Flame of the Islands

An enjoyable escapist fantasy shot in gleaming Trucolor in which Yvonne De Carlo sashays about the Bahamas while plainly seldom leaving the studio.The men are mainly there to be infatuated with her.

Contrary to the two comments that were previously submitted to this forum, "Flame of the Islands" left a lot to be desired, as a feature film. The story of this woman that wants to get her revenge for what was been done to her years ago doesn't make much sense, as presented in the movie.

Ah, FotI, filmed in flaming, glowing, blinding technicholor with red doors and yellow walls and blue seas. Yvonne DeCarlo of later Lily Munster fame is a sizzling hot flame in the Bahama's where she's a partner in a posh casino catering to the upper crust.

I'm a big fan of '40's and '50's B movies. I go in not expecting much and have been invariably surprised.

I usually edit and re-write the notes I jot down at a movie's press preview, but for some reason I kept my original material. Here it is:Despite a credit title brag that this film was actually photographed in the Bahamas, it is obvious that a 2nd unit contributed the few bits of local color transferred to the screen (often via clumsy back projection).

Merely it had been filmed as an A movie it would have been a great movie since it has all the elements to be a hit: beautiful scenery and sets, scandal, money, and splendid Yvonne the Carlo at her best. Sadly, Republic was not MGM and so they made a B movie instead.

She is no Ava Gardner and no Rita Hayworth, but reminds of both. In fact, Ava Gardner would have done perfectly in this role, if you forget about the singing - not even Rita Hayworth would have made singing performances like that, although Yvonne's dancing isn't bad at all.

Having a Caribean cocktail with the stunning Yvonne De Carlo is always a welcome treat. Watering down a highball glass full of shiftless men (with one exception) who she encounters along the way is a daunting prospect.

Flame of the Islands is usually described as a story of a woman and the men in her life, but the heart of the story is about three women: Rosalind Dee, (Yvonne de Carlo); the woman of whose husband she was supposedly mistress, (Frieda Inescort), and the mother of the boy she had loved as a teenager, (Barbara O'Neil). Rosalind is a good woman corrupted by a desire for revenge over the woman who had destroyed her chance for happiness by separating her from the boy she loved as a teenager, but her revenge, small as it is, redounds on people she has every wish not to hurt.