Boris Karloff was my reason for seeing Devil's Island, and when I did see it I found myself liking it very much. Of Warner Archive's Boris Karloff Triple Feature collection, it is easily the best of the three films, having liked West of Shanghai and hated The Invisible Menace(Karloff is the best thing about both those films though). Devil's Island, to me, is not without its faults either, the beginning did seem rather tacked on and the music was annoying and often not really appropriate. Devil's Island however is an atmospherically shot film and the settings are suitably moody. The dialogue is thoughtful and to the point, also written in a way that allows you to care for the characters, while the story is well-paced, sustains the short length(in the way that The Invisible Menace failed to do), is tightly structured and sticks like glue to its subject rather than going on a tangent. The acting is good, very good in the case of the two leads, the supporting cast are not faced with sketchy characterisations like with West of Shanghai and there is no annoying comic relief like in The Invisible Menace. James Stephenson makes for an understated and urbane villain, something that he seemed very well-suited for, while Boris Karloff is forceful and dignified in a role different to what we are used to seeing from him. All in all, a very impressive film, worth checking out. 8/10 Bethany Cox
17 Reviews
It seemed like a re-working of THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND
planktonrules17 September 2007
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.
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.
"My only crime was saving a life!"
utgard1418 June 2015
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.
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.
Very Good
Michael_Elliott11 March 2008
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).
*** (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).
Devil's Island (1939) ***
Bunuel197614 July 2005
DEVIL'S ISLAND proved an interesting change-of-pace for Karloff but one which, I agree, is hampered by its second-feature status: as it stands, potentially controversial issues like miscarriage of justice, as well as prison brutality and corruption, are not dealt with in much detail and the expected showdown between Karloff and the callous warden (James Stephenson, who would die only 2 years later and whose best role was his Oscar-nominated turn in William Wyler's THE LETTER [1940]) never occurs. Instead, we're made to believe that the warden's wife is so grateful for ex-brain surgeon Karloff's having saved their daughter's life that she is perfectly willing to see her husband's ruined by reporting his mistreatment of the prisoners to higher authority - when, prior to the girl's accident, she didn't seem to bother much with them since she used to frequently ride up to the labor camp, in her finest attire, as if going on a Sunday picnic! A brave and well-made B-movie all around but, ultimately, it doesn't really tread new ground and certainly doesn't carry the sheer emotional power of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932).
The Shivers Are Different in the Boris Karloff Epic
zardoz-1323 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
The history surrounding director William Clemens's "Devil's Island" emerges as far more interesting than the 62-minute Boris Karloff film itself. Initially, Warner Brothers had hoped to follow up an earlier movie, the studio's 1937 release "The Life of Emile Zola," about the incarceration of a Jewish officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army, who had been unfairly convicted of selling military secrets to the German Army. The Dreyfus affair instigated a spectacular scandal, too. Like all of France's high profile political prisoners, Dreyfus had been sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island. Similarly, the protagonist of Clemen's film is a French physician, Dr. Charles Gaudet (Boris Karloff of "Frankenstein"), who is convicted of treason and shipped off to Devil's Island. Gaudet does what any prisoner would attempt after he is confined to the dreaded island. He rebels against the harsh discipline, and his cohorts resort to violence that lands them in even greater trouble. Eventually, Gaudet is prevailed upon to perform surgery on the young daughter of the commandant. The prison physician Dr. Duval (Edward Keane of "The Roaring Twenties") lacks the experience in treating head injuries, while Gaudet has acquired a reputation for treating prior his imprisonment. The commandant, Colonel Armand Lucien (James Stephenson of "Beau Geste"), isn't as grateful to Gaudet for his service as his wife, Madame Lucien (Nedda Harrigan of "Scandal Sheet"), is. She believes her husband has dealt too harshly in his treatment of the doctor. She turns against him and brings about his demise as a consequence of his corruption.
When Warner Brothers finally got around to making "Devil's Island" in 1938, the French government had stopped sending prisoners to the notorious prison. Back in those days, Hollywood went out of its way to accommodate foreign governments. Specifically, the Production Code Administration refused to tolerate studios that alienated any foreign country by showing their institutions in a deleterious light. Despite the prison's heinous reputation for cruelty beyond imagination, "Devil's Island" soft-pedals the punishment meted out to the prisoners. At one point, a prisoner is condemned for his rebellious activities, and he finds himself on the guillotine.
