The Mystery of Thug Island, 1964.

Also released as Kidnapped to Mystery Island and the Snake Hunter Strangler. Do you remember Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? A movie about a thuggee cult trying to resurrect Kali via sacrifices in a grand underground complex? Ya? Then you might remember The Mystery of Thug Island, a film which I’m sure no-one has ever seen. I certainly hadn’t heard of it ’til now. The film stars Guy Madison who was in a bunch of westerns, Ingeborg Schoner (an absolute cutie who was in Mark of the Devil, Legacy of the Incas (also with Guy Madison), Buffalo Bill, and Inspektor Blomfields Fall Nr 1; Ich Spreng Euch Alle in die Luft). Okay, I’ve never seen that last one but I like the title. The German general from Bridge at Remegan also makes an appearance.

We open with a good stealthy infiltration and kidnapping by the thuggees. It’s a short scene but these 2 minutes make me want to play Call of Cthulhu. The father of the kidnapped girl, a British captain resigns his commission to go hunt down his daughter, an event which doesn’t make the film feel any less “colonial” with his troops joining up to get back at those damn thuggees for strangling family members. Still seems like something someone would get offended at. Whatever, it’s a good enough film so I’ll ignore any microaggressions this 60-year old film about the British Raj might present. Rule Britannia, Rule the Waves!

the cannon ambush scene at the end makes me grin

Atmosphere is great – we got shrunken heads, statues with glowing eyes, giant statues of bulls, golden crowns that look like something Pth’thya-l’yi would be wearing, tall jungle grass growing out of murky rivers, pacing tigers, and a last-minute attempt to flood the caves with all our plucky red-coast bravely fighting inside.

Taking over from the British father, a local snake-hunter who caught a glimpse of the daughter and is now madly in love joins the film and we get a bunch of traipsing through jungle fighting tigers and various cultist mooks. I wish the two parties managed to meet up earlier in the film and join forces – the Hero’s Journey puts the allies pretty close to the beginning. Han Solo, the Tin Man, and Aragorn all join up to their respective heroes fairly close to the beginning. In this, the snake hunter attacks the Thuggees about half way through and then he meets up with the British captain in the final act of the film. Instead of them joining forces early on, we get a lot of time focused on the snake hunter and his relationship with the priestess chick. I get it, this is an old-timey film where romance is still a thing, but come on – give me violence and titillation!

Before I provide a run-down of Blood, Breasts, and Beasts, I have to suggest that my rating may be inaccurate as I believe that the US-version that I’m watching has been cut down from the original. This version is 87 minutes though imdb seems to think that the film is 96 minutes long; I will therefore state that although this film has Blood, no Breasts (other than statues), and not really Beasts (but there are violent snakes and tigers which I’m counting), further doses of Vitamin B may be contained in this mystery 9 minutes. I enjoyed this but it’s definitely an older class of movie. Kind of like all those Yul Brynner movies that you’d think would be full of violence but end up being kind of slow like Tars Bulba, Kings of the Sun, or The Long Duel. Still good films, just not drive-in movies. I’m going to give this a One Thumb Up Seal of Approval but you’re probably better off sticking to Temple of Doom or Gunga Din.