What makes it different from others?

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

the audience applauded

It is a performances centric movie

I didn't know what to expect with this film but it turned out to be a rather creepy and sinister story. A woman who was raised on the West Indies island of San Christopher longs to return as an adult to confront the demons of her past, as her parents were both killed by natives on the island. Her husband and uncle who live on the island both warn against the idea, but Juanita Lane (Dorothy Burgess) sets off for San Christopher with her daughter (Cora Sue Collins) and attendant Gail Hamilton (Fay Wray) in tow.The most troublesome aspect of the story to me had to do with Juanita's casting aside of her husband and daughter as she gets caught up in the voodoo rituals of San Christopher, to the extent that the island villagers elevate her status to one of a high priestess. In a scene where a male high priest is about to sacrifice a native black woman, Juanita's husband Steve (Jack Holt) intervenes by shooting the man, but to finish the ceremony, Juanita picks up the machete and completes the sacrifice! The fact that the scene wasn't graphically shown in no way lessens the impact of the imagery.A similar scene gets to play out in the latter part of the story, but this time it's Juanita's daughter who becomes the object of the island sacrifice. The script probably should have done a better job of defining the motivation for such a horrific idea, all the viewer is left with is the impression that Juanita must be terribly insane. As the cacophony of native drums mesmerizes Juanita with their hypnotic effect, Steve Lane arrives just in time to shoot his own wife to save his daughter's life. The most unbelievable aspect in both instances was the lack of reaction by the chanting villagers. You would think they'd be the slightest bit upset by the interruption of their ritual celebration.Though I've seen Jack Holt previously in a couple of B Westerns, this was my first look at him in a leading role. He's not very charismatic in this portrayal, and he doesn't appear to have much chemistry with wife Juanita or his assistant Gail. Though it's more than apparent that Miss Hamilton carries a torch for the older man, it never really appears that Steve Lane is on the same wavelength, even if the story's resolution has all the main participants returning home as a newly reorganized family. You just had to wonder how they were going to put this horrible event behind them.

Certainly this is an oddball film, worth watching perhaps for a few laughs, but I must have watched another movie than the one that most reviewers here are talking about. First of all, if you're saying that this was ahead of its time, you're just showing your ignorance. It's not a precursor to the Val Lewton films of the 40s, it's a rehash of the bad racist jungle epics of the 1920s. There were tons of these movies, and the only thing that really makes this film notable is the fact that Fay Wray is in it, and that it allows the husband (a visibly embarrassed Jack Holt) to get away with killing his wife (Dorothy Burgess) in order to prevent her murdering their daughter in a voodoo ritual.Sounds pretty exciting, right? It's really not. The photography and direction are dull, there's no real magic nor any monsters, and the story is just a trifle designed to shock middle-class theater patrons of the early 1930s. It is full of racist imagery and characters, and even the ostensibly noble black character (Clarence Muse), whose presence perhaps was intended to make the film seem less racist, just manages to make things even worse.Dramatically, the film suffers from a transparent plot, and the lack of any real villain outside of Burgess' bored housewife on a voodoo binge. The black characters are treated as too infantile to do anything without the direction of either their priest or the white woman they inexplicably worship. Whenever a dangerous situation looms, Holt simply fires his gun at whoever is causing the danger and the situation is immediately defused. If only he had fired his pistol at the screenwriter.

A curio that all film buffs should see. But be warned. Very good black & white cinematography is not enough to compensate for this racist tale, even by 1932 standards. Maybe the way the ignorant colonialist characters of this film confront the religion of the islanders, is still assumed by many persons today, but all this voodoo crap has seriously affected horror cinema, until things began to improve a bit with the Hammer Film production "The Plague of the Zombies", and specially with "The Serpent and the Rainbow", which were more informed about the Caribbean and its tragic story of genocide, colonialism, tyranny and misery, all of which still affect many islands (big and small). The filmmakers didn't even make a fine research about the chants or rites of the voodoo religion (because a religion is what voodoo is, that should be treated with respect if we really believe in freedom of cult)... Here natives hum and hum, while the colonialists wear formal dress to have dinner. At least in "King Kong", released a year before, things were more palatable due to the fantastic nature of the story, with an island out of nowhere, so Max Steiner's ritual dances and the cult to Kong seemed marvelous, and they still do. But the St. Christopher of this foolish tale resembles Haiti way too much to be taken as plain "entertainment". On the performers' side, Dorothy Burgess is fine as Juanita Pérez, the "Voodoo Queen" (or something like that), and Arnold Korff is quite convincing as her colonialist landowner uncle, Dr. Pérez (how people with Spanish names and tombstones ended speaking creole in "St. Haiti" is not explained); while Fay Wray is nothing but a decorative figure, and Jack Holt, as the concerned entrepreneur and husband of Queen Juanita, seems more like her father. Don't miss it!

The Castro recently ran a series of movies made by Columbia Pictures before the Hays Production Code went into effect in the 1930s. Compared to the Paramount pre-Codes the Balboa Theater was screening around the same time, the Columbia films were pretty much B-movie fare, but one film in particular stood out. Black Moon (1934), a moody suspense thriller with horror movie overtones, stars Dorothy Burgess as a New York socialite haunted by her childhood memories of growing up on a Haiti-like isle in the Caribbean. Taking her young daughter with her, she returns to visit her uncle—the only remaining white inhabitant of the island—and confront her past. As it turns out, the black natives who took care of her as a child would secretly carry her into the jungle every night to participate in ceremonial voodoo sacrifices, and upon her return as an adult she assumes the role of white voodoo priestess and begins to lead the rituals. Her businessman husband Jack Holt, with secretary Fay Wray in tow, follows her to the island and while attempting to rescue his wife and daughter is besieged by the native voodoo worshippers. The remarkable thing about the movie is its slow oppressive mood, played entirely as a serious drama with little trace of dated campiness. The atmosphere of impending dread and shadowy black and white cinematography reminded me of the original Cat People, filmed eight years later. The black islanders are solemn and menacing without being racial stereotypes, and the voodoo drums beating throughout the movie add to the ominous creepiness. Sort of has the air of an early zombie movie, but without any zombies. Definitely catch it if you get a chance.