cult film freak: PETER LORRE WITH ROBERT WILCOX IN 'ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN'

Written by James M. Tate / 11/20/2025 / No comments / forties , george e. stone , kenneth macdonald , peter lorre , prison , robert wilcox , rochelle hudson , thriller

PETER LORRE WITH ROBERT WILCOX IN 'ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN'

11/20/2025 | No comment

Title: ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN Year: 1940 Rating: ***1/2

The pulpy tagline to the 1940 thriller ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN is "Women shuddering at his cruel caress" despite the fact only one woman, the wife of evil slave-master Peter Lorre, is on the titular island: and within their balmy plantation villa interior, he hardly touches or even speaks to her at all...

As classic beauty Rochelle Hudson quickly and understandably falls for handsome, dark-haired buried-lead Robert Wilcox, whose initial wrong-man story-line fits more into a deliberately-complicated film-noir beyond what's often mistaken as a horror flick (the plot heavily infused into Lawrence Tierney's jungle-traipsing KILL OR BE KILLED)...

Rochelle Hudson and Robert Wilcox in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

Following the MR. MOTO franchise as an anti-hero and his star-making turn as an endearingly antagonistic creep opposite Humphrey Bogart in CASABLANCA, Lorre seems to be doing a kind of leering imitation of the iconic he hadn't officially cemented... as most of the screen-time has Wilcox and fellow former American prisoners, who had gone from the frying pan into the ISLAND fire, planning an escape...

Making DOOMED MEN a kind of I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG adventure with a darker warden: only Peter Lorre (overshadowed by his far more uniquely-offbeat doppelganger George A. Stone) needed a larger dose of upfront villainy/viciousness for running such a nefarious operation.

Peter Lorre in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

Robert Wilcox in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

Peter Lorre and Kenneth MacDonald in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

Peter Lorre and Rochelle Hudson in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

Peter Lorre and Robert Wilcox in ISLAND OF DOOMED MEN

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Tags : forties , george e. stone , kenneth macdonald , peter lorre , prison , robert wilcox , rochelle hudson , thriller

James M. Tate

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