Condemned Reviews

The normally discerning Sidney Howard couldn't do much with the screenplay of the predictable novel by Blair Niles. Ronald Colman, in his second sound film (BULLDOG DRUMMOND being the first), plays a suave thief condemned to Devil's Island. His good manners have gotten him a job inside the warden's house (Dudley Digges, who also doubled as dialog director). Digges' wife, Ann Harding, is as tasty a bit of fluff as you ever did see, and it isn't long before she and Colman fall in love. He is sent to solitary confinement, but an escape is planned to coincide with Harding's return to France. They get away together, have a series of hair-raising and totally unbelievable adventures in the swamps, and are caught in her stateroom aboard the ship going to France. Colman utters a memorable line before being apprehended, one that mirrored the viewer's perception of this improbable film: "I thought this was going to be an escape and it turns into a yacht race." Colman is returned to finish out his sentence, and the picture ends when the lovers are united in Paris. Colman is excellent and proves his worth in every frame, while Ann Harding just doesn't quite come up to snuff. (Colman got an Oscar nomination for this performance and for BULLDOG DRUMMOND.) Many other pictures were made in later years with Devil's Island as the base (PAPILLON, DEVIL'S ISLAND, I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND), and they were essentially alike.