The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942)

The mad doctor Benson pays a destitute man $1,000 to be the first human subject of his regeneration experiments. When the man dies, Dr. Benson boards a liner headed to New Zealand to escape police search. The ship catches fire and sinks. In a life boat Benson and five survivors land on a tropical island. He brings the apparently dead wife of the native chief back to life and is pronounced a god by the natives. Benson has the lifeboat burned and tells his fellow survivors he intends to use them as subjects of his further experiments.