Island of Lost Men

Despite her obvious talent, beauty, and unique appeal, Anna May Wong never reached the heights of stardom like some of her peers, certainly due to racial biases in the studio system, but she worked steadily through the 1920’s and 1930’s, including a string of all-but-forgotten crime-related films in the late 30’s, including the excellent Daughter of Shanghai (1937), Dangerous to Know (1938), and this one, Island of Lost Men. Based on a play by Frank Butler and Norman Reilly Raine, and directed by Kurt Neumann, who became known for science fiction films in the 1950’s, the film stars Wong as Kim Ling, a Singaporean woman whose father, a Chinese general, is accused of embezzlement and kidnapped by madman Gregory Prin (an entertaining but somewhat cartoonish J. Carrol Naish), a gun runner for the Axis powers who runs a labor camp in the Malaysian jungle with some resemblance to the island of Dr. Moreau (“I am your king”). When Ling makes her way to the camp, she meets Chang Tai (Anthony Quinn in yellowface), who’s there undercover investigating Prin’s activities, so the two of them team up to track down Ling’s father and find enough evidence to incriminate Prin. A baby-faced Broderick Crawford is on hand as Tex Ballister, whose arrival in the jungle ignites a local rebellion. The screenplay has plenty of weak spots, and the film’s tone vacillates between light melodrama and noir brutality (decapitation, a pet monkey shot dead), while Neumann and crew create visual flair with dramatic lighting, especially in the third act.