Le banni des îles

I am a big fan of THE THIRD MAN, I think it is one of the seven greatest movies ever made, I liked ODD MAN OUT, and also liked Reeds earlier effort of THE FALLEN IDOL. His latter film, THE KEY, while not being totally successful in my eyes in a good film, and an even better film is OUR MAN IN HAVANA. So I was excited about seeing this film. Perhaps if I was more patient, had seen this in a movie theater as it was meant to be seen, and did not have the benefit of a remote control for a VCR, I would have liked it more.

Everyone has said how great Trevor Howard is. I have also liked him in staring roles like Brief Encounter, Clouded Yellow, but here, even though he has some great moments, more towards the end of the film, I somehow feel he has been miscast. In one of the opening scenes, when he leaves the Billiards club, I felt I was watching Howard Imitating Orson Welles from THE THIRD MAN. if Reed and Welles could have formed a partnership, and that might have actually been from ODD MAN OUT, I think he would have been a better choice, though I'm sure they couldn't get him. One of the problems with his character is, that we realize right from the beginning what a jerk he is, and their fore, we never really care about him. This film would have worked better for me if I would have liked this guy in the beginning. Welle's Harry Lime, was a likable character, even though he was not a good man. Bogarts Harry Dobbs in Treasure Of the Sierra Madre works because we care about him in the beginning, and are sad to see his mental destruction. Howard's character elicits no such feelings, and for me this is one of the major failings of the film, and why this film has not received the accolades of Reed's previous three films.

I found Ralph Richardson's performance hammy, I just could not buy him as a captain, appeared to be a poor makeup job, and since we don't see him much, (He ironically got top billing), he does not appear to be important to this story, even if he gives the final denouncement. I also disliked George Courlouris (did I spell that right) as a native. Since they filmed this in Ceylon, they did not need an actor doing a role in black face.

Robert Morley is excellent in this film however. Those people who have always looked upon him as that jolly Englishmen who did those British Airline commercials, or seen him in other films, will get quite a revelation in this film. He is the one standout in this movie. One can just imagine how his daughter might turn out having a father like this. His character, while perhaps not being the character that Howard's character is, just oozes slime, would you want a father like this, and his acting makes the most of it. Wendy Hiller is alright as the suffering wife of Morely, and they should have made more of what I thought might have been her lust for the Howard character, while Howard's character lusts after the native woman, who, played by an actress named Kerima, who is supposed to have been born in Algeria, almost looks like an English actress given a darker skin tone, though probably not.

Reeds direction at the beginning of this film is unimaginative, I was quite disappointed with the back screen shots that were employed considering the location photography, and I always remember his great cinematography from his other films (Love that tilted camera). However never has lust been filmed so amazingly in an early 1950's movie, (British at that), here Howard is quite good, and the shots of Kerima, our realizing that she does not love this man and may have ulterior motives, in closeup, without Howards knowledge are well done. The last two climactic sequences, with Morely and Howard in a sequence that seems to predate Cornel Wilde's THE NAKED PREY, which probably sent shock waves in cinema's of the early 1950's, and the sequence at the end between Howard and Richardson are two very memorable moments from this film.

If the film comes out on DVD, with some interesting extras, a good audio commentary, I would be interested to see it again, and Hopefully get some further insight that might change my mind. However, of the six movies I have seen of Director Carol Reed, This is my least favorite.

When the Marlon Brando version of Mutiny On The Bounty came out one of the scenes I remember is Trevor Howard remonstrating with Brando after finding him getting ready to get down to business with Tarita about controlling his lust. Captain Bligh would have had little use for the character that Howard plays in Outcast Of The Island where his lust truly gets the better of him.

Those tropical islands have always had a certain allure to us westerners, but this movie based on a Joseph Conrad novel clearly demonstrates the problem of having too much of a good thing. Howard's been in the area for years and he's indulged all the readily available vices too much for too long. When he's caught stealing it might be the end for him.

But an old friend trading captain Ralph Richardson takes pity on him and takes him from Singapore to a small island where his son-in-law Robert Morley lives with wife Wendy Hiller and real life daughter Annabel Morley. Richardson deposits him there, not that Morley truly wants him.

It doesn't take long for Howard to start stirring things up and all of his schemes and machinations involve a bad case overwhelming lust for the beautiful Kerima. She certainly is something to lust over. In the end she brings about his total ruination.

The central character among the Occidentals is Howard, but Richardson and Morley aren't any model specimens either. Richardson's main concern is keeping a monopoly of the trade there. The harbor is inaccessible for the most part, but Richardson knows a narrow navigable passageway through the reefs so he monopolizes the trade. And he's pretty ruthless about keeping his monopoly.

