Wanna Get "Lost?"

Once more, it's been a minute since I was able to post here. Life happens. I have a few items rattling around in my brain that I intend to focus on, but they're even more time consuming than what I'm offering up today. I am willing to bet that only a few of you have any sort of knowledge of today's movie. I certainly never heard of it before it washed up onto my shores and imdb.com has only one -- ONE - User Comment for it! Though it came to me as Island of Lost Souls (1974), it's original title in Spanish is La isla de los hombres solos ("The Island of Lonely Men.") I have an idea how it got to me, though that's rather scary in and of itself... Last week, I watched Papillon (1973), recorded from TCM via DirectTV and then not long after, Tubi - an unrelated app and through a whole other method of viewing! - offered this very similar movie to me. They're watching. And they know.... Papillon was a lengthy, brutal prison drama with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman as inhabitants of Devil's Island (among other locales) and based on a true story. Lost Souls, while discounted by many as a quickie rip-off of Papillon, was actually based on its own true story as well. 

The movie's source novel was written by a man who'd been (according to him) framed for murder and sent to the infamous Costa Rican prison island San Lucas. There, he witnessed and experienced all sorts of hell. But he lived to tell about it in his 1968 tome (and, in fact, lived until 2022 when he passed away of a heart attack at 93!) Unlike Papillon, whose prisons in French Guyana were closed well before the book and movie in 1953, San Lucas was in use until 1991! The book was a huge seller in Latin America and well known to many international moviegoers, who turned it into a hit. 

In this post, I'm going to use character names rather than my usual practice of typing the names of the actors because virtually all of the actors in this film are going to be unfamiliar to the majority of my readers. The movie kicks off with young Jacinto, a young villager in love with a local girl. 

Considering that he is the lead, I will at least mention that Jacinto is played by Alejandro Ciangherotti, who was an award-winning child actor in the early 1950s and proceeded to a long career in Mexican film and television productions. He acted up until 2003, with stomach cancer claiming him the following year at age 64. 

Unfortunately for Jacinto, a nasty piece of work named Don Miguel runs roughshod over everyone and does anything he pleases, to anyone he pleases. 

As it happens, the young lady Jacinto loves also catches the eye of Don Miguel. 

Jacinto is slated to wed 15 year-old Maria, with the approval of her father.

Don Miguel has other plans, though, and viciously assaults Jacinto with a machete, driving him into the swamp so that he can sexually violate Maria.  

Jacinto survives the attack and is nursed back to health by his parents. 

Ultimately, he does wed Maria and create a life with her. They even have a little boy eventually. 

Unfortunately, the relentless Don Miguel still can't keep away from her and he comes calling once again to attack the young girl (in front of her toddler son! I couldn't help but wonder what effect this moment had on the poor kid on set, though the worst of it happens when he is presumably not present!)

As you can see, Jacinto is beyond upset by this turn of events and ultimately carries out revenge on the dastardly Don Miguel. Interestingly, in the film Jacinto clearly commits his crime - even if justified - while the book's author always maintained his innocence, claiming he'd been forced into a confession by lit matches being inserted into his ears! 

Next we find our lad transported to San Lucas where a burly orderly stokes a fire and shackles are applied with a hammer and a red-hot peg. And if a prisoner is accidentally maimed in this process, so be it...! 

It's a filthy, brutal place and the guards never hesitate to exact cruelty to the inmates. 

As for the living conditions... There are no beds/cots and the men are crammed into dank squalor. Chow time consists of guards and orderlies coming in with buckets of gruel(?) as the prisoners hold up their cups. Me being me, I did have to take notice of one in particular. He's just right of center, sitting next to the man with little hair. 

In this shot, he's at the far right, extending his cup for a serving of slop. 

I thought, man, how did those two score a place to sit...

Then I noticed, amid all the melee... He was on the latrine!

She the (awfully large!) hole as he absents himself? 

