Screen Savers Movies » Isle of the Dead http://screensaversmovies.com 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:54:42 +0000 en hourly 1 Isle of the Dead (1945) http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945 http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945#comments Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:01:04 +0000 Jennifer Kurdyla, Editor http://screensaversmovies.com/?p=125 Set in Greece during the 1912 Balkan War, Isle of the Dead receives its grotesqueness partly from its setting and partly from its director, Mark Robson, whose resumé boasted other horror flicks of the time. The story that unwinds on the island of quarantined plague victims is more disturbing than even its superficial impression would hint at, as the unknowing General Pherides (Boris Karloff) and Oliver Davis (Marc Cramer) discover the truth behind an old village woman’s suspects of vampires and demons.

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]]> http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945/feed 0 Isle of the Dead (1945): The Psychological Horror Film http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945-the-psychological-horror-film http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945-the-psychological-horror-film#comments Thu, 20 Mar 2008 01:24:55 +0000 John DiLeo http://screensaversmovies.com/isle-of-the-dead-1945-the-psychological-horror-film/ Lewton used three directors for the series: Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise. Each of these men had worked as film editors, with Wise editing Citizen Kane (1941) and Robson on board as the associate editor. After directing Cat People, Tourneur directed the next two: I Walked with a Zombie (1943), a voodoo reworking of Jane Eyre, and The Leopard Man (1943). Robson, who was the editor on the three helmed by Tourneur, graduated to director with The Seventh Victim (1943), all about a satanic cult in Greenwich Village, and The Ghost Ship (1943). Wise, replacing Gunther V. Fritsch and sharing screen credit, took over the directing chores on The Curse of the Cat People (1944), a sequel only in a loose sense, and then made The Body Snatcher (1945), the film that brought Boris Karloff into the Lewton fold. Lewton’s final two, both starring Karloff and directed by Robson, were Isle of the Dead (1945) and Bedlam (1946). (The cheesy titles of all these films continue to do them a disservice.) All three directors took what they learned here—how to do a lot with a little—and brought it to film noir, a genre whose emergence certainly owed a debt to the fatalistic mood and shadowy style of Lewton’s work. Tourneur directed Out of the Past (1947), Wise made Born to Kill (1947), and Robson gave us the noir-ish boxing classic Champion (1949). Tourneur’s career never rose to the A list, but he continued to do fine work, such as Stars in My Crown (1950) and Wichita (1955), two exceptional Joel McCrea vehicles. Wise and Robson became big-time Hollywood players, with Wise winning Oscars for West Side Story (1961) and The Sound of Music (1965), and Robson bringing Peyton Place (1957) and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness (1958) to box-office glory. (Wise returned to his “horror” roots with 1951’s memorable sci-fi drama The Day the Earth Stood Still.)

excerpted from John DiLeo’s
Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery
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