DAILY CALL SHEET: DECEMBER 24, 2024

#OnThisDay in 1932 audiences discovered the Island of Lost Souls. Castaway Edward Parker finds himself stranded on an island where the megalomaniacal Dr. Moreau is creating a race of man-beasts to lord over. Sensing an opportunity to further his foul experiments, the mad doctor plots to mate his panther-woman with Parker. These plans go awry, however, when Moreau's subjects break the holy law imposed on them and rise up against their creator. Though it could use an actual soundtrack, this earliest adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Doctor Moreau is probably still the best, thanks in no small part to Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi chewing the scenery.

TIL: The movie actually tones down the anti-religious themes in Wells' novel. The film ends with false god Moreau and all his worshipers dying in flames whereas the book has the protagonist convincing the enraged beast people that although Moreau has physically died, his spirit has risen to the sky to watch over them, basically insinuating that the story of Christ’s ascension to heaven was a bald faced lie to control the easily duped. Close to his death, Wells would write Crux Ansata in which he made the "completely rational" demand to bomb Rome to destroy the Catholic Church. Given time, anti-theism always descends to madness, violence, or both.

I HAVE SOME NOTES: Almost done with a year of jotting down notes on my daily Scripture readings.