Thankfully, the (well-paid?) extra they chose for this moment had a nice physique. 

Meanwhile, in another little corner of paradise, and inmate is trying to quiet his brother, who appears to be in the last gasps of his life. The men standing in line aren't concerned about him. They just want his cupful of food! 

The poor soul does pass on and is carted out of the cell. The bearded man in front is in charge of preparing him for burial. 

Outside, several prisoners are tasked with digging a grave (you'd think by the way this place is run, that would almost be an ongoing thing!)

Our bearded friend has stripped the corpse and proceeds to place a colored dress over the body as part of the ritual. 

I don't know enough to be sure whether this was a common practice or if the guy just has a fetish. But with the dress over the body, the guy exclaims that the deceased resembles a young girl...!

He proceeds to caress the body of the dead man (who I hope didn't perish over anything contagious!)

This act of necrophilia is witnessed by the gravediggers, one in particular.

And the corpse ends up, well, end up! 

Time has passed a bit and now we're in the rock quarry where Mr. Slate armed guards force the prisoners to hack away and carry off hunks of stone (to what end, I could not tell you.) 

As a viewer who believes that men in the movies ought to always be dressed in as little as possible - ha ha! - I liked this development. The one in the center, in the most abbreviated bit of cloth of all, will become an increasingly prevalent character as the story proceeds. 

Named Preso, he is played by Xavier Marc, a popular Mexican actor who worked for nearly six decades and who occasionally popped up in American films including Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and The Legend of Zorro (2005.) In 2022 at age 74, Marc took his own life by jumping off a building, presumably due to chronic pain due to illness. 

Old eagle-eyes here couldn't help but spot a few instances in which some of Preso's fellow inmates appear to have contemporary undergarments on under their rags! Note the black waistband on one and the hilarious sea green jockey shorts on another.

As you can see here, the setting for Souls is a visually striking one. And the widescreen cinematography tends to be quite strong throughout. 

Anyone who's visited this site more than three times knows of my near-total disdain for CGI, so I also appreciated the use of real, live extras to fill out the screen. (I doubt they had a very fun time of it, however, since they were forced to "pretend" to hack apart and carry rocks endlessly!)

The place is overseen by Colonel Lopez. (Lopez was enacted by Wolf Ruvinskis, a Latvian whose family fled Europe when he was a child, resulting in him being raised in Argentina. Thus, he was a rather rare Spanish-speaking actor with crystalline blue eyes.) 

In one quite bizarre sequence, with the aide of a few other inmates, one dude attaches a dead pelican to his head and attempts to swim off into the ocean to escape! He's snitched on by an old coot and dispatched before he can make his way to freedom.

The aforementioned Papillon didn't ignore homosexuality in its story line, but it was tempered somewhat and also pared down through script revisions. In this movie, there's no pussyfooting around. Here, we find one of the overseers sharing a cig with a feminine inmate. 

Said inmate makes his intentions known to a disinterest Jacinto and sashays around the holding cell dressed like Mary Ann from Gilligan's Island. 

Lest anyone think that the corpse-abuser from earlier got off scot-free, I give you this eye-popping moment in which he's done away with. Note the contrived presence of his squealer, who just happens to be right there when revenge is enacted. 

Rock-quarry prison movies not glam enough for you? Bring on the hos! LOL General Lopez entertains a couple of loose lady friends who are given a tour of the premises before settling in for some musica. 

You see, in between shifts hacking huge stones apart, some of the gents have formed a little rock band! You remember the magic of Zamfir and his pan flute? Jacinto has somehow become master of the fine tooth comb and scrap of newspaper... His neighbor shakes some breast-like maracas. 

Lopez wants them to play something appropriate for a prostie to do a striptease to...! LOL 

But when the maraca player trades in his gourds for the real thing.... well, it's not the happy ending he was looking for. 

