Too much of everything

Did you people see the same film I saw?

Absolutely Fantastic

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Wow, Atwill and Zucco together at last. I was expecting crackling transformers, electrical arcs, and monsters galore. No such luck. They do have one minor face-off, but I don't think the producers knew what sinister potential they had in these two veteran madmen.It's a typical PRC cheap budget— a big drawing room, some secret passages, and an underground room that becomes a swimming pool at inconvenient times. And that's about it. The plot's supposed to be about an island host (Zucco) using a ruse to get people who wronged him onto his island as guests so he can get revenge. Maybe the premise is not very original, but it does have potential. Trouble is there's very little development producing either suspense or mystery. Mostly, it's scattered dialog and playing hide and seek in semi-darkness. In short, the narrative's a series of individual occurrences that fail to build beyond themselves. Thus, we're left with a few interesting set-ups but little more. Too bad. Oh yes, mustn't forget not just one spider woman, but two—Borg and DeWit. Both are tall, forceful, and attractive. Like Zucco & Atwill, they do have one minor face-off, but I guess I was hoping for an all-out catfight, or more aptly a lioness fight. Now that would have been memorable. Anyway, the film does have its moments, but fails to cohere into anything more.

Wait a minute - that's how it ends? Where did all that water go? Then Kingsley (John Whitney) gives Gail (Sharon Douglas) the bum's rush out of the ex-pirate mansion and she's OK with leaving her step-father behind for the rest of her life without saying good bye? Yeah, I know, her step-father was dead, but she didn't know that. I have to say, the end of this picture felt like the film makers ran out their budget and they had to pull the plug on the last dime. Very disappointing.What led up to the finale showed some promise, even if it was a bit far fetched. You had to accept the idea that the four former business associates of Leo Granger (George Zucco) would accept an invitation to his Fog Island home, knowing that he was out for revenge on the one or more who set him up for prison and killed his wife. Greed was supposed to be the motive but I'm not buying it. Would you accept that invitation? The film had some of the same plot elements as Vincent Price's 1959 flick "House on Haunted Hill". There's the invitation for starters, and then you have the party favors Granger offers with his guests' first drink. That was curious though, as it seemed to me each person selected their own wrapped gift, and it turned out to be exactly the one that fit their particular circumstance. The basement even had a trap door, similar to Price's vat full of poison in the floor, and there was a skeleton down there! Was that supposed to be Karma? Yikes!A lot of mystery films of the era seemed to rely heavily on characters spying on each other from just around the corner or from another room. In this one, everyone is doing it, and it got to the point where it was amusing because each character seemed to know the precise time he should be looking out for the next guy. Granger himself was all over the place, it's too bad he didn't make it to the end of the picture.I wanted to like this one a lot more, just because you had George Zucco and Lionel Atwill in the same picture together, and as adversaries no less. That face to face moment between them was very sinister, but the payoff almost became a 'huh?' moment until you figured out Atwill just stabbed him. Zucco kept right on talking until he just stopped in mid sentence, and that was it! I don't know, maybe they should have put a little more thought into this. It had some great potential with the great atmospherics and spooky subterranean cavern under the house. In the end, the thing that most impressed me was the title.

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.

****SPOILERS**** The only thing that seems to make any sense about the movie "Fog Island" is that the bitter and vengeful Leo Grainer, George Zucco, wanted to know for sure if any or all of the people that he invited to stay over at his home Alic Ritchfield, Lionel Atwill, Kavanaugh, Jerome Cowan, Syivla, Veda Ann Borg, and Emiline Bronson, Jaqueline Dewit, on Fog Island murdered his dear wife Karma. Finding out later in the film, at the cost of Leo's life, that Karma was murdered by his invited guests he could then die happily knowing that their greed would lead them right into the trap that he set for them.When Leo was framed by the above mentioned individuals for embezzling his company and sent to prison they not only looted whatever was still left in the company's coffers but in their mindless greed went to Fog Island. After not finding out from Leo's wife Karma where he stashed a large portion of his liquid assets, that they felt that he hid from them, they murdered her.His business bankrupt his wife dead and his future bleak Leo after getting out of prison had only one reason for living. That was to punish those who destroyed his life and murdered his wife Karma. At first you wondered why these people would take Leo up on his invitation to come and stay overnight at his home on the Island as guests? They knew how much Leo hated them and how unstable and crazy he was. As you watched them in the movie you soon saw just how much their greed blinded them and distorted their reason from seeing this. Leo playing on their greed made them think that he had a large amount of liquid assets hidden somewhere on Fog Island. In the end Leo's guests didn't find any assets but got far more liquids that they could have ever hoped for.The good acting in the movie "Fog Island" by George Zucco and Lionel Atwill couldn't save the films very inane and uneven story. I could not understand why it was never really explained in the movie why Leo would hire an escaped convict Allerton, George Lloyd, to be his butler? We always see Allerton snooping around the house and looking into every nook and cranny obviously looking for the money that he thinks that Leo has hidden there. Allerton is later confronted by Doc Lake, Ian Keith, Leo's former accountant and cell-mate. Doc gets into a fight with Allerton where he knocks him over a railing into the water and to his death. Leo who was in the background watching all of this seemed about as interested in what was happening as he would have been if he were watching the swallows flying north to Capistrano. There was also Jeff, John Whitney, who was not on Leo's guest list but who invited himself on the Island anyway. Jeff wanted to take Leo's pretty step-daughter Gail, Sharon Douglas, off the Island and away with him. The relationship between Jeff and Gail was so contrived and phony that you couldn't believe it for a second even if you wanted to.How did Jeff know that he and Gail would find a letter from Gail's mother, Karma, hid in a secret and hidden desk compartment insisting that she leave the Island immediately? Did Jeff have a crystal ball that enabled him to see into the future?