One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Best movie of this year hands down!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The acting in this movie is really good.

In the tradition of waste not at movie studios the sets made for The Life Of Emile Zola get recycled for this short B film Devil's Island. Boris Karloff steps away from the horror genre and has the lead here. We get both the courtroom and the Devil's Island sets, Jack Warner was being most economical.As cinema this film will never rank with something like Papillon or even Passage To Marseilles which Warner Brothers did a few years later. Karloff plays a doctor who does a Samuel Mudd here, treats a wounded escaping prisoner and is charged with treason and given ten years hard labor at the notorious Carribean prison.It's a harsh and corrupt regime there that commandant James Stephenson runs. Even when Karloff saves the life of his daughter it's back to hard labor for him. But he develops a friend and ally in Stephenson's wife Nedda Harrigan.The ending is rather tacked on and artificial and things get tied up too neatly to be real. But it is nice seeing Karloff not conducting any sinister experiments for a change.

At just over an hour, this prison drama is riveting from start to finish, sort of a follow-up to "The Life of Emile Zola" as it deals with the themes of prison brutality and reform. Like the Joseph Schildkraut character in that 1937 Best Picture winner, this deals with a man unjustly sent to Devil's Island, treated cruelly, yet mercifully saving the life of the daughter of prison head Henry Stephenson. The brutality of the guards lead to rebellion, an execution by guillotine, and later a hopefully successful escape. A weakened prisoner is forced to work, and in his dying moment accidentally pushes his pick into the path of an oncoming carriage, causing the young girl to fly onto the rocky road, but even the death of a prisoner doesn't stop the guards from continuing their brutality. A sincere performance by Karloff and excellent technical work makes this an above average programmer.

Boris Karloff was my reason for seeing Devil's Island, and when I did see it I found myself liking it very much. Of Warner Archive's Boris Karloff Triple Feature collection, it is easily the best of the three films, having liked West of Shanghai and hated The Invisible Menace(Karloff is the best thing about both those films though). Devil's Island, to me, is not without its faults either, the beginning did seem rather tacked on and the music was annoying and often not really appropriate. Devil's Island however is an atmospherically shot film and the settings are suitably moody. The dialogue is thoughtful and to the point, also written in a way that allows you to care for the characters, while the story is well-paced, sustains the short length(in the way that The Invisible Menace failed to do), is tightly structured and sticks like glue to its subject rather than going on a tangent. The acting is good, very good in the case of the two leads, the supporting cast are not faced with sketchy characterisations like with West of Shanghai and there is no annoying comic relief like in The Invisible Menace. James Stephenson makes for an understated and urbane villain, something that he seemed very well-suited for, while Boris Karloff is forceful and dignified in a role different to what we are used to seeing from him. All in all, a very impressive film, worth checking out. 8/10 Bethany Cox

Dr. Gaudet(Boris Karloff) is a respected brain surgeon, and is unjustly sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on Devil's Island. Gaudet draws attention to himself by complaining about the in-human conditions and leads an unsuccessful revolt. As punishment, the warden sentences Karloff and his comrades to death. Boris Karloff plays the lead convincingly, making himself as pathetic a character as possible. It is a very mild acting role for Boris, and that is probably why George Raft had turned the role down. France decided not to eliminate the notorious colony and attacked the film as anti-French at the preview in January 1939. They immediately banned all future Warner Bros. films. A year later it was released, but by this time, France was too busy with World War II to object.