Mind you, Clemens couldn't depict the awful death by beheading that execution on a guillotine involved. Similarly, Hollywood was not allowed to condemn American institutions. The only way the studios could circumvent this dictum was to alter with their narratives so the institutions and the governments that operated them could not be implicated. Instead, Devil's Island isn't the cause for the inhuman treatment of its inmates. The blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the corrupt Colonel Armand Lucien, and Lucien has documented his own corruption in a notebook that Gaudet discovers. This way Hollywood could indict an individual rather than an institution. Lucien's wife goes above and the beyond the call of duty to intervene on behalf of kindly Dr. Gaudet.
Interestingly enough, the circumstances that culminated in the arrest and imprisonment of Gaudet have parallels in the case of another physician, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who encountered Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth when the latter sought medical treatment for an injured leg. Mudd knew nothing about Booth's notoriety until it was too late, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. "Devil's Island" is reminiscent of John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936).
The gritty depiction of "Devil's Island" paved the way for later yarns, specifically Franklin J. Schaffner's movie "Papillon" (1973) with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman. The description of Devil's Island and the impossibility of escape as well as the dreadful conditions are presented here for the first time. Later, Humphrey Bogart would star in a World War II movie "Passage to Marseilles," about prisoners who escaped from the camp to fight for France. Typically, Karloff movies delivered shivers, but "Devil's Island" delivers shivers of another type. No, this isn't so much a horror movie as it is a social protest drama, a genre that Warnes Brothers had specialized in since the studio's infamous "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang" (1932) with Paul Muni. Karloff plays neither a monster nor a mad scientist here, but he is cast as a respectable doctor with a flawless background.
The best of Karloff's Warner Brothers B films.
mark.waltz15 January 2018
Warning: Spoilers
At just over an hour, this prison drama is riveting from start to finish, sort of a follow-up to "The Life of Emile Zola" as it deals with the themes of prison brutality and reform. Like the Joseph Schildkraut character in that 1937 Best Picture winner, this deals with a man unjustly sent to Devil's Island, treated cruelly, yet mercifully saving the life of the daughter of prison head Henry Stephenson. The brutality of the guards lead to rebellion, an execution by guillotine, and later a hopefully successful escape. A weakened prisoner is forced to work, and in his dying moment accidentally pushes his pick into the path of an oncoming carriage, causing the young girl to fly onto the rocky road, but even the death of a prisoner doesn't stop the guards from continuing their brutality. A sincere performance by Karloff and excellent technical work makes this an above average programmer.
Folks who study up on emojis rather than History . . .
oscaralbert24 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
. . . often say that they're stumped by the vast amount of Bad Karma continually plaguing the World's tonsils, France (aka, "Germany's playground"). DEVIL'S ISLAND is just one of the many flicks that help answer the question, "What did France ever do to deserve all of THIS?" As the opening scroll for DEVIL'S ISLAND says, the French want to BREAK their convicts, NOT to remake them. (This is particularly galling, given the fact that rampant corruption insures that more than half of the French Penal Population is innocent of anything other than being born in or visiting France.) Compared to DEVIL'S ISLAND, America's Alcatraz was an upbeat place where Birdmen flourished and the Capones of Society died peacefully of old age. Conversely, on DEVIL'S ISLAND any dissent was met with swift beheading. While the crusading neurosurgeon of DEVIL'S ISLAND may be a little typecast from his previous Brainiac Roles, he seems to be only a whisker away here from riding with the Ghost Stuntmen of the Sky. However, he found it worth this risk to Fry the French.
pretty good prison movie
SnoopyStyle24 July 2021
Brain surgeon Dr. Charles Gaudet (Boris Karloff) is banished to brutal French penal colony on Devil's Island for treating a wounded escaped revolutionary. Colonel Armand Lucien runs the camp and Gaudet agitates for humane treatment. The Colonel's little girl gets hurt in an accident and Gaudet is the only one who can save her.
This is a good prison movie. Karloff is a solid protagonist. It shows the brutality of the French prison although it could heighten the visceral fear of the situation. This is pretty good with certain limitations. The ending has an abrupt turn. It's a bit abrupt for my taste but I can overlook it.
This is a good prison movie. Karloff is a solid protagonist. It shows the brutality of the French prison although it could heighten the visceral fear of the situation. This is pretty good with certain limitations. The ending has an abrupt turn. It's a bit abrupt for my taste but I can overlook it.
