Hell's Island

Hell's Island is a 1955 American film noir directed by Phil Karlson starring John Payne and Mary Murphy. The film was shot in the VistaVision wide-screen format. Hell's Island was re-released in 1962 under the title South Sea Fury. The working titles of this film were Love Is a Weapon and The Ruby Virgin. The film is told as a flashback with Payne narrating the story. After being dumped by his fiancée, hard-drinking and depressed Mike Cormack (Payne) loses his job in the Los Angeles district attorney's office and serves as a bouncer in a Las Vegas casino. A wheelchair-bound stranger, Barzland (Francis L. Sullivan), hires him to locate a ruby that disappeared in a Caribbean plane crash. He lures Cormack into doing the job by telling him it may be in the possession of the very woman who jilted him, Janet Martin (Murphy), who is now married to the pilot of the downed plane. The ex-detective flies to remote Santo Rosario to find the stone and investigate the mystery. When he finds his old flame, her husband is in prison. Cormack, again falling for Janet, is coaxed into helping him break out of jail. Her husband shocks Mike by revealing Janet sabotaged his plane, causing its crash, out to collect on his life insurance. Janet also double-crosses Mike, who discovers she has killed a man and has the ruby. Barzland returns but plunges to his death, and Mike watches the police take Janet away to jail. Source: Wikipedia -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell%27s_Island

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