HORROR ISLAND
US, 1941, 60 minutes, Black and white.
Dick Foran, Leo Carillo, Peggy Moran, Fuzzy Knight, John Eldredge, Lewis Howard, Hobart Cavanaugh, Walter Catlett, Ralf Harolde, Iris Adrian.
Directed by George Waggner.
This is a small budget variation of the haunted house genre. While there are some scares, it is also played for comic touches – something of a pantomime.
Dick Foran plays Bill Martin, something of a playboy with no money, fending off creditors, owning his boat, creating schemes which his associate, Stuffy, Fuzzy Knight, tries to implement. He does own Morgan Island, something of a derelict island with the memories of Captain Morgan and an abandoned castle. His cousin wants to buy it.
Bill Martin crashes into a car driven by Wendy Creighton and there is a dispute about insurance. He persuades her to come to his new scheme, tours of the island, treasure hunt. Involved in this is a peg leg captain with half a map, played by Leo Carillo, the other half of the map held by a mysterious caped figure referred to as The Phantom. Bill Martin checks the authenticity of the maps with a Professor who then decides that he will come along for the adventure even though the maps are fake. Wendy has her associate come along for the trip and there is a suspicious couple. Bill is visited by Sgt Mc Goon who threatens him with tax issues but is persuaded to come along for the ride.
Almost immediately, there is an explosion and these continue when the group arrives on the island, some engineered by Bill and Stuffy, but others by The Phantom who is on the island.
There is a whole lot of the expected frights, confusions, strong heroine in some distress, the peg leg captain searching for the treasure. Then various members of the group are killed, the suspicious couple being a bank robber and his associate. The cousin is also killed. A lot of the proceedings are interrupted by the Professor who has a propensity for sleepwalking.
Ultimately, the killer and the villain are unmasked – operating on the least likely participant to be the villain, the Professor who knows that the maps were authentic!
And, the government official who kept visiting Bill and was being put off arrives on the island, not to arrest him but to say that the government wants to buy the island to use as a base!
Silly but an entertaining hour.
