Isle of Fury ** (1936, Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Woods) – Classic Movie Review 11,093

TWO ‘WANTED MEN’…WHO WANTED ONE WOMAN!

Director Frank McDonald’s 1936 black and white Warner Bros double feature adventure film Isle of Fury is just about interesting as a curio to see the young, pre-stardom Humphrey Bogart, already in his 14th film following his 1930 debut in A Devil with Women.

In the South Seas, crook-on-the-run Val Stevens (Bogart), who is about to get married to Lucille Gordon (Margaret Lindsay), saves Captain Deever (Paul Graetz) and passenger detective Eric Blake (Donald Woods) at sea when their ship goes down offshore, and then a romantic triangle and a moral dilemma follow on the ‘Isle of Fury’.

As it emerges that Blake has arrived to arrest Stevens, Blake returns the life-saving complement and rescues Stevens from an octopus.

The young, pre-stardom Bogart remains watchable in this rather soggy morass, a feeble, underwritten and overplayed version of W Somerset Maugham’s 1932 novel The Narrow Corner, filmed under its original title just three years earlier.

Isle of Fury is one that Bogart left off his list of credits and it is easy to see why, although it is notable as one of Bogart’s first leading roles.

It was released on 10 October 1936.

Runtime: 60 minutes.

Also in the cast are E E Clive as Dr Hardy, Paul Graetz as Captain Deever, Gordan Hart as Antvar ‘Chris’ Anderson, George Regas as Otar, Sidney Bracey as Sam, Tetsu Komai as Kim Lee, Miki Morita as Oh Kay, Houseley Stevenson as The Rector, Frank Lackteen as Old Native Lanar, George Piltz as a native.

It is one of only two films Bogart had a moustache, followed by the Errol Flynn Western Virginia City (1940), in which he plays a Mexican bandit.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,093

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