jarrodmcdonald-1
HELL'S ISLAND was the third Karlson-Payne film project, a color noir shot in widescreen. This time the director and star were not working for independent producer Edward Small, but instead for the Pine-Thomas unit at Paramount. The somewhat larger budget given this production allowed it to be made in Technicolor and VistaVision. The story has Payne in pursuit of a stolen ruby down in the Caribbean, which causes him to cross paths with an ex-girlfriend who deals in deception. Mary Murphy plays the femme fatale; and Paul Picerni is her imprisoned husband that Payne may or may not help break out of jail. Karlson's hard-hitting direction was praised, and so were the colorful characters, and Payne's tough performance.In addition to the three film noirs they made together, Karlson and Payne would collaborate again on television. They both worked on the Studio 57 episode 'Deadline' broadcast on February 26, 1956.
bkoganbing
John Payne teamed with director Phil Karlson in the last of their three collaborations. Not as good as Kansas City Confidential, Hell's Island still packs quite a wallop. And Mary Astor from The Maltese Falcon, Claire Trevor from Murder My Sweet, and Jane Greer from Out Of The Past have nothing on Mary Murphy as one scheming two timing dame.The ever avuncular Francis L. Sullivan hires Payne who was once involved with Murphy to go to some Caribbean island and check on a ruby that her husband Paul Picerni smuggled into the country. He figures that Payne can get close to her. Picerni is on another island in prison.Payne and Murphy were supposed to be married, but she threw him over for the high flying and high living Picerni. Presumably when she married him Murphy did not know about the smuggling that allowed him to live the good life in the tropics.Three murders later and Payne who is still carrying a Statue of Liberty size torch for Murphy starts to wise up. Paul Picerni only has one scene in the film and it's with Payne. He tells him the facts of life and really opens up his eyes, can't say more.Mary Murphy is probably best known as the good girl that biker Marlon Brando fell for in The Wild One. But as far as I'm concerned Hell's Island contains her career performance.If you see this fine tropic noir film, I think you'll agree.
filmalamosa
Actually this film is below boiler plate it is poor quality. You know where the ruby is from the get go...and nothing that is supposed to be suspenseful is--the denouement has zero suspense.The other reviews cover the story.... femme fatale gets caught. A lot of film-noirs are very intelligently written not this one!= pure chaff...no grain here.I kind of liked the prequel to James Bond villains with the man in the wheel chair with a wonderful British dead pan accent.Spanish was making its first in roads into Hollywood at that time-- too many of the actors looked like Gringos smeared with tons of dark make up...but there was a surprising amount of authentic Spanish.Don't rent or watch unless you like the actors as other reviewers did.
MartinHafer
This is a decent film noir production. It stars John Payne in the latter portion of his career--when he was no longer a pretty-boy or light-weight singer. He was good as an angry noir hero and I certainly thought that he was up to the task. However, the plot is another story. While it's not bad, it's VERY, VERY familiar--like the writer was simply regurgitating portions of other movies he'd recently seen. In MANY ways, it's a reworking of "The Maltese Falcon" that is set in Mexico--and even has a similar sort of dame and a fat guy doing a Sidney Greenstreet imitation! It is also like several other B-movies I've seen over the years. Nothing particularly original about this one. It's got a few weaknesses (the woman is so OBVIOUSLY evil yet our hero doesn't recognize this for the longest time--even though he's a well-educated guy!) and about all you'd expect from a film of this sort--double-crosses, murders and the like. A decent time-passer but no more.
AD
