ThiefHott Too much of everything

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

bkoganbing In the tradition of waste not at movie studios the sets made for The Life Of Emile Zola get recycled for this short B film Devil's Island. Boris Karloff steps away from the horror genre and has the lead here. We get both the courtroom and the Devil's Island sets, Jack Warner was being most economical.As cinema this film will never rank with something like Papillon or even Passage To Marseilles which Warner Brothers did a few years later. Karloff plays a doctor who does a Samuel Mudd here, treats a wounded escaping prisoner and is charged with treason and given ten years hard labor at the notorious Carribean prison.It's a harsh and corrupt regime there that commandant James Stephenson runs. Even when Karloff saves the life of his daughter it's back to hard labor for him. But he develops a friend and ally in Stephenson's wife Nedda Harrigan.The ending is rather tacked on and artificial and things get tied up too neatly to be real. But it is nice seeing Karloff not conducting any sinister experiments for a change.

utgard14 Excellent vehicle for the great Boris Karloff to branch out from playing horror roles and play the hero in a drama. Karloff plays a French brain surgeon who attends to a friend shot by the police. The friend is considered an enemy of the state so Karloff is tried and convicted of treason. He's sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island, where he suffers under the brutal conditions and the corrupt commandant in charge.Warner Bros. was no stranger to making prison dramas. They made some of the best. This may not take place in a traditional American prison or chain gang but, make no mistake about it, this has many of the familiar plot elements you expect from those types of films. It's a B picture that barely clocks in at an hour but it's well-paced with terrific acting from Boris Karloff and a solid cast backing him up. It's one of Karloff's best non-horror roles and definitely something his fans will want to see.

Michael_Elliott Devil's Island (1939) *** (out of 4) Gritty prison drama from Warner Bros. features Boris Karloff as a brain surgeon who is sent to Devil's Island, although he's innocent. Once there he sees the torture brought on by the warden and plans on doing something about it. I was really surprised by how good this one was. The film would have benefited by a longer running time and some deeper scenes but it's still highly entertaining. Karloff was the best of the horror actors in my opinion but he could sleepwalk through roles every once in a while. Here he gives one of the best performances of his career outside the role of the monster. He had a burning energy throughout the film that was a lot of fun to watch. The ending doesn't work but this would be a good selection for Vol. 2 of the Controversial Collection since this film was originally banned in France and had the French government put a ban on all Warner films for a couple years (so I read).

MartinHafer This Boris Karloff movie was very entertaining though it seemed strongly inspired by the earlier film, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND since there were so many similarities between the two movies. SHARK ISLAND is an account of the real life man, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was sentenced to a harsh American prison in the Tortugas after he gave medical treatment to a fleeing John Wilkes Booth. Whether or not Mudd knew that Booth had just killed the President is debatable--especially since word of the assassination may not have reached Mudd's home in rural Maryland.In much the same way, Boris Karloff plays a doctor who attends to a seriously injured man. Although Karloff knows the man was guilty, as a doctor he'd taken an oath to heal and couldn't just let the man die. As a result of his kindness, he's arrested and sent to Devil's Island, where he is abused and treated like an animal. What happens next you'll have to see for yourself, but I was very impressed by this simple film that wasn't really a horror film but a film about the human spirit and justice. Karloff, in particular, did a nice job in his role as the hapless doctor, though the script was also very good--making the viewer really care about these men in prison.The only negative, and it's a small one, is the prologue. Because the war in Europe was just beginning, the producers wished to distance themselves from condemning this French institution and so they tacked on a nice prologue saying that this film didn't represent the French people of today. This seemed rather unnecessary, as other prison films don't have similar introductions.