As the story proceeds, we discover that Lopez is not dealing with a full deck of cards. (You can see his sparkling eyes well here, which I referred to before.) And it's not that he is solely sadistic to the inmates (though he won't tolerate disobedience.) 

In fact, he declares that the men will no longer be shackled with balls and chains. They will be free to roam about as they please. They're just forbidden from trying to escape. 

Jacinto, Preso and other friends can't rid themselves of their restraints fast enough! 

The first thing they do is head out into the surf for a refreshing swim. 

Later, the men kick up their heels another way. The (remaining!) band members provide musical accompaniment as one of the girly-men gets up to perform. 

I don't know if one of Liz Taylor's old outfits washed up onto the shore one day or where this came from, but it's now part of a strip act! 

"Presenting... Penis de Milo!"

You've either got it... or you've had it!

Judging from the interest he's receiving, this one's got it! 

In fact, he's got the men salivating so badly that one grizzled old man removes his denture plate, wipes it off on a dirty rag, and then pops it back in! 

Our "Rock"ette continues to parade around the floor until it's time for the big finish. 

He grabs his Vegas-level feather boa...

...and begins to straddle it suggestively. 

This act inspires one of the prisoners to stand up and join in with his own take on the choreography. 

Yep! It's ol' toothless with his filthy scrap of material, givin' it the floss! 

The former quarry overseer now has an embarrassment of riches from which to choose.  

Command on the island is being challenged now that Lopez has demonstrated a break from his previous orders. While a ship appears off-shore, he has an old cannon wheeled out in order to defend himself...!

During this distraction, Jacinto, Preso and another man decide it's time to get the hell out of Dodge. 

It won't be easy, though. For Lopez has still sent his captain and several others to pursue them for daring to attempt an escape. 

Once upon a time, there were three little... 

...oh, better make that, two. The slowest one isn't able to make it out of harm's way. 

Jacinto and Preso head out into the water in an attempt to swim to safety elsewhere. 

In this and other scenes, these actors, clad only in scraps basically, were doing everything their characters were supposed to do! It had to be a taxing shoot for them.

I did have to chuckle when this patrol boat failed to notice them lurking behind a couple of rocks. I mean, wouldn't that be a place for the officers to LOOK? 

Even more eye-rolling was the use of stock footage in which a shark begins heading their way. It looks like it was shot in an aquarium or somewhere way outside this vicinity. 

At last the twosome are on dry land again. 

Emerging from the surf, they are stunned to discover...

...no, not the Statue of Liberty! Instead there is a nude prisoner, chained to a rock. 

They begin to clamber up the hill to him. 

Again, I stress that these practically unclothed actors are shimmying uphill through sand that is littered with broken shells and various rocks with virtually no protection. 

Once there, the prisoner reveals that he's been denied food and water because the guards were afraid that they runaways would show up and utilize it. (Which, I guess they would have, judging from the way Preso reaches for the empty water bowl.) 

They decide to free the man of his shackle and, for some reason, bear down with rocks on the ankle piece rather than trying to work on the ring! 

As a result, the poor man suffers injury to his ankle and is bleeding all over the place...! 

At this point, no one is too worried about clothing, but Preso takes what little there is left of his outfit and turns it into a bandage for the man they've just liberated. 

That's real sweet and everything, but, even with a bandage, you don't go swimming with an open wound in shark-infested waters! 

Preso places a rock on the edge of a crag and tells the man that when the sun hits it, the tide will be in his favor to make a swim for it. But they can't wait. They have to roll. 

So off they go to continue their run for freedom. Sun's out, buns out!

They feel like they may have finally made it when suddenly a local man who's been bribed by guards with a list of food and supplies begins firing a rifle at them! As the movie is framed with a flashback, we presume that Jacinto will make it. 

His less fortunate (and less-attired) pal is not as fortunate. Should you with to dip your toe in the waters of this hour-and-a-half-long movie, the beautifully presented copy shown here is available free with ads on Tubi. And that, my friends, brings us to...

The End!