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d. John Frankenheimer; pr. Edward R. Pressman; scr. Richard Stanley, Ron Hutchinson; novel. HG Wells; ph. William A. Fraker; m. Gary Chang; ed. Paul Rubell, Adam P. Scott; cast. Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, Fairuza Balk, Ron Perlman, Temuera Morrison, Marco Hofschneider, Mark Dacascos (99 mins)

ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU FACTS: PROMOTION - moral relativism and scientific ethics made for the provocative tagline "Through DNA experimentation Dr. Moreau has upset the balance of nature. By turning animals into humans, he's turned heaven into hell." (read more); FILM TALES - Marlon Brando wore a small radio receiver to help him remember lines; David Thewlis found the making of the film such a negative experience that he did not attend the movie's premiere and vowed never to see the final film; Val Kilmer originally signed on to play opposite Brando but wanted nothing to do with the film after Frankenheimer changed the film's direction and played the part only because he was forced to by his contractual obligation to the studio; SPONSOR DETAILS: This review of Island of Dr. Moreau is sponsored by Inkstone Digital - the latest ebooks for as low as $8.95 with new titles added weekly (read more); Scrolling News Ticker by Mioplanet;

Director John Frankenheimer has something of a reputation for salvaging films that have encountered production problems.

In the 1960s he came late onto both Birdman of Alcatraz and The Train and turned them into American film classics without compromising his personal vision. When he was contacted to come on board the desperate production of The Island of Dr. Moreau hopes were high that the auteur could rescue the project. Initially begun by cult British director Richard Stanley the film encountered many difficulties eventually resulting in Stanley’s departure from the set. One of the lead actors also walked out and thus also had to be replaced (by David Thewlis). Although he agreed to take over the movie Frankenheimer was unhappy with the script and brought in screenwriter Ron Hutchinson (who had worked with the director on the tele-features that had revitalized his sagging career) to polish the film. This involved a re-envisioning of Stanley’s reportedly darker and far more sinisterly sexual treatment of the project. Although some may have expected a clash between the director and actor Marlon Brando (whose presence was the real reason many other actors agreed to the project), they co-operated fully, in the process creating one of the actor’s most flamboyant roles and a truly grotesque vision of the awful frailty of the human condition. Sadly, the film alienated nearly everybody who saw it.

This film of The Island of Dr. Moreau is the latest version of the popular novel by H.G. Wells. Thewlis is a castaway adrift on the Java Sea when he is rescued by a boat, on board which is scientist Val Kilmer.

Thewlis is taken to an island and is initially charmed by a young woman (Fairuza Balk), to be then informed by Kilmer that the island is now where the formerly esteemed medical researcher Moreau (Marlon Brando) is conducting certain unspecified experiments. However, when Kilmer locks Thewlis in for his own protection, Thewlis escapes and discovers the other inhabitants, a number of seemingly animalistic, deformed human creatures. He flees into the jungle and is led by Balk into the living area of these human-animal hybrids, or beast creatures. There, Brando makes his baroque appearance as the lord and master of these subjects – the results of his genetic experiments on combining human and animal DNA in an effort to perfect the human race. Unable to escape, Thewlis witnesses the bizarre society of which Brando is the head. However, things begin to go awry and when one of the beast-men is executed, another, the hyena-man, discovers an implant in his body – the main means of behavioral modification allowing Brando to pacify the creatures – and removes it. He leads many of the others in defiance of Brando, and the island community soon threatens to descend into violent anarchy.

This film has an undeservedly terrible reputation, with almost everybody overly keen to criticize and condemn it. Yet, there is much in it that is truly fascinating as a perverse vision of societal collapse and disintegration.

Indeed, Brando’s status amongst his “children” assumes a religious dimension as he represents the supreme Patriarch as absolute monster, hiding behind his supposed benevolence. Whatever his just proclamations for scientific advancement, he lauds Godlike over a quasi-society of unstable half-human, half-animal creatures. The plight of these creatures makes for a sobering assessment of the human condition as a clash between instinct and reason, an unstable mix in which the inevitable madness represents the inherent yet properly anarchic and base solution. An animal is driven mad by the gifts of reason and communication for they seek to repress instinct in the name of “law” (religious or otherwise). In a perverse way thus, the film explores a terrible, malfunctioning patriarchal socialization process, with Frankenheimer enamored by the subversively anarchic potential of the final rebellion. Thus, he finds surprising pathos in the hyena-man, unable to deal with his human ambitions and finally succumbing to that arrogant perversity of reason that makes humanity aspire to be God: ego. In the evolutionary psychosis that ensues, there can be only chaos.

There is much that is tantalizing about this film, including the unfortunately suppressed connotations of sexual aberration, of which the sly homoeroticism between Kilmer and Thewlis says much.

