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 Christopher 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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