ISLE OF FURY (1936)

On the isolated South Seas island of Tankara, Humphrey Bogart and Margaret Lindsay are getting married during a hellacious storm when news arrives that a ship is foundering near the shore. As soon as he says "I do," Bogart goes racing out to rescue the sailors, an unsavory sea captain (Paul Graetz) and a young, handsome and somewhat mysterious fellow (Donald Woods). The island doctor (E.E. Clive) is suspicious, noting that only men trying to escape from something wind up on the islands. But Bogart, a fair-minded fellow, takes Woods in and, while he recovers, shows him the ropes of his pearl diving business. When superstitious native fishermen refuse to dive off a certain spot because some men vanished near there, Bogart goes down himself and winds up face to face with a huge killer octopus; Woods bravely dives in after him and kills the octopus. Now each man has saved the other's life and Bogart offers Woods a job in the business. Two things are going on that we know but that Bogart doesn't : 1) Bogart's chief native associates are not to be trusted; 2) Woods and Lindsay are fighting a physical attraction that's developing. Lindsay, who has lived on the island all her life, tells Woods that Bogart is a good man of whom she is fond, but she only married him because she promised her late mother that she would. When Woods seems not in a rush to leave the island, Bogart offers him a job as an assistant. As Woods contemplates this, Graetz, who had left the island, returns with news that threatens the established equilibrium of our cozy triangle.

Based on Somerset Maugham's The Narrow Corner (and made into a film just four years earlier with Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), this programmer is more enjoyable than it usually gets credit for. Critical commentary centers on two things: Bogart's weak performance (and disconcerting pencil-thin mustache) and the ridiculously fake octopus battle. I won't defend the latter episode—the grappling with a smiling rubber octopus is indeed worthy of Ed Wood, and exciting music in the background just makes it worse—but Bogart is actually fine here; I think viewers are disgruntled that he's not playing the hard-boiled Bogart persona we know so well but that wasn't fully crafted until a few years later. But if your expectations remain on a par with the average Warners B-film of the era, I don't think you'll be disappointed. It's short (barely an hour), moves fairly well, and even better has a nice plot twist near the end, and a conclusion that defies the Production Code. Most reviews of the film on IMDb give away the spoiler twist as though it was clear from the start, but it's not so I won't divulge it here. Bogart's character is likeable but with a bit of an edge that always makes you think he might do something out of left field. I always like Woods, mostly a featured player in dozens of B-films in the 30s and 40s, and he's fine here. I'm not so much a fan of Lindsay who I find bland and forgettable, but even she's not bad in this role. Recommended, unless you can't stand to see Bogart play something besides a detective or a gangster. The book, BTW, is quite good but very different in its focus and the way it plays out. Pictured are, from left, Woods, Bogart and Lindsay. [TCM]