Isle of Destiny (1940) User Reviews

Dated B-movie thrills

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 8 March 2017]

ISLE OF DESTINY is a B-movie type thriller about an aviatrix, played with relish by June Lang, who gets entangled in the schemes of a criminal boss and who ends up crash-landing her plane on a Pacific island as a result. This movie has quite a deal of incident but much of it is low rent, with a sluggish pace instead of excitement and a general paint-by-numbers feel.

The cast is a good one and the actors certainly put in the right effort. However, this movie doesn't really know what it wants to be. It celebrates female independence and spirit on the one hand but then dates things with the jungle girl character attacking people with a blow dart, who feels like she belongs in a Tarzan flick. Otherwise it's a distinctly average movie.

Sluggish.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 28 December 2018]

Despite all the exciting plot elements, "Isle of Destiny" is a rather dull little B-movie. While there is an aviatrix making a round the world trip and gun runners, the story never really created a lot of excitement.

When the story begins, a famous aviatrix, Virginia Atherton (June Lang) and her co-pilot are on a round-the-world flight. However, they seem in no particular hurry and they stop to visit her brother in the US Marines stationed at Palo Pango in the South Pacific. There they meet up with some folks who seem okay but who are actually gun runners intent on stealing the airplane. When they do, it's up to her new friends in the military and her brother to come to the rescue.

Like many movies of the day, this one features William Gargan and Wallace Ford...two veterans of dozens and dozens of Bs. They and the rest of the cast do reasonably well, but Katherine DeMille (daughter of the famous director) comes off rather poorly as she's painted up to look like a native but who looks about as Polynesian as Mantan Moreland.

As for the plot, well, it didn't really make a lot of sense and Catalina Island (off the California coast) didn't exactly look like Polynesia.The thrilling showdown, also, was a disappointment--and it was annoying to see the cliche of the lady in distress who does NOTHING to help when the men are fighting to the death! I say she either helps or you should just leave her! Overall, slow going and a bit silly...but still watchable....not that this is a glowing endorsement.

An overlong lagoon of silliness.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 31 May 2019]

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. A tale of a plane crash ship. It started with two buffoons and ended up with a gunfight. Two buffoon marines (Wallace Ford and William Gargan) pick up lady pilot June Lang and escort her to shore, and after she takes off on another journey with brother Grant Richards and ends up shipwrecked on a tropical island where she is prevented from returning to civilization by the villainous Gilbert Roland. Native Island Girl Katherine DeMille, already obsessed with Roland, becomes violently jealous, and when Gargan and Ford discover her location, they rushed to save her, resulting in a gun battle with Roland and the natives. Sounds like lots of action, right? Well, mixed with a silly comedy provided by Ford and gargan, this ends up the most moronic attempt at an adventure ever to hit the Hollywood screen, well almost.

The credits of this film indicate that it was filmed in color ("Cosmocolor" to be exact), but having been made for Grand National and then later released by RKO, that proves to either be false or color prints of this film have been lost, and nobody has cared to find a copy and restore it. DeMille, Cecil B.'s daughter, looks ridiculous in dark makeup and sarongs, and it is a shame that Dorothy Lamour wasn't available because at least she knew how to play a native girl convincingly even if she wasn't Polynesian. This is supposed to take somewhere near Hawaii, but names of the islands are obviously fictional. the intentional laughs are not funny, and when there are laughs, they come unintentionally, never a good idea in creating a crowd-pleasing film. The only one to come off unscathed other than Leading Lady Lang and villain Roland is veteran character actor Etienne Girardot.