One of the first things a modern viewer might make of this old film is that it has a modernity beyond its vintage. If they were aware of James Whale's horror films like Frankenstein or The Old Dark House they might not be so surprised. Like those, this pre-code movie revels in its salacity and the darker recesses of the power-hungry. The notion of Darwinism had leaked from the academy and into the gutter where popular culture made of it an excuse for anything from eugenics to the hysterical notion of science playing god. But, as the strong voiced hosts of The Faculty of Horror podcast recently said of Halloween: "The film is radically left, its killer is conservative." The more we know of Dr Moreau the creepier we find him, the text of the film itself leaves no doubt of his ethical perdition.
As such, he couldn't have been better cast then with the rising Charles Laughton whose eye rolling superiority or irrepressible whinnies of mockery give us no comfort from any scientific wisdom by which he has built this monster of civilisation, his own creature. Moreau's mad scientist theatre is a vivisection room known to the subdued population of hybrid creatures as the house of pain. We see his careless handling of one subject on the table whose groans and screams have punctuated the dialogue and it's as though he were examining needlepoint. If the crowd scenes of the mutants were meant to disturb viewers, the plans of cruelty and pointless agony that the white-suited Moreau inflicts upon them render them victims, however frightening they might be in mob form. Laughton presents an affable sadism, one he knew from his own profession and how it fit without remark in the latter days of empire.
Wells's book and this film were made without knowledge of Hitler but they had seen the mass manipulation of Mussolini, the growing press of industrialisation and issues such as vivisection itself that Wells despised. Moreau is not sadistic for the sake of science, he is scientific for the sake of his own glory, mangling the lives of anything he can find so he'll have something to drag back to the first world, throw at its feet and ... show them!
We have already seen the unfairly treated dog boy, cannot mistake the carnal force of the simian Ouran for anything but animal need (it's Moreau's licence that makes it unnerving) and when we meet her, hear her guileless speech and see Lota's feline beauty that we understand the real monstrosity of Moreau's envelope-shoving. Is there a human selflessness in her final actions? That fits the brief of the vintage Hollywood noble savage but the Wellsian root gives us a better notion in that it might be the remnant animal response to danger that got the better of the apparent lustful humanity. We've already seen her anticipate another session in the house of pain with some writhing that, for all its balletic sweep, does ring physical.
This film rises high above any expectations we might have of cheap exploitation or assembly line genre. The still effective make up artistry should tell you as much. Bela Lugosi's energetic roaring performance backs that up. The solemnity of the final shot seals it and the spectre of the civilised monster rising like smoke over the shrinking island give us far more than an angry crowd with torches and pitchforks could. Hindsight helps here: the island of Dr Moreau could be the camp of Dr Mengele. Other points of comparison are in the news as I type. Movies can teach with the power in their audiences. This is another.
Viewing notes: I watched the 2011 Criterion restoration Blu-Ray which is a marvel of research and skill. This film has a history of lacerating edits and incongruous film elements. The folk at the big C label put it all together and it looks solid and seductive.
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