Sinners in Paradise (1938)

One of my all time favorites.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Middling B movie, directed by James Whale, about a group of people whose plane crashes on an island. Living on the island is a mysterious American with an ebullient man servant. He smokes a pipe and acts like a jerk, so of course he's the hero of the piece. He's played by that great bore John Boles, whose most famous role was in James Whales' Frankenstein. In the time between that film and this, Boles appears to have transmogrified into Laird Cregar. Starts off feeling like it's going to be a breezy comedy but, after the plane crashes, it turns into an uninvolving drama with a dash of social commentary. Aside from Boles, the cast is a talented lot and the director is, of course, capable of better things. But somehow this is just another run of the mill programmer with little to recommend about it. If you can't make a movie with Gene Lockhart, Bruce Cabot, Madge Evans, and Marion Martin work, I just don't know what to say. Worth a look for Whale completists and anyone who likes their movies to have a serial-style action scene every ten or fifteen minutes, complete with rousing score.

Snappy, quick little programmer which packs adventure, comedy, drama, romance and even political messages (!) about division of labor and the relative value of money, in just a little over 63 minutes. The short running time does not allow for much character development (most of the characters remain "types"), but it does not allow for any boring moments, either. It's one of the last starring roles for the warm-voiced Madge Evans (a personal favorite of mine), though in this occasion the standout in the cast is Marion Martin as the brash, sarcastic Iris. **1/2 out of 4.

I really want to like 'Sinners In Paradise' more than I actually did, just because the premise is so big, so juicy, it could be so much more than it is, and because what James Whale actually left us with feels like just a teaser of what he could have done. The film could easily have been twice as long as it is, and even to those who viewed it in 1938, it probably came off as very entertaining and thrilling at times, but some were probably left feeling disappointed, as the idea is really half-baked.Part 'Lord Of The Flies', part 'Gilligan's Island', I was wishing that 'Sinners In Paradise' would be just more... sinister the entire time. I kept hoping for these people to die off Agatha Christie murder mystery style, and I waited and waited for it to happen. But it never did. Alas, there are quite a few enjoyable characters here, but certain characters are just pure filler, and its a shame that their characters weren't more well developed, because there is certainly the time for it. Madge Evans and John Boles are basically pretty forgettable as our leads, and they are overshadowed by more likable characters like Gene Lockhart and Willie Fung.All in all, 'Sinners In Paradise' comes off as an enjoyable, watchable film, from the man who brought us 'Frankenstein' in 1931, but it feels like Whale was just looking more to have fun with making this film, rather than having it be a serious endeavor. I hope this film makes it to the screen again one day, perhaps as a remake, but more in the vein of films like 'Identity' instead of 'Six Days, Seven Nights'.SINNERS IN PARADISE -----7/10.

And as far as I can tell, this title would better have served for one of those sexploitation flicks of the era, like "Escort Girl", "Sex Madness" or "Slaves in Bondage". Except for the two munitions salesmen who tried to take out old Ping (Willie Fung), there wasn't a whole lot of sinning going on, even between the gangster (Bruce Cabot) and his moll Iris Compton (Marion Martin). It's actually pretty bland once the story gets going, as survivors of a plane crash in the Pacific try to figure out how they'll all get back home. Not exactly "Lord of the Flies", even though Gene Lockhart takes on the obligatory self important blowhard role as a state senator who tries to put himself in charge but is unceremoniously rebuffed. I don't know anything about the lead actor James Boles, but it looks like he was 'B' films' answer to Clark Gable; I can see how Madge Evans' character fell for him.Notwithstanding the inevitable comparisons to "Gilligan's Island", this one is a generally breezy little number that's entertaining enough in it's roughly one hour run time. I was somewhat intrigued by the idea of burning one's money in a place where it literally had no value, and that concept alone gives the picture a bonus point for originality. Otherwise it plays out fairly typically, but with a cast that makes it interesting to watch.