The first film adaptation of H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. Our rather generic protagonist (Richard Arlen) is shipwrecked in the south sea's, he is rescued by a boat taking a shipment of exotic animals to the remote island laboratory of the mysterious Dr. Moreau, a disgraced scientist with exotic theories now in exile. Arlen makes an inadvertent enemy of the captain who thusly refuses to take him to Tahiti, or whatever island it was he was too meet his finance (Leila Hyams) on. Arlen is dropped off along Moreau's assistant (Arthur Hohl), the animals, and some vaguely deformed looking natives on the doctors island. There he finds more natives, all male and deformed except for the exotic Lota (played by Kathleen Burke, who was a Chicago dental assistant before winning a talent contest with Paramount).
In time Arlen learns the Lota and the rest of the natives are in fact heavily vivisected animals made into human form by the mad Dr. Moreau. Moreau has an interest in trying to mate Arlen to 'the Panther Women' but turns out that he's not into bestiality in any form, plus he's engaged. Eventually the fiance and a sympathetic captain come to the island to rescue Arlen, just in time for the natives to mount a rebellion against there cruel overlord, this is the movie where the phrase "the natives are restless tonight" actually comes from.
Smarter then most of the horror films of the era this movie does succeed at conveying and uneasy aura, and Charles Laughton's Dr. Moreau is wonderfully creepy without being all that over the top. Dracula himself, Bela Lugosi, has a small part as a dog faced 'native' known as the "Sayer Of The Law", chief expositor of the moral code Moreau has given his creations to live by. Only an hour and a half long the movie is carried by the moode it evokes and by Laughton's performance, and is far superior to the 1996 remake. ***
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