Hall-Montez

 

 (imdb)

COBRA WOMAN-1944-Ramu (Jon Hall) & Tulia (Maria Montez) are to be married. On their wedding day she's kidnap by Hava (Lon Chaney), a sinister looking guy pretending to be blind. Ramu's friend McDonald (Moroni Olsen) says Tulia has been taken back to the treacherous "Cobra Island" where she was born. Ramu journeys to the island to rescue her accompanied by a local talkative young guy Kado (the one and only Sabu). Once there Ramu spies Tulia swimming and goes to her. They embrace but she seems rather distant. After they part, he's captured and sentenced to die. Kado meets up with Tula and the Queen of the island (Mary Nash).

It turns out the woman Ramu met was not Tula but her evil sister Narja who rules the island using sacrifices to a volcano and the help of evil fiancée, Martok (Edgar Barrier). It turns out Hava is not bad but a servant of the Queen who brought Tulia back to rule.

Universal made several of these Technicolor tropical adventures with Hall & Montez. Mostly considered camp, they do have a cult following. A dance in front of a cobra is kind of funny and Chaney is once again wasted in a mute role. Directed by Robert Siodmak, a year after making SON OF DRACULA with Chaney.

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Ulmer

 

ISLAND OF FORGOTTEN SINS-1943-On a tropical island Marge (Gale Sondergaard) runs the brothel of the title. Her boyfriend Mike Clancy (John Carradine) has a fight with his friend/rival Jack (Frank Fenton) that practically wrecks the club. Then Mike has a plan to hunt for a cargo of sunken gold with Jack's help. Unfortunately for Marge, Olga (Betty Amann), one of her girls shoots and kills a customer. Marge and three of her girls join the guys to get away from the law. They go to an island where Capt. Grogan (Sidney Toler) and his piano playing sidekick Johnny Pacific (Rick Vallin) live with island girl Luana (Veda Ann Borg). They plot to steal the gold after Mike and Jack recover it. Double crosses follow and tropical storm messes up everything. 

Extremely low budget adventure brought up a notch or two by genius director Edgar Ulmer who worked with Carradine a year later on BLUEBEARD. 

By the way, this film has singing in it!

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Late James Whale

SINNERS IN PARADISE-1938-On a plane to China all the passengers have a story: Anne Wesson (Madge Evans), an unhappy wife trying to escape her jealous husband, Thelma Chase (Charlotte Wynters), an heiress trying to escape union troubles at her factory, a pompous senator (Gene Lockhart), two munitions rivals Brand (Morgan Conway, a future Dick Tracy) and Honeyman (Milburn Stone), an old woman (Nana Bryant), Malone (KING KONG's Bruce Cabot), a gangster known as The Torpedo, wise cracking Iris (Marion Martin) who's escaping a grand jury. Their plane crashes during a storm and only they survive along with the plane's steward Jessup (future western star Don “Red” Barry). 

They find refuge on a tropical island where the only inhabitant is Jim Taylor (John Boles), a loner who lives there with his Asian servant Ping (Willie Fung). He has a boat but won't let them use it because he has a secret of his own for being on the island and isn't exactly thrilled with his unscheduled guests. Later Taylor decides to let them go and get some peace but not all of them will fit in his boat, so some can go and some will have to wait. The munitions rivals can't wait to go and Taylor has to fight them off. Malone saves him. Taylor gets sweet on Thelma and asks her to stay. The munitions rivals hijack the boat (with Ping in it) and the old lady is shot. Taylor tries to remove the bullet but she dies before he can operate. It turns out Taylor was a doctor accused of killing a mobster: the old woman's son! Everyone goes native and some comic parts made me think of “Gilligan's Island”! 

This forgotten adventure/soap opera was directed by the great James Whale who made a few more films after this (THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, GREEN HELL) but was basically on the downside of a once famous career. This was also one of the last film roles for the once popular top billed Madge Evans who retired from films after marrying author Sidney Kingsley (DEAD END). 

John Boles of course had worked previously with Whale on a film of his caled FRANKENSTEIN....

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