Tell me I should go to bed if I want to sleep

[sovay]

The commuter train stalled between Back Bay and South Station and the Red Line stalled between Porter and Davis Square and the earliest bus was the one that requires walking the blocks down from Highland instead of just around the corner of my street, but I was greeted by my own cats as soon as I came up the stairs and I did not even have to think about dinner because spatch had left me a pot of tortellini with sausage and tomato sauce. I changed out of my clothes because Hestia hissed at the smell of them. I knew she disliked hospitals, but I had no idea she had feelings about storage units.

I wanted something to stare at while eating tortellini, so I rewatched Paramount's Island of Lost Souls (1932). I have a hard time thinking critically about it as a version of the Wells novel because it's such an id-blast of a movie; it takes the main points of The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and pushes every button it can find in them—miscegenation! cannibalism! bestiality! vivisection! colonialism! eugenics! Charles Laughton flirting with everyone!—but the cumulative effect is nastily weird rather than preposterously overheated and it does something unusual and effective with the villain's sidekick: Arthur Hohl underplays him. I acknowledge this may be the sole rational course of action when Charles Laughton is delicately chewing all the scenery within reach, but since the character of Montgomery is a drunken ex-doctor bound by sunk costs and self-loathing to Laughton's Moreau after some vague but prison-worthy "professional indiscretion," he could easily have been a broad type and instead he's just this gaunt, hangdog man with unflatteringly slicked-back hair, a slightly sneering and slightly sad Renfield whose heel face turn in the third act is believable, just as it's believable that it takes the horrified reactions of outsiders to galvanize him to rebel. Kathleen Burke's Panther Woman is naive and exotic but not very feline until she drops out of a tree onto an enemy and claws his throat out. Richard Arlen and Leila Hyams, neither of them a nonentity, are just outgonzo'd by the rest of their movie. I forget every time that Laughton's goatee is its own tonsorial horror, like a chinstrap beard got a French wax.

As soon as I had finished feeding him and his sister, Autolycus climbed into my arms and made sure that even in a familiar bathrobe I did not smell like strange cat. My shoulders objected slightly, but I held him while he purred thunderously into my collarbone. It was very soothing. Then he tried to groom my hand and got confused and groomed one of his feet instead. He watched about half of the movie with me. I told him he was a perfect creation exactly as he was, pantherine.

I have a song about not sleeping stuck in my head. I am about to attempt to not take its advice.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

I forget every time that Laughton's goatee is its own tonsorial horror, like a chinstrap beard got a French wax.

At least you have cats to smooth away the horror of terrible fake hair. :-)

[sovay]

At least you have cats to smooth away the horror of terrible fake hair.

I do! Their fur is their own and they look very good in it.

[thawrecka]

I have to see this film some day! Everything I've heard about it sounds fascinating.

[sovay]

I have to see this film some day! Everything I've heard about it sounds fascinating.

I recommend it! I watched it off TCM, but there is a Criterion Blu-Ray/DVD if that does you any good. [edit: Plus a Masters of Cinema Blu-Ray/DVD if Region 2 is better.] If you're going to look for it on the internet, try for a high-quality copy. It's an amazing-looking film on top of everything else, with a sweaty, semi-futuristic set design for Moreau's tropical laboratory that's half Joseph Conrad and half Art Deco.

[moon_custafer]

I, too, still need to see this. I think I once read there’s a bit where Moreau breaks off a megalomaniacal rant with a genuinely shamefaced “I'm talking too much, aren't I?”

[sovay]

I think I once read there’s a bit where Moreau breaks off a megalomaniacal rant with a genuinely shamefaced “I'm talking too much, aren't I?”

He does! It follows the famous line, which Laughton contrives to make sound sexy, blasphemous, and utterly inhuman, "Mr. Parker, do you know what it means to feel like God?"

[moon_custafer]

Colin Clive:(raises hand) "YES"

[sovay]

Colin Clive:(raises hand) "YES"

Laughton, with freezing hauteur: "WHO ASKED YOU?"

(Cue slapfight over graverobbing vs. vivisection, numerous insults to medical qualifications on either side; Arthur Hohl and Dwight Frye eat popcorn.)

[moon_custafer]

Aw! I can just see Laughton drawing himself up to his full height, horrible beard a-quiver.

[gwynnega]

Arthur Hohl's performance is nicely understated, though it's hard for me to pay him the attention he deserves next to Laughton wildly Moreau-ing it up.

[sovay]

Arthur Hohl's performance is nicely understated, though it's hard for me to pay him the attention he deserves next to Laughton wildly Moreau-ing it up.

He got my attention somehow. Which is a little frustrating, because while Hohl is not a worst-case character actor in that he actually has named roles and can appear onscreen with plot relevance for more than five minutes, I've run across him in nearly a dozen movies now and he's just almost never given anything as interesting as Montgomery to do; he's a conscientious doctor in Wild Boys of the Road (1933) and a crooked one in Massacre (1934), a pessimistic theatrical producer in Footlight Parade (1933) and a dishonest manager in Lady by Choice (1934), a basically walk-on Brutus in Cleopatra (1934) and a manipulable gangster in Jimmy the Gent (1934), and I can't remember him at all from Captured! (1933) or Baby Face (1933) despite liking both of those movies very much. Wikipedia tell me he had a much more extensive career onstage, which without a time machine is not helpful.

[moon_custafer]

We really do need to get to work on that time machine. Apart from everything else, I sort of want to get Orson Welles’ autograph every decade, wearing the same outfit, so see how long it takes him to notice. I feel as though Welles would have appreciated that grade of trolling.

[sovay]

We really do need to get to work on that time machine.

Holy blap, Hohl was the original Driscoll in Eugene O'Neill's "In the Zone." I don't care that I like the film version of that play better, yes, thank you, time machine, now.

Apart from everything else, I sort of want to get Orson Welles’ autograph every decade, wearing the same outfit, so see how long it takes him to notice. I feel as though Welles would have appreciated that grade of trolling.

Agreed! Would it be gilding the lily to have a different nose every time?

[moon_custafer]

Would it be gilding the lily to have a different nose every time?

That's Welles' job.

[gwynnega]

I didn't remember him from Baby Face either, though he was in one of the more memorable scenes in the film!

[sovay]

I didn't remember him from Baby Face either, though he was in one of the more memorable scenes in the film!

I remembered that scene, but forgot or realize in the first place that he was in it! Man, with that mustache he looks like John Qualen, only about a foot taller and sleazy.

It's the way she drinks her beer afterward.

[umadoshi]

Hooray for being home safe with spatch and your most excellent beasties.

[sovay]

Hooray for being home safe with spatch and your most excellent beasties.

Thank you.

[asakiyume]

it takes the main points of The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896) and pushes every button it can find in them—miscegenation! cannibalism! bestiality! vivisection! colonialism! eugenics! Charles Laughton flirting with everyone!

I think the tortellini would be stuck between plate and mouth as I watched that.

not very feline until she drops out of a tree onto an enemy and claws his throat out. yup. The tortellini would be getting cold, for sure.

Then he tried to groom my hand and got confused and groomed one of his feet instead. Aww. He's glad you're home.

[sovay]

I think the tortellini would be stuck between plate and mouth as I watched that.

I had the advantage of having seen it before!

Aww. He's glad you're home.

He is a most excellent small cat. I missed him.