Anyway, It's a long time since I read H.G. Wells' novella and I remember nothing of it; let's just say that I'm forty-two and the copy I read belonged to the school library. So I'm unaware, after all these years, how faithful the film- made, after all, in 1977, thirty plus years after the dodginess of eugenics was very clearly shown- is to the novel. But it seems, on the face of it, to be a fascinating little look at the ethics of science, of eugenics, of reactions to the idea of evolution, which reminds one that the original novella was published but thirteen years after The Origin of Species.
There's a small main cast. The fairly elderly Burt Lancaster has real presence as the charismatic and chippy scientist, exiled from the academy to an island where he is boss and there are no ethical naysayers- certainly not the drunken and cynical mercenary Montgomery, or the mysterious and trophy-like Maria, who seems very much the token female. Into this comes the young Michael York, more D'Artagnan than Basil, shipwrecked and stuck on this island and acting as the eyes, ears and conscience of the audience- and yet, fascinatingly, when we first see him he performs his own ethically dodgy act in pushing a dying fellow survivor from a boat into the sea. That's a fascinating writing choice.
We gradually discover what Moreau is up to, undisturbed by Harvard's prying eyes- injecting animals and turning them into semi-human beast men in a quest to find ways to cure human ailments- what no one in 1896 would have called genetic experimentation. Such ethical areas, while not quite so dramatic, are an increasing part of life today and it's fascinating to see such ideas discussed by Wells so soon after natural selection was promulgated- although here it's assumed that, rather simply being the fact of the best random mutations passing on advantages, which over geological time causes differentiation of species, there is some kind of directional purpose to evolution, with humans at the top of the scale. This is, of course, not necessarily true, and nor is there any kind of barrier between humans and other animals- when Moreau turns Braddock into an animal towards the end he's not imparting any quality that he didn't already possess.
Nevertheless, this is an excellent and thought-provoking drama of ideas- not only of the above but of laws and justice-, with excellent acting and script, including the splendid line "You've been drinking for two days, Montgomery. I suggest you continue". A quietly superb film if you like yur science fiction to be about ideas as well as explosions.
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