Il mostro dell'isola

MORD39 RATING: 0 out of ****

I caught this foreign dud as a kid on television, under the alternate title of THE ISLAND MONSTER. It is without a doubt the lowest ebb of Karloff's career.

Those expecting a horror film will be dumbfounded, as this bomb is about a criminal dealing with drug smuggling (as far as I can tell) and kidnapping a little girl. I've seen my share of badly dubbed movies, from the Godzilla features to the European horror imports...but this one wins the award for all-time lousiest dubbing in a foreign film. Karloff didn't dub his own character, but the guy who did sounds like he's doing a cheap Boris impression! The voice of the distressed little girl must have been dubbed by a woman in her thirties or forties...it's a riot!!!

I guess if you want to laugh at the terrible English version, you can get a giggle or two out of this. It's not an easy film to find, but rest assured that if you never see it you shouldn't lose too much sleep; it's so atrocious that it makes the last bunch of Mexican features that Boris and Jack Hill worked on look like classics.

In the mid to late 1950s, many international actors starred in Italian films that were dubbed--so it didn't matter that actors like Anthony Quinn, Richard Basehart, Broderick Crawford or Boris Karloff didn't speak the language. However, it is very odd to see these films in English because when they are re-dubbed the original English speaker's voice is usually replaced with some voice actor. Here, despite seeing Boris Karloff, you instead hear a voice coming out of him that just doesn't sound like him--it's close but just doesn't sound like him--probably because often the voice and lips are out of sync. I can get used to this, but really wished they'd just subtitled the movie instead. But what I can't understand is when they use horrible voice actors for many of the other voices--ones that sounded bizarre. In this film, at times, it seemed like random people off the street did the voice-overs--especially since some could barely read their lines and the voice of Mario's child is absolutely horrid!! This child who appears about four has a voice that sounds like it comes from a teenager--talk about weird! Now in the case of the first three actors listed above, they appeared in some amazing Fellini movies. Unfortunately for Mr. Karloff, this was definitely NOT a Fellini movie--not even a Murry Fellini film! Instead, it's a very low-budget movie about cops and the mob--exactly the type of film in which you'd never expect to find Karloff. Sadly, in addition to the extremely lousy voice acting, the film has a rather annoying musical score (though the film is unusual in that there is very little incidental music), cheap sets and a rather thin plot.

While old Boris gets top billing, he really isn't the star of this dull suspense film and he is largely wasted. Instead, the main character is Mario--an undercover cop who's trying to infiltrate the mob. Unfortunately, Mario's wife is an idiot and she arrives in time to help spoil her hubby's cover--perhaps she liked the idea of mobsters bumping off her spouse, but I just think she was supposed to be a moron. Regardless if the wife was or wasn't the one to tip them off, the mob seems to know right away who he is and so they dispatch a sweet Italian dish to seduce the fellow. When the wife discovers this "other woman", the marriage is in trouble. And, to make things worse AND to ensure their wicked plans work, they also kidnap Mario's child.

The rest is rather uninspired and dull--certainly NOT one of Boris Karloff's brighter moments on film. Despite this being a very poor production and a waste of time, one reviewer actually gave it a score of 10!! Considering all the problems with the film and an IMDb score lower than 3, you should just assume that one really high score was made by a maniac!

The first time I saw this I was a kid and it took me several minutes before the outrage settled in that I was listening to a dubbed in Karloff impersonator because the American distributor was too cheap to hire the old boy back for a proper dubbing by the time this hit the States some four years later. Although Karloff's movie work during the fifties was sparse and mostly lacking in real quality he was very much in demand having been rediscovered by whole new generation who were watching his thirties and forties films on T.V.'s syndicated Shock Theater". Karloff was also doing books,radio programs,Quiz shows,Broadway,revivals of Arsenic and Old Lace,albums full of fairy tales and several great TV dramas including Joseph COnrad's Heart Of Darkness for Playhouse 90. So if a stinker like this came along it probably had something good in it for him like a decent pay and a vacation as others pointed out but even though the market Karloff's style of horror was down at the time he was hardly unwanted or wanting for cash. A few years later Corman would hire him and he would work steady until the day he died. He even sang the Peppermint Twist on a Halloween segment of the sixties rock show Shindig. But what of Island Monster? Well it looks nice and seedy and the Femme Fetale is pretty juicy but the script is talky and nothing really happens in the way of real action. It just sort of plods along like ketchup in December waiting drop on a rancid fry.Karloff still escapes with dignity intact but the star of the show is the trained dog who is there to remind you that you can go along way by being cutesy pootsey.

I'm sure there were cheap crime movies made by the dozens in Italy, the only reason this one got dubbed-by an impersonator, is Karloff's role in it. True this is not a horror film though the title is mentioned in the film. The title sequence looks like something from a 1930's B movie serial, though these are the English language titles so can't blame the Italians for that part of it.

Boris appears early on then vanishes for quite a while. It's this non Boris section that makes the least sense as it takes forever for them to actually kidnap the child which is then the focus of the rest of the plot. A good amount of real locations help the film rise above rock bottom production values. The post sound job is really awful with missing sounds and music cutting in and out.

There are a few flashes of style but when Karloff is around it's rather shocking, given the overall poor quality, to see him running around, clubbing a guy in the head, shooting guns and carrying a kid up and down hills, rowing a boat in the open sea, and seemingly quite spry. The impersonator at least tries to sound like Boris which is better than the Italian versions of the otherwise--to say the least--much superior Italian versions of Karloff's Bava-directed films. And unlike several Christopher Lee American dubs of Spanish and Italian and German films where the dubber doesn't sound at all like Lee or ever try to which is totally distracting. So though the dubbing is terrible here at least it sort of sounds like Boris and lets his performance be a little less distracting.

So once the kidnapping plot starts and Boris appears regularly the film gets better and though it doesn't exactly build in excitement it at least ends better than it started. So leaves a better taste in your mouth.

A dog has a significant role which is fun, though odd. Better, or at least professional, post sound work and a more active music score would have helped. Probably the only reason most will see this is for Karloff and though this shows a gutter period before his 1960's work, he's at least got a part to play and a very active role when he's on screen unlike the total rip off scant appearances in those terrible Mexican films.

Reasons to see it? Boris non horror completest and The Dog. The dog's dubbing is the best in the film. Oh, PD version I saw was watchable, not good but OK for what it is. Overall the whole movie and presentation is a few significant--if small-- notches above bottom of the barrel.

Boris Karloff and the title "Island Monster" does not a horror movie make, as is evidenced in this tepid crime-drama concerning a government investigator sent to break a drug ring, until things go awry when his young daughter is kidnapped. Local benefactor (Karloff) seems a kindly old gentleman, whose hospice for ill children paints him as the town's saint, but there's something distinctly unsavoury about the milk he imports.

Karloff is wasted as the benevolent Samaritan above suspicion while local mule Franca Marzi has a decent role as a nightclub singer whose drug addiction has brought her into the criminal arena, with a sad past and an opportunity for atonement ahead. Fierro is okay as the frantic mother whose child is abducted, and Vicario, playing essentially the leading man, a debonair, ladies' man loyal to the uniform, is consistently monotone.

The Napoli locations are picturesque and there's a hint of the continental lifestyle that's hard to ignore, but the film is otherwise bland and unimaginative, lacking suspense, and hopelessly clichéd - right down to the faithful mutt who does a pretty good substitute for Lassie.