The Island

'Captain Simmonds' (John Hurt), on leave from the battlefields of France, arrives on the island home of 'Mrs Santander' (Jenny Runacre), with whom he's been conducting an affair, where he encounters the butler (Graham Crowden) and, unexpectedly, 'Mr Santander' (Charles Grey). 

'The Island' is an adaptation of the 1924 L.P. Hartley short story of the same name made for the TV series 'Classics Dark and Dangerous' and soon after combined with two other episodes, 'Mrs Amworth' and 'The Mannikin', into the movie, 'Three Dangerous Ladies'.  Hartley had a penchant for the supernatural but this is perhaps more in the field of the macabre, of the type that Roald Dahl would later popularise with his 'Tales of the Unexpected'.  

Adapted and directed by Robert Fuest, the man behind such Wyrd Britain gems as the two 'Dr. Phibes' movies, the Michael Moorcock 'Jerry Cornelius' adaptation 'The Final Programme' - also starring Runacre - and the Brian Clemens, Terry Nation thriller 'And Soon The Darkness', 'The Island' is a minor entry in his canon that he's tried to make the best of by bulking out the runtime with lots of tension building silence, but there's not much there there and the final payoff is underwhelming and a tad obvious but it's great to see the three leads playing off each other.

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The Hymn of Pan

From the forests and highlands

We come, we come;

From the river-girt islands,

Where loud waves are dumb

Listening to my sweet pipings.

The wind in the reeds and the rushes,

The bees on the bells of thyme,

The birds on the myrtle bushes,

The cicale above in the lime,

And the lizards below in the grass,

Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,

Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay

In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing

The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,

And the Nymphs of the woods and the waves,

To the edge of the moist river-lawns,

And the brink of the dewy caves,

And all that did then attend and follow,

Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,

With envy of my sweet pipings.

I sang of the dancing stars,

I sang of the daedal Earth,

And of Heaven, and the giant wars,

And Love, and Death, and Birth—

And then I chang'd my pipings,

Singing how down the vale of Maenalus

I pursu'd a maiden and clasp'd a reed.

Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!

It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed.

All weptĺl, as I think both ye now would,

If envy or age had not frozen your blood,

At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.