SINNERS IN PARADISE (1938) Madge Evens, John Boles & Bruce Cabot | Adventure, Drama, Romance | B&W

Sinners in Paradise is a 1938 American south seas adventure film directed by James Whale and starring Madge Evans, John Boles, Bruce Cabot, Marion Martin and Gene Lockhart. In 1966, the film entered the public domain in the United States because the claimants did not renew its copyright registration in the 28th year after publication.

SYNOPSIS
A passenger aircraft crashes in mid-Pacific and some of the survivors reach an island inhabited only by an American, Jim Taylor, with his Chinese servant, Ping. He declines to help them, telling them to build their own shelter and gather their own food and, though he has a boat and fuel, refusing to take them off. The reason why he wants to remain undisturbed, we learn, is that he is wanted for murder. In time his attitude to the intruders softens as they, despite endless bickering, manage to form a working community and he finds himself increasingly drawn to an attractive young nurse, Anne Wesson, who is running away from her husband.

A seaplane departs for China. On board are a nurse escaping a loveless marriage to do work with refugees, a woman hoping to surprise her estranged son, a wealthy heiress trying to distance herself from labor troubles, an oily politician, a moll and a mobster fleeing the wrath of the gangs they've double-crossed, two rival munitions salesmen out to cash in on the misery of war, and a fresh-faced young steward. Caught in a course-altering storm, a crash-landing destroys the plane, kills the plane's officers, and tosses the surviving passengers into the sea. They are washed ashore on an isolated island inhabited solely by mysteriously reclusive Mr. Taylor and his servant, Ping. Until Taylor decides if, how and when he will allow them to take his boat back to China for help, this disparate band must work together, change their self-centered ways, and examine their motives for wanting to escape from the island and their pasts.

CAST & CREW
Madge Evans as Anne Wesson
John Boles as Jim Taylor
Bruce Cabot as Robert Malone aka The Torpedo
Marion Martin as Iris Compton
Gene Lockhart as Sen. Corey
Charlotte Wynters as Thelma Chase
Nana Bryant as Mrs. Franklin Sydney
Milburn Stone as Honeyman
Don 'Red' Barry as Jessup (as Donald Barry)
Morgan Conway as Harrison Brand
Willie Fung as Ping

Directed by James Whale
Screenplay by Lester Cole, Harold Buckley, Louis Stevens
Story by Harold Buckley
Produced by Ken Goldsmith
Cinematography George Robinson
Edited by Maurice Wright
Production company James Whale Productions
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release date May 19, 1938
Running time 65 minutes
Country United States
Language English