Island of Lost Souls (1932 film)

Island of Lost Souls is a 1932 American PreCode science fiction horror film starring Charles Laughton, Richard Arlen, Leila Hyams, Bela Lugosi and Kathleen Burke as the Panther Woman. The film was directed by Erle C. Kenton and produced by Paramount Pictures from a script cowritten by science fiction legend Philip Wylie, the movie was the first film adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, published in 1896. Both book and film are about an obsessed scientist who is secretly conducting surgical experiments on animals on a remote island.

Moreau offers Parker the hospitality of his home and introduces him to Lota Kathleen Burke, a beautiful, gentle girl who seems a bit simple. When the two hear screams coming from a locked room, which Lota calls the house of pain, Parker investigates. He sees Moreau and Montgomery operating on a person without anesthetic. Convinced that Moreau is engaged in sadistic vivisection, Parker tries to leave, only to encounter brutishlooking men emerging from the jungle. Moreau appears, cracks his whip, and orders the one known as the Sayer of the Law Bela Lugosi to repeat the rule against violence. Afterward, the strange men disperse.Back in the main house, the doctor corrects Parkers mistaken impression. Moreau explains that he started experimenting in London many years previously, accelerating the evolution of plants. He eventually graduated to animals, trying to transform them into people through plastic surgery, blood transfusions, gland extracts, and ray baths. He would still be working in England on his bioanthropological research if a dog had not escaped from his laboratory and so horrified the people that he was forced to leave. ........

Source: Wikipedia