1939 was the greatest year for classical film releases, unfortunately this is not one of them
Ed-Shullivan8 October 2021
This is an okay time waster with a very young Boris Karlof playing an imprisoned surgeon named Dr. Charles Gaudet, who is tasked with saving the life of the Prison Wardens young son. The musical score holds the film together over dramatizing the risk/reward of Dr. Charles Gaudet to save the young boy who with his roughed up surgical hands after digging dirt with a shovel the past few months, must now put to use his fine surgical skills in a less than clean prison hospital room.
The court room scene is boring as is the constant prisoners digging and near deaths of some of Dr. Charles Gaudet's fellow prisoners due to the harsh surroundings and physical abuse by the hands of the prison guards.
This is by no means as good a movie as the earlier (1934) film The Count of Monte Cristo, but still good enough if you wish to watch one of the many illustrious films from the 1939 classic film era.
I give it a 5 out of 10 IMDB rating.
The court room scene is boring as is the constant prisoners digging and near deaths of some of Dr. Charles Gaudet's fellow prisoners due to the harsh surroundings and physical abuse by the hands of the prison guards.
This is by no means as good a movie as the earlier (1934) film The Count of Monte Cristo, but still good enough if you wish to watch one of the many illustrious films from the 1939 classic film era.
I give it a 5 out of 10 IMDB rating.
Surprising Pace and Tension
OneView3 March 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Devil's Island (1939) proved to be something of a surprise - a compelling, fast moving account of a doctor (Boris Karloff) being sentenced to the notorious French penal colony - enduring hardship, escape attempts and a chance at a redemptive act.
Boris Karloff was always an evocatively spoken actor and here his melliferous voice is used to tremendous effect as he appeals his innocence to the court, as he conspires for escape and as he convincingly plays a surgeon. His near cadaverous frame is also used to good effect when he is stripped to the waist, showing him to be believably a half-starved prisoner.
The film uses some leftover sets, props and costumes from The Life of Emile Zola made a few years earlier to give added production value. Like a lot of Warner Brothers films of the period the pace is astonishing with very brief scenes, swift cuts and uses of montage to convey swathes of story in a few minutes. The opening five minutes alone features narrative text about the history of Devil's Island, an anarchists attack gone wrong, failed surgery, an arrest and trial all conveyed with minimal exposition and padding.
The film is pretty much defined however by Karloff's performance with most of the other actors coming across a little bland. However, this being the grand era of character actors with great worn faces many look precisely right as prisoners, guards and court officials.
Tension is built effectively over the relatively short running time and the end result is a pleasing tale of imprisonment and survival.
Boris Karloff was always an evocatively spoken actor and here his melliferous voice is used to tremendous effect as he appeals his innocence to the court, as he conspires for escape and as he convincingly plays a surgeon. His near cadaverous frame is also used to good effect when he is stripped to the waist, showing him to be believably a half-starved prisoner.
The film uses some leftover sets, props and costumes from The Life of Emile Zola made a few years earlier to give added production value. Like a lot of Warner Brothers films of the period the pace is astonishing with very brief scenes, swift cuts and uses of montage to convey swathes of story in a few minutes. The opening five minutes alone features narrative text about the history of Devil's Island, an anarchists attack gone wrong, failed surgery, an arrest and trial all conveyed with minimal exposition and padding.
The film is pretty much defined however by Karloff's performance with most of the other actors coming across a little bland. However, this being the grand era of character actors with great worn faces many look precisely right as prisoners, guards and court officials.
Tension is built effectively over the relatively short running time and the end result is a pleasing tale of imprisonment and survival.
Devil's Island Replay of Dr. Mudd - Devil's Island
arthur_tafero1 April 2022
The plot of this film is identical to the plot of a previous Devil's Island film depicting the saga of Dr. Mudd after he treated the infamous John Wilkes Booth after he had assassinated Abraham Lincoln. That film is far more interesting than this one. However, Boris Karloff, with his cute curly perm, gives it his best shot as a wronged doctor sentenced to the hellhole of South America. Interesting only for the Karloff portrayal.
BORIS KARLOFF IS A RESPECTED BRAIN SURGEON!
whpratt110 April 2003
Dr. Gaudet(Boris Karloff) is a respected brain surgeon, and is unjustly sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on Devil's Island. Gaudet draws attention to himself by complaining about the in-human conditions and leads an unsuccessful revolt. As punishment, the warden sentences Karloff and his comrades to death. Boris Karloff plays the lead convincingly, making himself as pathetic a character as possible. It is a very mild acting role for Boris, and that is probably why George Raft had turned the role down. France decided not to eliminate the notorious colony and attacked the film as anti-French at the preview in January 1939. They immediately banned all future Warner Bros. films. A year later it was released, but by this time, France was too busy with World War II to object.
