With a title like that, and the prospect of Peter Lorre presiding over his own private island of slave labourers, you'd think this couldn't fail; but actually watching this movie is like watching paint dry. Glossily photographed by Benjamin Kline, the elegance of the home surrounded by an electrified fence that Lorre shares with his bored high maintenance wife Rochelle Hudson (probably standing sets from other productions) manages to make the film seem even more inert than it already does, since it makes what passes for action on his premises seem even more detached from the supposedly rugged desert island setting than already seemed possible.
Although Lorre could in better films underplay very seductively, here he just looks bored, except whenever he sees George E. Stone's pet monkey, when he suddenly and abruptly goes berserk. Just as Clint Eastwood's mistreatment of Pamelyn Ferdin's pet turtle Randolph brought about his doom in Don Siegel's 'The Beguiled' (1971), so Lorre's Achilles' heel proves to be Stone's monkey.
Although Lorre could in better films underplay very seductively, here he just looks bored, except whenever he sees George E. Stone's pet monkey, when he suddenly and abruptly goes berserk. Just as Clint Eastwood's mistreatment of Pamelyn Ferdin's pet turtle Randolph brought about his doom in Don Siegel's 'The Beguiled' (1971), so Lorre's Achilles' heel proves to be Stone's monkey.