Island of Doomed Men | |
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Directed by | Charles Barton |
Screenplay by | Robert Hardy Andrews (as Robert D. Andrews) |
Starring | Peter Lorre |
Cinematography | Benjamin Kline |
Edited by | James Sweeney |
Music by | Gerard Carbonara (uncredited) |
Production company | Columbia Pictures |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 67 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Island of Doomed Men is a 1940 American film noir crime film directed by Charles Barton and starring Peter Lorre. [1]
Stephen Danel lures paroled convicts to his isolated island where they are forced to work as slaves for life. Government agent Mark Sheldon (code name 64) allows himself to be convicted of a murder he did not commit so that he can spend time in prison and then be paroled to work on Danel's island. It turns out that Danel's beautiful wife, Lorraine Danel, is a prisoner too.
Peter Lorre was a Slovak-born American actor, active first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany, where he worked first on the stage, then in film, in Berlin during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation in the Weimar Republic–era film M (1931). Directed by Fritz Lang, Lorre portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls.
The Face Behind the Mask is a 1941 American film noir crime film directed by Robert Florey and starring Peter Lorre, Evelyn Keyes and Don Beddoe. The screenplay was adapted by Paul Jarrico, Arthur Levinson, and Allen Vincent from the play Interim, written by Thomas Edward O'Connell (1915–1961).
The penal colony of Cayenne, commonly known as Devil's Island, was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953, in the Salvation Islands of French Guiana.
The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles, California, between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding the city.
Sydney Hughes Greenstreet was a British and American actor. While he did not begin his career in films until the age of 61, he had a run of significant motion pictures in a Hollywood career lasting through the 1940s. He is best remembered for the three Warner Bros. films - The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and Passage to Marseille (1944) - with both Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. He portrayed Nero Wolfe on radio during 1950 and 1951. He became an American citizen in 1925.
California Men's Colony (CMC) is an American male-only state prison located northwest of the city of San Luis Obispo, San Luis Obispo County, California, along the central California coast approximately halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The Man Who Came to Dinner is a comedy play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. It debuted on October 16, 1939, at the Music Box Theatre in New York City, where it ran until 1941, closing after 739 performances. It then enjoyed a number of New York and London revivals. The first London production was staged at The Savoy Theatre starring Robert Morley and Coral Browne. In 1990, Browne stated in a televised biographical interview, broadcast on UK Channel 4, that she bought the rights to the play, borrowing money from her dentist to do so. When she died, her will revealed that she had received royalties for all later productions and adaptations of the play.
Mad Love is a 1935 American body horror film, an adaptation of Maurice Renard's novel The Hands of Orlac. It was directed by German-émigré film maker Karl Freund, and stars Peter Lorre as Dr. Gogol, Frances Drake as Yvonne Orlac and Colin Clive as Stephen Orlac. The plot revolves around Doctor Gogol's obsession with actress Yvonne Orlac. When Stephen Orlac's hands are destroyed in a train accident, Yvonne brings them to Gogol, who claims to be able to repair them. As Gogol becomes obsessed to the point that he will do anything to have Yvonne, Stephen finds that his new hands have made him into an expert knife thrower.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1934 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period.
Invisible Agent is a 1942 American action and spy film directed by Edwin L. Marin with a screenplay written by Curt Siodmak. The invisible agent is played by Jon Hall, with Peter Lorre and Sir Cedric Hardwicke as members of the Axis, and Ilona Massey and Albert Basserman as Allied spies. The film is inspired by the 1897 H. G. Wells novel The Invisible Man.
Rochelle Hudson was an American film actress from the 1930s through the 1960s. Hudson was a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1931.
Charles Michael Lorre is an American television producer, writer, director, and composer. Called the "King of Sitcoms", Lorre has created/co-created and produced several sitcoms including Cybill (1995–1998), Dharma & Greg (1997–2002), Two and a Half Men (2003–2015), The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019), Mom (2013–2021), and Young Sheldon (2017–2024). He also served as an executive producer of Roseanne. Lorre won three Golden Globe Awards for his work on Roseanne, Cybill, and The Kominsky Method.
Passage to Marseille, also known as Message to Marseille, is a 1944 American war film made by Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz. The screenplay was by Casey Robinson and Jack Moffitt from the novel Sans Patrie by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The music score was by Max Steiner and the cinematography was by James Wong Howe.
Background to Danger is a 1943 World War II spy thriller film starring George Raft and featuring Brenda Marshall, Sydney Greenstreet, and Peter Lorre.
Invisible Stripes is a 1939 Warner Bros. crime film starring George Raft as a gangster unable to go straight after returning home from prison. The movie was directed by Lloyd Bacon and also features William Holden, Jane Bryan and Humphrey Bogart. The screenplay by Warren Duff was based on the novel of the same title by Warden Lewis E. Lawes, a fervent crusader for prison reform, as adapted by Jonathan Finn.
The Cross of Lorraine is a 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer war film about French prisoners of war escaping a German prison camp and joining the French Resistance. Directed by Tay Garnett, starring Jean-Pierre Aumont and Gene Kelly, the film was partly based on Hans Habe's 1941 novel A Thousand Shall Fall. The title refers to the French Cross of Lorraine, which was the symbol of the Résistance and the Free French Forces chosen by Charles de Gaulle in 1942.
Mr. Moto Takes a Chance is the fourth in a series of eight films starring Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto, although it was the second one actually filmed, following Think Fast, Mr. Moto. Its release was delayed until after production of Thank You, Mr. Moto and Mr Moto's Gamble.
Hell Ship Mutiny is a 1957 American South Seas adventure film directed by Lee Sholem and Elmo Williams starring Jon Hall who also produced and narrated the film. It is a compilation of a 1955 unsold television pilot Knight of the South Seas. Hall's father Felix Locher plays the role of a native chief.
Kill Her Gently is a 1957 British second feature thriller film directed by Charles Saunders and starring Griffith Jones, Maureen Connell and Marc Lawrence. It was written by Paul Erickson.
Chuck Lorre Productions is an American television production company founded in January 2000 by producer Chuck Lorre, best known for producing the television series Dharma & Greg (1997–2002), Two and a Half Men (2003–2015), The Big Bang Theory (2007–2019), Mike & Molly (2010–2016), Mom (2013–2021), Young Sheldon (2017–2024), Bob Hearts Abishola (2019–2024), B Positive (2020–2022), and United States of Al (2021–2022).