Not "KARLOFF" but "Boris Karloff"
drjgardner19 December 2015
At this point in his career, Boris Karloff (1887-1969) was often billed simply as "Karloff" (in all capitals), but for this 1939 WB prison drama he is Boris Karloff. He started in films in 1916 and up until 1931 he was a bit player in B films. Then came "Frankenstein" (1931), "The Mummy" (1932) and "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932) and he was off on a whirlwind career that lasted for decades, usually playing the villain. In this film Karloff plays the hero, one of his earliest turns as the guy in the white hat.
The film is unremarkable, apart from the heavy handed musical score that is intrusive. Karloff does a good job as the wronged physician, and the rest of the cast do their job adequately. Some of the scenes highlight awful conditions, including the guillotine scene.
The film is reminiscent of John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936) in which Dr. Samuel Mudd is wrongly convicted and sent to prison in Key West where he helped with an outbreak of yellow fever and then was pardoned. Comparing the two, I liked Shark Island better.
Looking at other films about Devil's Island, my preferences are for "Papillon" (1973) and "We're no Angels" (1955).
The film is unremarkable, apart from the heavy handed musical score that is intrusive. Karloff does a good job as the wronged physician, and the rest of the cast do their job adequately. Some of the scenes highlight awful conditions, including the guillotine scene.
The film is reminiscent of John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island" (1936) in which Dr. Samuel Mudd is wrongly convicted and sent to prison in Key West where he helped with an outbreak of yellow fever and then was pardoned. Comparing the two, I liked Shark Island better.
Looking at other films about Devil's Island, my preferences are for "Papillon" (1973) and "We're no Angels" (1955).
A harsh and corrupt regime
bkoganbing19 March 2018
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.
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.
Post production tampering leaves only Karloff's star presence
kevinolzak3 April 2021
1939's "Devil's Island" started out as a typical Warners expose about the brutal mistreatment of prisoners on the French penal colony, but along the way a number of things whittled it down to an all too familiar 'B' picture with little meat left on its creaky bones. George Raft was intended to star but predictably bailed, as producer Hal Wallis hilariously put it: "he hasn't made a picture at this studio since I was a kid!" In his place was contractee Boris Karloff, preferring to do whatever assignment required rather than be paid off during Hollywood's horror ban of 1937-38, "The Walking Dead" a promising start, "West of Shanghai" and "The Invisible Menace" a bit of a comedown ("British Intelligence" finally allowed Jack L. Warner to wash his hands of the actor's services). It looks for all the world like a small scale (though impressively mounted) retread of John Ford's "The Prisoner of Shark Island," Karloff as eminent brain surgeon Dr. Charles Gaudet, summoned to treat the injury of a trusted friend wrongfully convicted of treason (his medical condition showed he had a brain tumor), shot while trying to escape. Gaudet remains behind to continue his treatment and is arrested and convicted for the same crime, sentenced to 10 years hard labor at Devil's Island, where corrupt commandant Colonel Lucien (James Stephenson) keeps an account of all the graft he accepts to increase slave labor. When a tubercular patient drops dead a riot breaks out, one guard killed by a blow to the head, and only an accident to Lucien's young daughter offering a sliver of hope if Gaudet can save her life. Madame Lucien (Nedda Harrigan) despises her husband's failure to offer clemency to Gaudet for his selfless efforts and provides for a series of bribes to help him and his small group escape by boat across the channel, but all seems lost once they encounter a slave ship bound for Devil's Island. Despite the French government being off the hook for corruption (Colonel Lucien in need of no assistance), the European nation still protested the picture's release, finally held back until the summer of 1940 though it was completed in Aug. 1938, just before Karloff traveled to Poverty Row Monogram to begin "Mr. Wong, Detective." On its own the story has been done better both before and after, the low key, one note James Stephenson no match for the fiery John Carradine's Sgt. Rankin so far as dynamism goes, leaving only Boris Karloff's sympathetic change of pace as the main reason for viewing. Like Janos Rukh in "The Invisible Ray" he sports curly hair, and again proves versatile in changing his appearance in every starring vehicle of the 30s, with or without heavy makeup, though he might have escaped such harsh punishment had he curbed his temperament. Columbia issued a similar film the following year, "Island of Doomed Men" offering Peter Lorre top billing as the chief villain, Rochelle Hudson the disloyal wife who helps bring about his downfall.
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