mariposa" Capt. Sanchez, Ernie Adams, with her last dollar as well as wedding ring.Dan pressing his luck starts up with Sanchez and his crew on the "Mariposa" only to get overwhelmed and killed by them in the process. It's now up to Diana to get herself off the island without being implicated in trying to have her husband brake out and end up being there as the only woman among some 200 woman hungry men imprisoned there! Forgotten little movie that should have stayed forgotten to save the reputations of all those in it-That are very probably all dead by now-in any of their future film endeavors.It's the beautiful blonde bombshell Helen Gilbert as Diana Bryce that makes the film as well as her well worth watching. She in fact switched horses in mid stream and ends up with the Governor of the penal colony Merrill Hammond, John Howard, after leaving her cheating husband "Danny Boy" twist in the wind. And having him end up getting his just deserts when he tried to, like he did Diana, double cross Captain Sanchez who's crew mates ended up doing him in.

That's the first and frankly the best thing I can say about this movie. In more than fifty years of watching movies from Monogram, mostly on TV, this is the best print I've ever seen of a movie from the MGM of the South. It's sharp, bright and undimmed by wear.What that usually means with very old movies is that the original elements have not been bothered for a long time. No pulling off 16 mm. prints for the TV market. In other words, an absolute bomb.And, despite the beauty of the photography, that's what we have here. Writer-director Oswald started out in Germany in the 1910s and did a lot of work with the Expressionist movement in Germany, so this movie about how John Howard brings an assortment of Types to the prison colony he runs is full of great symbolic meaning that might have appealed to the audiences in the big cities, but not to the markets that Monogram sold into: small towns and Saturday matinées. It's also shot on underdecorated sets that remind me of many cheap off-off-off Broadway plays that I saw in the days when I looked at such things.He has assembled a decent cast. John Howard was one of those leading men who never got a decent vehicle; Alan Mowbray and Gilbert Roland always gave worthwhile performances with twinkles in their eyes and Helen Gilbert plays a classically trained pianist with an attitude and unlimited peroxide on a tramp steamer.Oswald's direction is stolidly Teutonic as everyone yearns for a better world, one in which Japanese bombers do not attack and prison colonies on tropical islands are where lovers can meet. It's the stolidity that is paramount, however.

Like most Monogram films, about three sets are used for 75% of the picture. Unlike most Monogram films, this one has some fine writing, acting and direction.The best thing about this film is Helen Gilbert. In the film, two men fall madly in love with her and basically commit crimes and throw away their careers away for her after seeing her only a few times. Helen is just beautiful enough to make this believable. He is posed, intelligent and plays the piano beautifully.In real life she was married seven times between 1938 and 1950. One can only imagine how many proposals she turned down. She only starred in four or five movies and it is hard to understand why she did not become a much bigger star.As usual, Alan Mowbray gives a wonderfully comic performance, as the doctor who quickly losses his objectivity over Helen. As usual, Gilbert Rowland is effective as a convict trying to escape from a prison island.Nothing much happens in the film. It doesn't quite fit into any genre type, being a mix of romantic comedy and escape from prison melodrama. Yet, it manages to be mostly surprising, breezy and fun. Its a nifty little picture from Monogram, well worth the one hour and six minutes it takes to see it.Seven of my eight points is for Helen Gilbert.

I am giving this film a 3--and that's only because I liked Alan Mowbry in the film. Otherwise, it might only have gotten a 2! This is a very undistinguished drama from Monogram--a studio known for mostly undistinguished low-budget films. But even for Monogram, this film suffers from terrible writing.The film begins on a steam ship in the Pacific during WWII. Suddenly, an American C-47 transport plane is spotted overhead and everyone shouts that it's a Japanese bomber. Suddenly bombs begin falling off this plane which NEVER was used as a bomber. Then, inexplicably, the shots of the plane now show a tiny private plane--then, back to the C-47. In the history of bad use of stock footage, this might be among the worst misuses of such film. Even if you have no idea what I am talking about because you are NOT an insane airplane buff, it would be like talking about a Ferrari and then cutting to clips of a Smart Car and then a pickup truck--it's THAT obvious! Most of the people aboard manage to survive the attack--and soon you'll start wishing none of them had! The film then switches to an island penal colony over which John Howard is warden. Why this place is in the middle of the Pacific, I have no idea. Nor, for that matter, do I understand why he invites a lady he met on the ship (Helen Gilbert) to come visit the place! Well, not surprisingly, Gilbert has an ulterior motive--something EVERYONE saw other than Howard! Where it all goes next you'll have to see for yourself--but unless you are as dumb as Howard's character, you certainly will see it coming! While I generally expect less from a B-movie than the typical film, this one left me even less than thrilled because the plot just made little sense. The characters just made no sense---and I kept asking myself 'does anyone act that stupidly?!". Well, apparently in this film they do! Just watch John Howard--he is crazy stupid late in the film. Watch it yourself and see. No one--I repeat "NO ONE" acts that way--unless, of course, they have a head injury.