Movie Review: Isle of Fury (1936)
Synopsis: Partially to escape his past, Val Stevens lives on the South Pacific Island of Tankana and operates a pearl business. As he is getting married to another island occupant, Lucille Gordon, a ship crashes on a nearby reef, leaving just its captain and a passenger, Eric Blake, alive. Stevens and Blake become friends, but an undeniable chemistry grows between Blake and Lucille, who married Stevens as a promise to her mother even though she knew it meant she would never get to travel. In addition to feeling guilty about his feelings for his friend's wife, Blake is also hiding a secret.
Who's in it? The movie stars Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods, Paul Graetz and Gordon Hart.
Review: Even though I like classic films, I admittedly haven't seen a whole lot of Humphrey Bogart movies and hadn't even heard of Isle of Fury until I came across it a few days ago. I found time to watch it this morning, before going to vote, and enjoyed it more than expected.
There were a number of things I found interesting about this movie. The first was the potential love triangle between Stevens (Bogart), Lucille (Lindsay) and Blake (Woods). What I found most intriguing about it was how both men seemed like decent guys. It wasn't one of those situations where Stevens was abusive or even inattentive when it came to his wife and more of a situation where she married the only man she ever knew and then met someone who may or may not have been her soulmate literally on the day of her wedding.
It also wasn't as though Blake was trying to get her to cheat on Stevens either. If anything, he was doing his best to respect their marriage while a clueless Stevens was doing everything possible to make that difficult for him, whether it was encouraging Blake to dance with Lucille or asking the other man to check on his wife and keep her company while he was away working. It honestly wasn't all that far off from him telling Blake "Hey, just go ahead and make love to my wife while you're at it."
The movie also had some other elements going for it as well. Blake's secret, for one, gave him a hint of mystery, including why he was a passenger on the sunken ship in the first place. It was one of those things that could turn out to be nothing or turn him into a bad guy on a moment's notice. And the answer was something unexpected.
I also liked how the movie maintained an ongoing element of danger because of the pearl business Stevens was running. At every turn, he risked injury or death from everything from sea creatures to greedy workers. It added a wildcard element that could have given the filmmakers an easy out as far as the love triangle went and made the ending much more enjoyable when they didn't take that easy path (though I'm not sure if I could call the ending a happy one either).
Final Opinion: This is a good romantic drama with a great story and a decent number of twists and turns. I enjoyed watching it and would recommend it.
My Grade: A
Here are some reviews of other Humphrey Bogart movies:
Comments
Post a Comment