Indeed, the film’s humor becomes ever more evident, especially in the unrated director’s cut, which from the outset casts the supposed hero in a very ambiguous moral light, making his disdain and outrage rather hypocritical. Indeed, the hyena-man emerges as the most sympathetic character, his descent into psychosis the epitome of the unique tragedy of his evolutionary predicament. Significantly, his insight – the discovery of the implants – is treated as a kind of wounding and self-mutilation very much in keeping with the notion of such as a kind of purification in this director’s work, though here paradoxically amounts to a descent into anarchy. Humanity’s bestial drive to destroy and debase itself is an irrepressible part of its makeup, the attempt to tame this through genetic research or behavioral modification bound to backfire. Patriarchal law, rather than preserve order, only makes a paradox of the human condition. Thus, Frankenheimer uses the film’s evolutionary transgression to reflect on the genetic ambivalence of humanity – the clash between reason and instinct as the inherent human identity crisis with all culture and society hence perhaps a doomed attempt to mediate the irreconcilable.

In style, the film makes for a kind of anthropological grotesquery, nicely preserved in this lush 16:9 enhanced widescreen transfer, with only sporadic frame-edge problems. Beginning with an exceptional credits sequence, the film is increasingly full of odd angles and nervous tension. Indeed, in design, tempo and style, the film explores a kind of intense imbalance, a descent into a nightmarish, but almost campy, otherworldliness. Aptly, the World War Two type ruinous design for the beast people’s compound particularly recalls the island setting of Frankenheimer’s 1969 flop The Extra-Ordinary Seaman. The notion of being thrust into an unstable, absurd universe persists throughout Moreau, in the end depicting a most ironic island paradise. The beast-people’s makeup effects are fascinating, wholly bizarre in their combination of the human and the animal, as are the glimpses into the kind of culture and society that these hybrid creatures exist, or subsist, within. Brando’s choice of look for his character is strange and amusingly disconcerting, furthering the grotesquery of patriarchy theme. The film is a stylish showcase of weirdness, and the descent into anarchy is chilling as the simultaneous transgression and transcendence in patricide makes for a disturbing and symbolically revolutionary set-piece. Moreau’s first appearance is a stunning sequence in the annals of bizarre cinema.

Style
The sound transfer in Dolby Digital 5.1 is often remarkably effective. It is always vibrant, increasingly disorienting and full of eerie, unnerving directional effects which often serve as precipitators to the ensuing chaos towards the end of the film. It is crisp, and without major distracting source defects. In keeping with film’s visual grotesqueness, the sound use always enhances the instability, the judicious score and unusual song selection (from Enigma to Einsturzende Neubauten) always contributing to the sense of progressive abandon. Thus, the sound and original score carries the film through into its eventual anarchic imbalance, as order collapses into sound and fury. This descent into anarchy is an aural experience as much as it is a visual one. It is full of unusual sounds, and in the voices and growls of the beast-men makes for a most distinctive notion of the voice of evolution – which when allowed to express itself unrestrained is truly frightening. The evolutionary balance of these poor creatures is measured in the way many of their voices alternately hold onto both articulate and inarticulate forms of expression, in the end chronicling a form of regression. There is both force and pathos in the hyena-man’s despair. The final scenes are suitably frenzied, making for an unusual home-theatre experience. Indeed, for bizarre, but always purposeful, home-theatre sensation, this DVD is something of a standout.

One of the great megalomaniacal medical villains in science fiction is undoubtedly H.G. Wells’ creation Dr. Moreau. Most recently played by Marlon Brando in the ill-fated The Island of Dr. Moreau, this arguable eugenicist sought to perfect the human race by eliminating troublesome genes and in the process combine animals and humans, hence he admits:

“I have almost achieved perfection you see, of a divine creature that is pure, harmonious, absolutely incapable of any malice. And if in my tinkering I have fallen short of the human form by the snout, claw or hoof, it really is of no great importance.”

There are some special features, including both the American and international theatrical trailers. There is a brief behind-the-scenes featurette, with input from Kilmer, Thewlis and makeup designer Stan Winston in particular. An unusual feature is the interactive “star highlights” which allows the viewer to jump to scenes of the actors’ work in other movies from their listed filmography. Thus, for Brando, there is a scene from Don Juan DeMarco; Total Eclipse, Naked and Damage for Thewlis and Once Were Warriors for Temuera Morrison. Considering the truly unusual vision of this film, more information, especially about its troubled production history would have been ideal. Maybe if the film develops a cult reputation, in time it will be rediscovered for the bizarre treasure that it is.

Tension on the Island of Dr. Egotism
an extract from Robert Cettl's book Film Tales: Movie Trivia in the Age of DVD (on sale now in print and soon in e-book)

Cult director Richard Stanley originally set up his version of the H.G. Wells science fiction story The Island of Dr. Moreau (filmed twice before) only to have it removed from his hands and extensively re-written when it was decided by the producers that his vision was too bizarre for audiences. Stanley left the project, disheartened, and at the last minute the producer arranged for a replacement director (John Frankenheimer). Frankenheimer had been called in to salvage other projects before and had turned them into solid hits so it was hoped that he would do the same here, even if Frankenheimer’s reason for taking the film was the same as many of the actors involved – the chance to work with the great Marlon Brando. Although Brando had an awe-inspiring reputation co-star Val Kilmer was apparently not concerned and his behaviour on set soon agitated the legendary Brando. Kilmer would reportedly show up late for set regularly, not knowing his lines as well as the other actors. Eventually Brando was so tired of his co-star’s antics that he said to Kilmer “your problem is you confuse the size of your paycheck with the size of your talent.” Despite the great Brando in flamboyant form, The Island of Dr. Moreau flopped, especially with the critics.