Movie 2: Isle of the Dead (1945)
Directed by Mark Robson
Plot:
Stuck on an island in the middle of war, a group of strangers, relatives and friends waits to die of the plague (or be killed by a vorvolaka -- choose your poison). Hilarity ensues.
Reaction:
This movie had a very different feel than pretty much anything else we've seen in this class. It had gravitas, and felt like a true dramatic film. And in it, Boris Karloff (whom I;d thought of as capable of little more than monster roles) proved himself in a dramatic part as the ill-fated but duty-bound General Pherides.
An ambitious movie (though Ethan thinks it simply tried to do too much), Isle kept the class riveted, and paid off by not paying off -- leaving an ambiguous question mark as to whether the cast were killed by the plague or by the vorvolaka. Though I usually like to have closure, I enjoyed the question mark that the film leaves.
And that opening scene, where Pherides condemns his friend to death is very eerie. I spent a good part of the movie wondering why it was there, since it seems largely disconnected from the rest of the story, but I eventually realized that it served perfectly to show how Pherides is, despite whatever emotions he has, totally devoted to duty.
The only downside was that some of the movie was slow-moving at times. If it had kept the pace up better, I might have rated it a 9.5 or higher.
Ratings:
Me: 9.1
Dave: 9.6 -9.7
Ethan: 8
Sean 4 out of 4*
*incorporating a rescoring of last week's movie, Mad Love to 3 out of 4.
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