Best movie ever!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The first must-see film of the year.

. . . often say that they're stumped by the vast amount of Bad Karma continually plaguing the World's tonsils, France (aka, "Germany's playground"). DEVIL'S ISLAND is just one of the many flicks that help answer the question, "What did France ever do to deserve all of THIS?" As the opening scroll for DEVIL'S ISLAND says, the French want to BREAK their convicts, NOT to remake them. (This is particularly galling, given the fact that rampant corruption insures that more than half of the French Penal Population is innocent of anything other than being born in or visiting France.) Compared to DEVIL'S ISLAND, America's Alcatraz was an upbeat place where Birdmen flourished and the Capones of Society died peacefully of old age. Conversely, on DEVIL'S ISLAND any dissent was met with swift beheading. While the crusading neurosurgeon of DEVIL'S ISLAND may be a little typecast from his previous Brainiac Roles, he seems to be only a whisker away here from riding with the Ghost Stuntmen of the Sky. However, he found it worth this risk to Fry the French.

At just over an hour, this prison drama is riveting from start to finish, sort of a follow-up to "The Life of Emile Zola" as it deals with the themes of prison brutality and reform. Like the Joseph Schildkraut character in that 1937 Best Picture winner, this deals with a man unjustly sent to Devil's Island, treated cruelly, yet mercifully saving the life of the daughter of prison head Henry Stephenson. The brutality of the guards lead to rebellion, an execution by guillotine, and later a hopefully successful escape. A weakened prisoner is forced to work, and in his dying moment accidentally pushes his pick into the path of an oncoming carriage, causing the young girl to fly onto the rocky road, but even the death of a prisoner doesn't stop the guards from continuing their brutality. A sincere performance by Karloff and excellent technical work makes this an above average programmer.

Excellent vehicle for the great Boris Karloff to branch out from playing horror roles and play the hero in a drama. Karloff plays a French brain surgeon who attends to a friend shot by the police. The friend is considered an enemy of the state so Karloff is tried and convicted of treason. He's sent to the penal colony on Devil's Island, where he suffers under the brutal conditions and the corrupt commandant in charge.Warner Bros. was no stranger to making prison dramas. They made some of the best. This may not take place in a traditional American prison or chain gang but, make no mistake about it, this has many of the familiar plot elements you expect from those types of films. It's a B picture that barely clocks in at an hour but it's well-paced with terrific acting from Boris Karloff and a solid cast backing him up. It's one of Karloff's best non-horror roles and definitely something his fans will want to see.

This Boris Karloff movie was very entertaining though it seemed strongly inspired by the earlier film, THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND since there were so many similarities between the two movies. SHARK ISLAND is an account of the real life man, Dr. Samuel Mudd, who was sentenced to a harsh American prison in the Tortugas after he gave medical treatment to a fleeing John Wilkes Booth. Whether or not Mudd knew that Booth had just killed the President is debatable--especially since word of the assassination may not have reached Mudd's home in rural Maryland.In much the same way, Boris Karloff plays a doctor who attends to a seriously injured man. Although Karloff knows the man was guilty, as a doctor he'd taken an oath to heal and couldn't just let the man die. As a result of his kindness, he's arrested and sent to Devil's Island, where he is abused and treated like an animal. What happens next you'll have to see for yourself, but I was very impressed by this simple film that wasn't really a horror film but a film about the human spirit and justice. Karloff, in particular, did a nice job in his role as the hapless doctor, though the script was also very good--making the viewer really care about these men in prison.The only negative, and it's a small one, is the prologue. Because the war in Europe was just beginning, the producers wished to distance themselves from condemning this French institution and so they tacked on a nice prologue saying that this film didn't represent the French people of today. This seemed rather unnecessary, as other prison films don't have similar introductions.