Isle of Forgotten Sins

Isle of Forgotten Sins is one of those rarities I discovered at my local library. In this case, this was one of Edgar G. Ulmer's low-budget poverty row pictures he made for PRC. John Carradine and Frank Fenton are rivals for gambling club owner Gale Sondergaard but they put aside their differences for a chance to get sunken treasure. Ms. Sondergarrd and her girls (which includes a crafty Veda Ann Borg) come along but all of them seem to be pawns for Sidney "Charlie Chan" Toler and his partner Rick Vallin. Also briefly appearing is Bill Edmonds-Mr. Martini in It's a Wonderful Life-as the island chief. Enjoyably and breezily fast-paced (whenever possible) B-movie that benefits from Ulmer's expert direction and a suitable underscore by Leo Erdody (who like me was born in Chicago, Ill.) mixed in with some public domain classical music. The composer is billed by his last name here. If there's some quibble, it's how some scenes obviously reveal how some boat scenes use a toy model and the underwater ones reveal the diving suit, which is also a small plaything, being manipulated. Otherwise, great fun with even some singing from one of the girls not marring the storyline too much.

Intriguing South Seas "epic" about a couple of roughs and their casino girlfriends that decide to steal gold they believe a customer to have on his private island. Trouble is that the customer tricks the two men et al so they will find treasure underwater only to be lifted after completion of said job. This little, low-budget film was directed by that once shining star Edger G. Ulmer - the director of 1934's The Black Cat. Like all of Ulmer's work, flashes of brilliance resonate throughout. Ulmer makes the most with a small budget. That being said, innovative use of struggling finance and truly imaginative uses of actors and camera angles do not necessarily make for a great film. Here they struggle to do just that - but come up somewhat short. Nonetheless, because of the talent here, Ulmer, John Carradine, Gale Sondergard, and Sidney Toler, and a quick, zippy pace, and some campy dialog, etc..- Isle of Forgotten Sins is better than one could or should expect. The leads of Carradine and love-interest Sondergard go against type, and while Carradine is always a thick slice of ham - he is always fun to watch. Toler, Charlie Chan himself, has a great time playing a heavy in the film. The girls that accompany the men are all knockouts. The story is where weakness - rising damp if you like - sets in. While the two chummy roughs fight between themselves over Sondergard and whatever else they can, neither is heroic in any real sense of the word. They are bad guys. Toler is a bad guy. So pulling for one over the other was difficult, especially since Toler seemed far more pleasant company. The other thing is that the low-budget really shows its depths when the "boys" dive trying to find the gold. The diver in the water is obviously a toy, gesticulating with its hand in the same motion over and over again. The scenes just look ridiculous. The boat and some of the exterior shots of the hotel, etc... look like miniatures too. The climatic ending also is rather excessive, but interesting.

Gale Sondergaard is the mistress of -- well, let's say it's a gambling house. It's a gambling house filled with girls. Sondergaard looks great and is fun in the role. Some of her employees are pretty and also act well. Veda Ann Borg, for one, is always good for some fun. Some of the girls are pretty. A few of the bit players, as was the case in the lesser studios, look like basset hounds with long hair.

John Carradine is kind of wasted in the role of the hero. He's fine but this was not his forte. Sidney Toler, so upstanding as Charlie Chan, is not nice here at all.

Edgar G. Ulmer does a fine job with this low-budget affair. I had never heard of it, and I thought I'd seen all his movies.

It's most fun when it stays within the genre, ruled over by Marlene Dietrich, of the good woman with a bad reputation working in a place with a terrible reputation. When it turns to adventure, it gets a little tiresome. But it's not a bad movie.

And Ulmer may have been the director who best, and most frequently, used classical and operatic music in his movies. Sure, some did when they were doing biopics of composers. But even here, we have an excellent score.

Had I known who the romantic leads are in this film I would have made it a point to see it years ago. How often do you get the opportunity to see Gale Sondergaard and John Carradine play characters better suited to Humprhey Bogart and Lauren Bacall? ISLE OF FORGOTTEN SINS is a thoroughly enjoyable South Seas adventure with Carradine and Sondergaard, cast completely against type, doing terrific work for low budget miracle worker Edgar G. Ulmer. Add Frank Fenton as Carradine's battling buddy, Sidney Toler as their jovial adversary, Rik Vallin as Toler's classical piano-playing second mate and Veda Ann Borg as a treacherous native girl, clever use of a puppet (!) for the deep sea diving scenes and a climactic monsoon -- what more do you need?

NOTE: The running time of this film is usually listed as 82 minutes. The video print I watched (from VCI Video) ran 76 minutes, and did not appear to be missing anything major.

Edgar G. Ulmer had a deserved reputation for making something out of nothing--the best example being the terrific "Detour"--but there was so much "nothing" in this film it was impossible to make "something" out of it. As noted in other reviews, Carradine and Fenton are professional divers/adventurers in the South Seas who plot to steal a sunken treasure chest out from under the noses of the men who scuttled the ship it was on. Not a bad premise, actually, but what's done with it can't all be blamed entirely on the lousy script by longtime B-picture hack Raymond L. Schrock, since Ulmer himself had a hand in it. The fact is that this isn't one of Ulmer's better-directed films; it's pretty much by-the-numbers hackwork that could have been done by Elmer Clifton, Sam Newfield or any of PRC's stable of schlock directors, although there are a few Ulmer "touches", notably his use of classical music throughout the picture. PRC's cheapness shows through in every frame, from the laughably chintzy "special effects" to the tinny score to the murky photography to some of the worst-staged fight scenes--and an especially pathetic gun battle--you're likely to see. In true PRC fashion, no thought was given to try to make the stuntmen resemble the actors they were doubling even a little bit--Carradine's stuntman is much shorter, quite a bit heavier and has much darker hair than he does.

The upside to the picture is that the bargirls who figure in the story are pretty and spend most of the picture strolling around in sarongs, which is a pleasant diversion from the cheesiness going on around them. Carradine actually does a good job--another reviewer said he "phoned in" his part, which really isn't true--and Gale Sondergaard seems to be having a good time, but Sidney Toler apparently forgot this isn't a Charlie Chan movie and keeps his eyes squinted and his delivery in that Chan "singsong" voice throughout the picture; he isn't even remotely convincing as a villain. Frank Fenton as Carradine's partner isn't particularly good, but Rick Vallin--a decent enough actor who unfortunately spent most of his career toiling away at the bottom end of the Hollywood food chain, as he is here--isn't too bad as Toler's "partner", although he doesn't really have all that much to do. Veda Ann Borg is always a welcome sight but just doesn't cut it playing a monosyllabic native girl who talks like an Indian in a '30s Z-grade western ("Me see you talk him!").

Overall it's pretty low-rent, as would be expected from PRC, and definitely not one of the better ones Edgar G. Ulmer made for that studio. Worth a one-time look, but not more than that.