As I write this, the U.S. is currently performing mass deportations, more often than not to countries with poor humanitarian track records and where those deportees do not have a history. When they arrive at their destinations, they are put in the kinds of prisons where people never leave except in a coffin. One wonders if some of these places even bother with the coffin.
I could not stop thinking about this while watching 1940’s Island of Doomed Men. Peter Lorre has a tropical isle where he keeps bringing recent American parolees. Those men are then worked to death mining diamonds. That the place is called Dead Man’s Isle should cause alarm, yet American authorities don’t seem inclined to follow-up on any of these men. I see a correlation to the present administration dumping people into prisons in countries like El Salvador and wiping their hands of any responsibility.
It’s odd the judges aren’t concerned about recent parolees, as I seem to recall something about a responsibility of the courts to keep tabs on such people. At least the feds are concerned, as undercover agent Robert Wilcox’s inaugural assignment was to investigate what happened to men taken to Dead Man’s Isle. He will find out first-hand when he becomes Lorre’s latest acquisition. As Lorre says to a judge as regards Wilcox, “I promise he will never again be a burden to the taxpayers of your society.” Yep, that sounds like the priorities of the people in power.
It was on Wilcox’s first day as an agent that he received the lowdown on Lorre from fellow agent Addison Richards. The agent says the inmates sent to the isle “get a slow, living death”. How ironic Richards immediately receives a much faster death, as he is suddenly shot dead by an assassin from their position outside the window. And poor Wilcox takes the fall for the murder, as his employers stay true to their word and disavow any knowledge of him. I challenge anybody to claim they have had a worse first day on any job.
I seriously did not expect Wilcox to go to prison, yet that’s where he ends up. I don’t know how much time he served, but there is a long montage of time passing, with pages of a calendar crossfading over rocks being smashed. For the life of me, I will never understand the rock breaking that is a staple of prison films of that time, as it seems the prisoners could be used for any number of profitable enterprises.
Similar labor awaits Wilcox on the island, but for better use. At least the diamonds are huge, such as the preposterously fake one with which he tries to placate wife Rochelle Hudson. She is as much a prisoner there as the men doing the manual labor.
For whatever reason, Lorre puts on a ruse upon the arrival of each new batch of “guests” where he sets out an elaborate lunch for them on the table on the lawn of his compound. Alas, the latest round of captives doesn’t even get to enjoy much of that before a man hunted by Lorre’s guards runs into the compound. That man yells to others to enjoy their meal, as it is the last decent one they’ll ever have. Unfortunately, they don’t even get to enjoy that, since he grabs the tablecloth when he is gunned down, taking the table’s contents to the ground with him. That has to be one of the worst demonstrations I have seen of the tablecloth trick.
The remainder of Island of Doomed Men unfolds exactly as one would assume it might. This is a pedestrian and rather dull thriller. Even for Lorre completists (and there should be more Lorre completists) there will be little of interest, though I strongly sensed he correctly believed he was above this material. There is only one moment where he really milks a moment for all its worth, and that is when he shrieks, “Get that monkey away from me!” Taken out of context, one might think that was from a more interesting film.
Dir: Charles Barton
Starring Peter Lorre, Rochelle Hudson, Robert Wilcox
Watched as part of the Powerhouse/Indicator UK (region B) blu-ray box set Columbia Horror