Il mostro dell'isola

Boris Karloff and the title "Island Monster" does not a horror movie make, as is evidenced in this tepid crime-drama concerning a government investigator sent to break a drug ring, until things go awry when his young daughter is kidnapped. Local benefactor (Karloff) seems a kindly old gentleman, whose hospice for ill children paints him as the town's saint, but there's something distinctly unsavoury about the milk he imports.

Karloff is wasted as the benevolent Samaritan above suspicion while local mule Franca Marzi has a decent role as a nightclub singer whose drug addiction has brought her into the criminal arena, with a sad past and an opportunity for atonement ahead. Fierro is okay as the frantic mother whose child is abducted, and Vicario, playing essentially the leading man, a debonair, ladies' man loyal to the uniform, is consistently monotone.

The Napoli locations are picturesque and there's a hint of the continental lifestyle that's hard to ignore, but the film is otherwise bland and unimaginative, lacking suspense, and hopelessly clichéd - right down to the faithful mutt who does a pretty good substitute for Lassie.