Mil muertos en el mar

Irving Pichel has organized a cruise where he can experiment on people trying to synthesize the compound from the endocrine glands that makes people maniacs and inject them into non-volunteers because ..... well, he never explains why he does this. His subjects include his nephew, Lyle Talbot, Julie Bishop, Sheila Bromley and others, but not Eddie Holden. Holden is better remembered for playing a chipmunk in BAMBI, but here he's doing a fake Swedish accent and trying not to be as funny as El Brendel. He may even succeed. I do not urge you to see this in an effort to make your own call.

This is supposed to be based on the first story Jack London ever sold It's also the first production of Ben Judel's Producers Distributing Corporation, which became PRC. For that company, it's slightly below par.

A well known doctor is indicted for his experiments toward curing the criminal mind. Needing to continue his work and hoping that success will clear him, he buys a boat, loads it with several high profile criminals hoping to escape the law and heads out to sea. At least that's the plan, but things start to go wrong and things are revealed to be not what they seemed at first.

This is an okay little thriller that seems more than a bit too talky, even as the action picks up and the crooks try to take over the ship and the captain and crew have to fight to take it back. Lest you think that reveals too much, you obviously haven't watched this, as things go left, right and every which way during its fleeting one hour running time.

The cast is a B-movie lovers dream that includes Lyle Talbot, Irving Pichel and group of character actors that seems to have been pulled from every movie made within five years of this one. Their interaction is what keeps this movie afloat even as the film begins to sink into low level nonsense.

If you're looking for a forgettable time killer or just like watching veteran actors making mountains out of mole hills then by all means give it a shot. Just don't expect high art and you won't be disappointed.

Torture Ship (1939)

** (out of 4)

A mad doctor puts criminals aboard his ship so that he can do strange experiments on them trying to figure out what's wrong. This film was directed by Victor Halperin who previously made White Zombie, Supernatural and Revolt of the Zombies. Overall the film isn't too bad but there's really not too much action or horror in the film's short 50-minute running time. Lyle Talbot plays the hero and he always brings some "B" movie charm to a film but that's about it. Mixing the horror, sci-fi and gangster genres together should have worked better. Based on a story by Jack London.

I know that the thirties was the decade of mad scientists of all kinds: ISLAND OF LOST SOULS, THE MAD GENIUS, DOCTOR X and of course this one, made by a horror specialist of this period; Victor Halperin, already "guilty" of WHITE ZOMBIE, REVOLT OF THE ZOMBIES and SUPERNATURAL. But the overall feeling about this plot, this scheme, is that reminds me Erle C kenton's ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. OK, we can prefer Kenton's film to this one, but that's a matter of taste. No really, for horror fans, vintage horror I mean, this movie is absolutely underrated and deserves to be seen at all costs. You won't regret it.

When I see the phrase "great cast", I think GONE WITH THE WIND or TWELVE ANGRY MEN, not a film whose lead is Lyle Talbot (the same guy who starred in a few decent films in the 30s but also PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE and a lot of other turkeys). So, while I liked reading the other reviews, I was perplexed by the great cast comments. This was not a great cast--just a bunch of no-names from a Poverty Row studio.

As many point out, the first 10 minutes or so of the film is missing. This is true of the public domain copies and 50 pack copies from Mill Creek Entertainment. Additionally, since this is its pedigree, captioning and a high quality print are also absent.

The film begins in the middle of a discussion a group of crooks are having about trying to escape from the boat. It's obvious something is missing here, but it's easy enough to discern that a bunch of crooks were somehow lured aboard a mad doctor's boat and he's doing diabolical experiments on them! While this certainly isn't nice, at least he had the decency to pick some people who weren't particularly pillars of society! As for the film, it's really hard to judge the quality of it with a chunk missing. I can say that the ending and Talbot's scheme to get the bad guys to surrender was pretty clever, though. So overall, it's probably one to skip since even with the missing chunk in place (which it isn't), it's still not a great movie by any stretch.