MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

                                                                                                                ***SPOILERS***                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          I didn't originally care much for MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND, directed and co-written by Spaniard Juan Piquer Simon. However, when I compare MYSTERY to the movie for which Simon may be best known to Americans, the terminally dumb SUPERSONIC MAN, this low-budget "robinsonade" doesn't come off quite so badly.                                                                                                                                                                                                There's even some fun to be had imagining how this project might have come about. It might have started when Simon scouted some location and realized that he might use it for a "Robinson Crusoe" type of story. Maybe he had some particular affection for the public domain Jules Verne novel GODFREY MORGAN, but realized that Crusoe-type stories weren't all that salable in the 1980s. So Simon took the adventurous trajectory of the Verne book-- in which a young man of privilege went on a sea voyage to prove his mettle and had various island-adventures-- and added some fake monsters. It seems axiomatic that Simon or someone in his orbit chose the title to make moviegoers associate MYSTERY with the well-liked MYSTERIOUS ISLAND. Yet the thrust of the movie's narrative is very different, and I find the novelty of MYSTERY slightly preferable to any of the lackluster remakes of the 1961 Harryhausen film.                                                                                   

So as mentioned above, the novel concerns Godfrey Morgan, who goes off on various adventures, accompanied by a comedy-relief tutor named Artelett, said adventures being fostered by Godfrey's uncle, so that the young man can prove himself before he marries his beloved, the uncle's female ward. MYSTERY starts out pretty much the same way, except that in the film, the young fellow (now named Jeff and played by Ian Sera) is sent to a particular island by the uncle (Peter Cushing). Jeff goes in the company of the tutor (David Hatton) in advance of his impending marriage to the ward Meg (Ana Obregon), but in this case, some chicanery is signaled by the fact that the uncle has actually purchased the island in advance. In fact, in a plot-point that I assume isn't in the book, the uncle competes for the purchase of the property with another rich man, Taskinar (Terence Stamp). Taskinar, unlike the uncle, knows that there's a cache of gold hidden on the island, and so he means to have that booty no matter who else gets in his way. That includes Jeff, Artellet, and all the minions of the uncle.     

  By "minions," I mean not only the transparently phony monsters encountered by Jeff and Artellet, but everyone else that the two meet on the island. From a "Friday"-like native to a supposed French castaway named Dominique (Blanca Estrada), everyone's just an actor hired by the uncle to give Jeff the illusion of an adventure. This ploy doesn't make much sense-- certainly Jeff resents the deception when he finds out-- but by sheer chance, the life-and-death stakes become real when Taskinar and his crew of pirates invade the island for the gold. So even though there are no monsters on Monster Island-- all the dinosaurs being the creation of some "toymaker"-- the movie does conclude in a big brawl between Jeff's allies and the forces of Taskinar, and the story ends with the good guys' victory.             

This simple film's list of merits and demerits is almost equal. Cushing and Stamp have only a smattering of scenes, so obviously Simon only had the funds to pay the "big names" in his movie for a few days apiece. (Paul Naschy has some minor scenes as well, but I didn't bother looking for him.) Main character Jeff ought to be likable since he sincerely wants to prove himself, but actor Sera is just kind of bland. Maybe that's why he didn't have a very long cinematic career, with three of his appearances being in movies by Simon. One odd development is the revelation that Taskinar somehow suborned the actress playing the role of castaway Dominque, but I don't see that she did anything to help the villain's designs. She does make a play for the engaged young man, but that may have been her own private idea. Still, in the concluding brawl, Meg gets to fight Dominique, even though Meg has no idea that the other girl put the moves on her man. I frankly liked best the performance of David Hatton as the incompetent and effete tutor, because I thought he gave the one-dimensional character his all, which is more than I could say for Ian Sera. And lastly, though this is a compromised adaptation of the Verne book, I probably will never read the source novel, and so MYSTERY educated me in the broad outlines of Verne's forgotten venture into Robinson Crusoe territory.