Hell's Island

This is a surprisingly good movie for being a B feature with no stars and no special names of attraction to it. Above all, it's a well composed and intriguing story. It's a tropical noir in flamboyant colour and with Francis L. Sullivan as the most interesting character, here in a wheel-chair, leading the hunt for a missing invaluable ruby lost in an air crash on this unidentifiable Caribbean island full of mysteries.

The leading lady, a former mistress of John Payne's, is the spider in the web of the mysteries with a husband locked up for life and imprisoned on another island outside as responsible for the death of the one casualy of the air crash, who had the ruby. Well, let's not proceed any further here, since the story as such with all its intrigues and tunnels, twists and turns cannot be told better than by the film.

The very adequate music adds to the magic of the tropical island and the dame of mysteries and intrigue, and there will be some more casualties before the skies eventually will clear and show what really happened, Francis L. Sullivan making the most striking exit in his wheel-chair.

After 99 River Street and Kansas City Confidential, world-weary bruiser John Payne teams up with director Phil Karlson for Hell's Island, this time in VistaVision (Payne apparently had the foresight to see that television would become a profitable market for color films). After being jilted, Payne drank himself out of a job in the L.A. district attorney's office and now serves as bouncer in a Vegas casino. A wheelchair-bound stranger (Francis L. Sullivan) engages him to locate a ruby that disappeared in a Caribbean plane crash; the bait is that it may be in the possession of the woman (Mary Murphy) who jilted him. Payne flies off to Santo Rosario and into a web of duplicity at whose center Murphy waits (she does the "femme" better than she does the "fatale," however). There's a splendid moment when she shuts up her doors and draws the curtains on the memory of her rich busband, now in a penal colony across the subtropical waters for supposedly causing the deadly crash. The movie's texture is spun from Payne's carrying a torch that fails to illuminate the amplitude of clues and warning signals all around him. Professionally done if not especially memorable, Hell's Island remains an enjoyable color noir -- the Payne/Karlson combo rarely disappoints.

This is a decent film noir production. It stars John Payne in the latter portion of his career--when he was no longer a pretty-boy or light-weight singer. He was good as an angry noir hero and I certainly thought that he was up to the task. However, the plot is another story. While it's not bad, it's VERY, VERY familiar--like the writer was simply regurgitating portions of other movies he'd recently seen. In MANY ways, it's a reworking of "The Maltese Falcon" that is set in Mexico--and even has a similar sort of dame and a fat guy doing a Sidney Greenstreet imitation! It is also like several other B-movies I've seen over the years. Nothing particularly original about this one. It's got a few weaknesses (the woman is so OBVIOUSLY evil yet our hero doesn't recognize this for the longest time--even though he's a well-educated guy!) and about all you'd expect from a film of this sort--double-crosses, murders and the like. A decent time-passer but no more.

John Payne teamed with director Phil Karlson in the last of their three collaborations. Not as good as Kansas City Confidential, Hell's Island still packs quite a wallop. And Mary Astor from The Maltese Falcon, Claire Trevor from Murder My Sweet, and Jane Greer from Out Of The Past have nothing on Mary Murphy as one scheming two timing dame.

The ever avuncular Francis L. Sullivan hires Payne who was once involved with Murphy to go to some Caribbean island and check on a ruby that her husband Paul Picerni smuggled into the country. He figures that Payne can get close to her. Picerni is on another island in prison.

Payne and Murphy were supposed to be married, but she threw him over for the high flying and high living Picerni. Presumably when she married him Murphy did not know about the smuggling that allowed him to live the good life in the tropics.

Three murders later and Payne who is still carrying a Statue of Liberty size torch for Murphy starts to wise up. Paul Picerni only has one scene in the film and it's with Payne. He tells him the facts of life and really opens up his eyes, can't say more.

Mary Murphy is probably best known as the good girl that biker Marlon Brando fell for in The Wild One. But as far as I'm concerned Hell's Island contains her career performance.

If you see this fine tropic noir film, I think you'll agree.

We begin with a scene under the opening credits where a man (John Payne) is being held at gunpoint by a man in a wheelchair and his cronies. What's going on? Turns out the one being held up is a former D.A. assistant, now a bouncer, hired to retrieve a missing ruby on a Caribbean island, where he knows his ex-girlfriend (Mary Murphy) is. When he gets there and sees her in a market, she runs away. He finds out that there is intrigue aplenty and his ex is possibly in it up to her neck. Can he trust her?

This was a decent one, the third of three teamings of John Payne with director Phil Karlson. (first was Kansas City Confidential, second was 99 River Street) It uses a lot of familiar elements from other noirs and does so mostly successfully. I found the story kinda bogged down here and there, but is generally solid. Some good action and surprises.

The other two movies I mentioned are better, especially the mighty K.C.C., but this is still worth a look, especially if you enjoy Payne as a tough guy.

As an aside, Mary Murphy sure can walk away!



*the lovely actress, not the incredibly annoying screeching woman on those dance shows!