L'évadé de l'Île du Diable

If they had released this movie in Britain, it would have likely become one of the infamous video nasties. It has all the elements: low production costs, natives in various stages of undress, animal abuse, shark attacks, cannibalism, torture.

It just didn't really cross the line, however. The torture was not overtly explicit, the cannibals were never shown eating their victims, the undress was not excessive.

If it had come out a month later and starred Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, instead of Jim Brown and Christopher George, they might have named it Papillon, and given it an Oscar or Golden Globe nomination. But, this is a Roger Corman production, so it is the R rated version of Papillon.

Paul Richards, as Major Marteau, the head of Devil's Island, gave the best line after they tortured a woman to get information on the escaped prisoners: "She doesn't know any more. Anything else would be lies." He knew even then the uselessness of water-boarding.

Great ending!

I Escaped from Devil's Island (1973)

** (out of 4)

This exploitation film from Roger and Gene Corman beat PAPILLON to theaters by a month and features Jim Brown and Christopher George playing prisoners on Devils Island who plan an escape to get away from the sadistic guards. They duo end up on an island with many beautiful women but soon enough the prison guards come calling. I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND is somewhat entertaining for the fifty-minutes or so but once we're out of the prison things really slow down and the second half of the film is a major chore to sit through. Veteran director William Witney does a pretty good job at making this low-budget film look like it had higher production values than you know it had. The first portion of the film inside the prison features all sorts of silly violence dealing with the prisoners being beaten, thrown in the hot box and various other items that we've seen in countless prison movies. This remains somewhat fun as both Brown and George are such enjoyable actors that you can get caught up with them and this helps the film move a little bit. Fans of the two actors will probably want to sit through this even though the end result isn't as good as you're going to hope. Brown has no problems playing the tough guy and there's plenty of action built around him. George plays a political prisoner who is against violence and the two actors really work well together and build up some nice chemistry. The problem in the second half of the film is simply the fact that nothing entertaining happens. We see the men fight, argue, fight some more and it just grows tiresome after a while. The exploitation level really needed to be pumped up in the second half as did the energy because the film pretty much just runs out of gas.

Not a totally wretched film, as I had expected, but pretty boring nonetheless. Should actually be "We escaped..." since its Jim Brown, Christopher George, and a couple others that do escape [no spoiler, it happens, without incident in the first 30 minutes]. And what I really mean by that is that its difficult to tell [until the bitter end] who the focal character was. Has some interesting Marxist/Communist subplot, that gets buried under the rug after they escape. Let's see...you also get a really disappointing Shark attack, a leper colony cameo, Jim Brown falls in love[!] and an exotica Les Baxter score! Looks like it was filmed in Mexico by the Cormans.

So basically, the title gives it all away. Interestingly enough, check out director William Witney's career! Geez! and Darktown Stutters!!! Well, why couldnt he have made this that fun?? I escaped from Colonel Sander's Chicken Fryer?!?!

Straying from his usual racially-driven blaxploitation, Jim Brown in I ESCAPED FROM DEVIL'S ISLAND is not only pure exploitation, attempting to bank on the popularity of the novel turned adapted motion picture PAPILLON about a French prisoner who escapes this movie's titular island, but it's practically an outright remake...

Jim Brown has the Steve McQueen part, strong, brave, and escape-minded while the weak-link Dustin Hoffman sidekick part goes to Christopher George, a passive progressive that Brown has to carry (while semi-strong arms Robert Phillips and James Luisi both fill Woodrow Palfrey's middleman shoes), and, starting from the beach-set makeshift prison, where brutal guard Richard Rust (UNDERWORLD USA) reigns, there's even a resilient homosexual escapee...

The budget is excruciatingly low, almost a no-budget indie, resembling more of PAPILLON author Henri Charrière's 1971 heist-flick THE BUTTERFLY AFFAIR, each being nearly impossible to see the actors or their actions at night -- although much of this initial escape's under bright sunlight, lying on familiar makeshift-coconut rafts: which ends the McQueen feature and is the center-piece here (meanwhile a stock footage manipulated shark attack is included)...

Thereafter, much of the rather sluggish adventure takes place in what's intended as the jungles of Venezuela (actually shot in Acapulco, funded by producer Roger Corman) where, like McQueen, Brown's given his own Indian girl for sex and a cozy hut... even better than the criminal life in homeland France, which -- during the 11th hour at a colorful carnival - only Christopher George yearns for, but not without Brown's further assistance, doing his usual action-blasting thing, and even a nostalgic football tackle in what seems more fun to have filmed than to actually watch -- after all, who wouldn't rather work in the tropics than the slums?

I saw this way back in 1983 when it was shown late one night on television , and I`m talking network televison in those days you didn`t have satillite or cable at least not in Britain where we were confined to a total of 4 channels. And the most shocking thing was that it contained very strong language , back then very very few films shown on television had swearing left intact but here it was untouched which was amazing when nearly every sentence contains the word " F*** " though much of the gore and gay sex seems to have been edited ( And badly edited at that ) for transmission especially a shark attack scene where it cuts to a shark fin then cuts to a man waving his bloody stump at the camera then cuts to a couple of fingers floating about the water , very strange and I ESCAPED FROM DEVILS ISLAND also has that low budget production value feel seen so often in video nasties that I can`t help feel that it in unedited form it would would be classed as a video nasty .

Despite its flaws it`s a lot of fun , I can put my hand on heart and say I enjoyed it far more than PAPILLION and we get to see a sadistic guard who calls homosexuals bad names while twisting their nipples . Can`t get more sadistic than that