...this is your film. I'm giving it four stars just based on the fact that the three leads - Humphrey Bogart, Margaret Lindsay, and Donald Woods managed to carry this thing as well as they did. The film opens on a wedding between Val Stevens (Humphrey Bogart) and Lucille Gordon (Margaret Lindsay), with Lucille having all the enthusiasm of someone who is using her life savings as a down payment on buying a house that she just doesn't like. The way WB has Bogart made up will make you realize why she feels that way if you don't just laugh out loud - bad perm AND bad mustache with bad perm. Donald Woods is the mysterious handsome stranger that shipwrecks on Val and Lucille's tropical island and almost interrupts the ceremony. When Woods' character regains consciousness after being rescued, he instantly begins giving reluctant bride Lucille bedroom eyes. If you think you know where this thing is headed from the beginning you'd probably be right, so I'm going to stop right there and let you watch and find out what happens. Just don't nod off and miss the hilarious scene of Bogart wrestling with a fake octopus that looks like it is right out of Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster.
I've seen Bogart in some odd films given his later film persona - the rather experimental "Midnight" and the early talkie "Bad Sister" - but this is the only truly bad film in which I've seen him, and by bad I mean dull and predictable.
I've seen Bogart in some odd films given his later film persona - the rather experimental "Midnight" and the early talkie "Bad Sister" - but this is the only truly bad film in which I've seen him, and by bad I mean dull and predictable.