Dir. Erle C. Kenton
Drinking tea is synonymous with being British. It's a stereotype, but some stereotypes have roots in truth, which is the case with this one. There are sayings like 'Not for all the tea in China', which funnily enough is Australian in origin. But who sent the first criminals to Australia? Britain of course. Dr. Moreau (Charles Laughton) is British, and certainly enjoys his lemon tea. This fact by itself means nothing, it's only when we know what type of man Dr. Moreau is that this act becomes something more.
Moreau, if you are unaware, is a pioneering scientist into the rapid-evolution of plants, and the transformation of animals such as apes, panthers, and lions, into men. Or at least, this is his goal. In the film he has been experimenting on his private island for over ten years, failing to create true men from beasts, instead creating beast-men, grotesque half creatures that need The Law to stop them from killing and eating meat, thus returning to their primitive origins and behaviour. Moreau's experiments on animals had him expelled from his native England, yet his manner is English. He speaks softly, wears suits, and yes, drinks lemon tea.
His civilized manner is of course, ironic, as he is as monstrous as the things he creates, if not more so. The so-called 'House of Pain', where he vivisects animals to turn them into his man-creatures, echoes with the human screams of fear and pain. He doesn't anesthetize his animals, he doesn't care. He created Lola (Kathleen Burke), or The Panther Woman, a near-perfect human female from panther origins. He plans to have the visitor to his island, Edward Parker (Richard Arlen), sleep with Lola, with the hope that she is a 'true woman' who can become a mother. He doesn't care for her interests, despite the fact that she clearly has sentient, relatively intelligent thought.
Moreau calmly tells Parker as he stirs his tea that Lola is his most perfect creation so-far, and his intentions to have Parker elope with her. Laughton utterly sells this performance. Scheming, yet softly spoken, as if discussing a horse-race or some other English pursuit. He clearly has pride in his work, and is blind to the horror that he has inflicted and created in the other beast-men. The ends completely justify the means for Moreau, as he later shows that the failed experiments are used as slave-labour to power the island. Parker can only take so much and punches Moreau, spilling the carefully made tea, and knocking over the china.
Parker, the American, comes as a brute-force reminder of moral justice. I'm not saying that being American means you are morally superior, but there is an undercurrent in this American-made film of lashing back at the colonial British. This is somewhat ironic as America was begun by British colonists but we all know that sordid history. The fact that Moreau can continue to enjoy his tea despite his vile experiments show that he is the worst of the English. Let's not forget that even in the story, Moreau went too far for English society, ostracized from his home country. I'd like to say that Moreau is simply a horrible man, regardless of origin, but the way Kenton chooses to frame the scene, outfit Laughton, and in fact, cast him to begin with, creates this sense of colonial Britain repeating, nay, evolving in every sense of the word the atrocities of it's domineering, and in fact, uncivilized actions. I hate to call the tea a symbol but I can't think of any other way of describing it. Even the fact that it's lemon tea brings to mind this sense of British classism, especially of the upper-class, who were the ones to colonise the world. Hell, even in World War II there's somewhat-true myths of British soldiers refusing to advance on the enemy until they had a tea-break. The contrast of brutality, war, and here genetic experimentation, splicing, and vivisection with a 'civilized' cup of tea is clear, and really hammers home how the most civilized, can in fact be the least, the worst monsters of them all.
P.S On a more lighthearted note, The Simpsons do a brilliant parody of The Island of Lost Souls, you can see a clip of The Island of Dr. Hibbert here.
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