#Battle of blood island film plot movie#

Even by the standards of yellowface casting вЂ“ common at the time вЂ“ these are offensive caricatures, but theyвЂ™re also so absurd that they break up the prevailing grim tone of the whole thing. Charles Tingwell is the most stalwart and credible as the prisonersвЂ™ CO, but the film is detoured into camp вЂ“ and, fifty years on, into near-unrevivable obscurity вЂ“ by the casting of white actors with sing-song accents, rubber eyelids and pantomime villain poses as the Japanese villains: Patrick Wymark as the nasty commandant, Michael Ripper promoted from anonymous goon to prissy fiend as the sadistic corporal and (perhaps worst of all) David Saire as the ranting secret policeman in dark glasses and business suit.

The premise is that Elaine has to be hidden by the ragged prisoners of a Malayan work camp in 1944, though there are waverers in the hut вЂ“ an embittered misogynist Irishman (Edwin Richfield) with facial scars tries to вЂkissвЂ™ her and a gutless bloke (Peter Welch) who keeps wittering on about his wife and four kids (as it happens, dead in the blitz) is always on he point of blabbing to the guards. ItвЂ™s among HammerвЂ™s most horrific films, with a cheery tealeaf (Bill Owen) and a likable Jew (Lee Montague) suffering protracted whippings, several major characters machine-gunned in the guts, the two major villains getting off scot-free and hero Sgt Crewe (Jack Hedley) dying with his eyes open and gore all over his face in an only marginally hopeful finish as downed spy Elaine aka Bill (Barbara Shelley) driving off in a stolen jeep supposedly to aid Chinese partisans in one of those missions which could turn the tide of the Pacific War.

#Battle of blood island film plot movie#

The Camp on Blood Island was a considerable hit for Hammer in 1958, though it took a few years to get round to delivering a (semi) sequel вЂ“ with this last gasp of HammerвЂ™s gruesome war movie cycle (later, they considered casting Peter Cushing as a SS bastard in one of their famous unmade projects).

My notes on HammerвЂ™s The Secret of Blood Island (aka P.O.W.) (1965)