Fog Island

First time of watching: entertaining low budget spooky house mystery with Zucco and Atwill at their eye-popping peaks. Terrible print - the negative must look transparent, so I would definitely recommend switching the lights off (or a cinema) for optimum viewing.

It's a PRC stagey mix of And Then There Were None (in this case, Two) and The Cat And The Canary, with a few extra twists, but with only nine characters. The butler was a short-lived oddball however, quickly dispatched with gusto from the plot to the cynical amusement of Zucco. To my cynical amusement it's at that moment that Zucco is reminded that he "blew his top" when he was in prison - not hard to imagine!

The male romantic lead was even more wooden, impetuous and prescient than the rest of the cast (Jerome Cowan was wasted yet again), but overall I enjoyed the film, nice atmosphere when the print allowed and an almost believable nasty-revenge storyline.

Leo Granger, falsely framed for embezzlement and living on Fog Island with his stepdaughter, invites the 4 persons who framed him and one of which is responsible for the murder of Granger's wife. The only reason for the 4 to go to the former pirate hideaway, is that they, along w/ Granger's former cellmate, believe that somewhere in the house is a stash of money, Granger accumulated. One of the four, Kingsley, is the son of the recently deceased person who framed Granger, and is only there for Gail, the step-daughter. At the island, Granger gives each a clue to ultimately get "what's coming to them", and he waits to see how the group's greed will get the best of them. The film has the right atmosphere and a good cast, but that's all to recommend it. Obviously with a PRC budget, you might have had a style similar to Clair's And Then There Were None. Morse's direction is uneven, very often breaking the tension. Still a good production from the studio. Rating, 5.

This genre of mystery film began in the twenties and ended in the early 1940's. It is a good late night movie to be seen before bedtime. It has none of the overkill of the movies of the 1990's.

I would have voted 6, but had to subtract one for the grizzly, bouncy print, even the DVD print purchased from DeepdiscountDVD was wretched (not their fault.) But, the price was right, under $5.00 on sale. The actors were wonderful in their scenery chewing portrayals of the various greedy characters. Many of them were quite well known actors in the 40s. The only truly bad acting was by the two actors portraying the young lovers, whose characters added no value to the story anyway. The other reviews pretty well cover the story and need not be repeated here. The story was adapted from the play "Angel Island". What was fun about the movie presentation is that it doesn't stray far from the stage play form. The scenes don't change often and the action is concentrated in one spot. This helps maintain the continuity of the story, which in low budget presentations can quite often get lost. If you like stories like "Ten Little Indians", you'll like this.

This crime/mystery drama is pretty murky in a number of respects, but it holds your interest most of the time with a tense and rather complicated story. George Zucco and Lionel Atwill are right at home in this kind of material, and the rest of the cast is solid if unspectacular.

The setup has Zucco as an ex-convict who has a mysterious home on "Fog Island", to which he lures an assortment of persons whom he holds responsible for framing him and for killing his wife. Zucco is convincing as a half-mad plotter, and although parts of his plan remain obscure or confusing, it's interesting in that his approach to revenge is not the usual one of direct confrontation.

Atwill and Veda Ann Borg are the liveliest of the supporting characters. John Whitney and Sharon Douglas are at least likable, but they are too plain to arouse much interest in their characters, who are significant to the story.

The fog and darkness that dominate the settings help to hide the low-budget production, and they also help in setting the atmosphere of confusion and distrust. There are a fair number of interesting moments, and although it doesn't all fit together as well as it could have, it's a fairly interesting offbeat feature of its kind.