As for Morley he's one uptight businessman. The prior relationship between Richardson and Morley is taken up in a previous Conrad novel and sad to say if you haven't read that book, a lot of it will elude the viewer.

Hiller is good, but sadly wasted in a role of a woman trapped in a bad situation. She's got an unrequited yen for Howard, but she's still a faithful wife, just like Jean Arthur in Shane.

Outcast Of The Island is a most atypical South Seas story. Conrad's vision is not fully realized by the film, but the players all do a fine job with what they are given.

This exciting film is well-worth watching. It is visually rich, and the acting is consistently surprising, even from such known quantities as George Coulouris and Wilfred Hyde-White. Trevor Howard shows great emotional flexibility, a quality we don't necessarily associate with him, and Robert Morley twinkles a good deal less than usual. Whether Sir Ralph Richardson looks good throwing a punch is something you'll have to decide for yourself.

However, the camera falls in love with picturesque young boys diving into water, which delays, over-ornaments and distracts from Conrad's austere story-telling.

More importantly, two of the female characters, Mrs. Almayer and Mrs. Willems, are turned from native women into transplanted Englishwomen, leaving Aissa the only native girl involved.

This has the effect of turning the movie into a tract on the horrors of miscegenation, when Conrad's novel is clearly focused on Peter Willems' double betrayal of Tom Lingard. Willems' taking up with a native woman is treated by the film as unique, instead of the usual thing in these climes. It is shown as embodying Willems' personal moral decline, which the book would regard as nonsense.

So if you can find the film, by all means watch it and enjoy its many virtues, but the movie has less to do with one of the great novels then it pretends to.

P.S. TCM now has this film in its library!

Carol Reed's "An Outcast Of The Islands" is generally conceded to be the finest film ever made of Joseph Conrad's tales. To be fair "Nostromo", "Under Western Eyes", and "Chance" never have been filmed. Hitchcock's "Sabotage" (based on "The Secret Agent") is a good Hitchcock film, but the story is modernized and changed. The later film version of the novel was politely received and then forgotten. "Victory" was made into a serviceable love and adventure story with Fredric March and Cedric Hardwicke, but the irony and allegory of the story was lost. "Lord Jim" was better recalled for the severe drubbing critics gave it - concluding with a Mad Magazine spoof called "Lord Jump". There is "Apocalypse Now" which is a fine attempt at "Heart of Darkness", but it changes the site of the story from the Belgium Congo of Leopold II to Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s. "An Outcast" stuck to the basic story of Willems and his betrayal of Almayer and Captain Lingard for a beautiful native girl. Trevor Howard gave many memorable, delicate performances in his life (best, perhaps, for "Brief Encounter"), but this performance as a man who was poor enough material to begin with but goes to seed is possibly better. The supporting cast is great, with Robert Morley playing his most despicable character, and Ralph Richardson as the decent Lingard. George Coulouris is properly Machiavellian as the sly Babalatchi, and Wendy Hiller is tragic as that human dishrag Mrs. Almayer. The only problem a purist may have is that Willems is killed at the end of the novel accidentally (and quite memorably). Not so in the film. But his punishment of living as a monument to failure and hopelessness may be even more fitting - I leave to the reader/viewer.

British drama based on a book by Joseph Conrad. Trevor Howard stars as middle manager in a Far East shipping company. When he's found to have been embezzling, he's virtually exiled and runs of with his old friend, ship captain Ralph Richardson. Ralph takes him to a remote island paradise and instructs Trevor to learn the ways of their trading business with local overseer Robert Morley. However, Howard slowly succumbs to his worst impulses in the never-ending heat and boredom of island life.

I really wanted to like this one more than I did. The direction from Carol Reed is good, although things drag in a few places. The cinematography is very good; one of the camera operators was Freddie Francis. Guy Hamilton also worked as the assistant director. My chief problem with the film was the Howard character. I haven't read the source novel, and perhaps it provided more of the inner voice of the character, but as he stands in the film, he's completely unlikable, and not in a compelling or entertaining way. He's just a boring, self-centered jerk.

The natives are presented in a less-than-flattering light as well, which is exacerbated by having one of them be George Coulouris in dark body paint. I've also never been fond of Robert Morley. He's an irritating ham and he's unpleasant to even look at. That's terrible to say, I suppose, but in a visual medium, it's a valid point. His real-life daughter played his on-screen daughter here, and she's just as annoying.