The first screen adaptation of H.G. Wells' seminal science fiction novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. A top-billed Charles Laughton utterly steals the movie away from his supporting cast as the sadistic, whip-wielding Dr. Moreau, a scientist with a god complex, obsessed with surgically evolving animals into human beings and then ruling over them on his island. Into this stumbles hapless castaway Edward Parker (Richard Allen) who gets caught up in Moreau's schemes. The movie also contains memorable performances from Bela Lugosi as the impassioned leader of the animal-people, Kathleen Burke as the most human (and sexy) of Moreau's creations, and Paul Hurst as a fearless sea captain assisting Parker's fiancee (Leila Hyams) in looking for her betrothed.

Banned in Germany, Great Britain, Holland, Hungary, India, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, and Tasmania and cut to remove all objectionable content in the countries it was release in, it remained unavailable for several years except for a 1990's VHS release as part of the Universal Monsters horror collection - which restored all of the censored dialog and scenes - until finally it was awarded a Criterion DVD release.

The presence of Crabbe, Scott and Ladd among the beast-men is highly doubtful and unsupported by any studio documentation. It appears to have be a bit of half-baked trivia thrown in by the editors of a movie encyclopedia some thirty years ago and taken for fact. A shame when supposedly reputable entities like TCM report it as fact, but then TCM is known to quote from books written about films word for word without giving credit, so it should not be surprising.