The Camp on Blood Island

Val Guest was one of the most prominent directors to worked for Hammer Films, only surpassed by Terence Fisher, although his visionary and most outstanding work, «The Day the Earth Caught Fire», was made outside that production company.

It was Guest who, with his international hit «The Quatermass Xperiment» (1955), pointed Hammer on the profitable path of "cinéma fantastique." However, apart from this film and its sequel «Quatermass 2,» Guest did not return to horror, not even when he made «The Abominable Snowman,» a good drama that he kept on a more philosophical and mystical plane, away from frights.

Before finding a more viable breakthrough to mainstream cinema with «Expresso Bongo» (1959), produced by his own company, Guest made for Hammer psychological dramas, thrillers and the war diptych consisting of «The Camp on Bloody Island» (1958) and «Yesterday's Enemy» (1959), a kind of war claim made to Japan, through cinema.

«The Camp on Bloody Island» was a box office success that consolidated the distribution of Hammer products through the American company Columbia Pictures; which addressed, 13 years after the end of World War II, the mistreatment received by British prisoners of war in a Japanese prison, located in the fictional Blood Island, on the former British colony of Malaysia. By then Columbia was preparing the release of a movie with a similar theme, «The Bridge on the River Kwai» by David Lean, which garnered attention and awards, but this did not prevent the Hammer production, despite devastating criticism, from being a hit. «The Camp on Bloody Island» was bolstered by the best-selling novelization of the script by John Manchip White and Guest.

Inspired by real events, the film of course took the "Hammer-style" way, with scenes of violence and sensational effects to impress the audience, and a little bit of eroticism. Of both films, this is the most dynamic, with the action taking place in two main locations, a prison for British soldiers and a diplomat, and another for women; but from the dramatic point of view, it is the weakest. The script delineates the characters with a few strokes and all the credibility falls on the actors' backs.

In the case of the British, the balance is fortunate, in particular, with the work of André Morell, as the leader of the prisoners, who tries to hide information from the Japanese, boycotting their communication system, to stay alive. However, for the Japanese roles... Hammer did whatever it took to achieve its purpose, including casting the magnificent Indian character actor Marne Maitland as a Japanese villain. Of course, Maitland, as always, is the most wicked villain, with a squeaky little voice, which makes him meaner. I could not help but smile at the sight of dear old Marne, who I have seen in so many movies, squinting his eyes!

These two small, low-budget and effective films, in addition to the remarkable films that I knew and mentioned at the beginning of these notes, have increased the esteem that I already had for Val Guest's work.

While not as good as the one poster comments, it is by no means as bad as the other reviewer says. Yes, there is some shoddy make-up of the Japanese guards, but if you can ignore that you will find the story itself is good enough to carry the film. A group of Allied p.o.w.s are in a camp controlled by a less than friendly commander. He shoots prisoners for sport and works the rest to death in a local mine. He has also let it be known that if Japan loses the war he will kill all the prisoners. The p.o.w.s find out the war has ended and stage a revolt with homemade weapons and some grenades they had hidden at the bottom of a latrine. Not a world winner but an OK time-waster.

G.G.

The links with "Bridge on the River Kwai" go further than just the Japanese prison-camp setting and the presence of Andre Morell; there is the same theme of the commanding officer whose behaviour seems increasingly unreasonable in the face of the prisoners' privations, the lone American contrasted with the starved Commonwealth soldiers, and a morally ambiguous ending. In some ways this Hammer production suffers less from political compromise, not being required to introduce an American leading actor for the benefit of the US box office, but it has to be said that whatever flaws may exist in David Lean's film, "The Camp on Blood Island" is ultimately no competition. It's a decent and sometimes brave picture (even the women are shown hounding the suspected collaborator in their midst) but it doesn't hold the same seeds of greatness.

There is some fine acting on display, both from the actors playing the Japanese, who convey a sense of alien culture without becoming ridiculous, and those portraying the physically drained and starving prisoners: the opening shots of the young man struggling to dig his own grave are actively disturbing, both for his apparent emaciation and for his dragging movements of utter collapse. Andre Morell, of course, dominates the film as the obstinate and authoritarian Colonel Lambert, and in a sense the plot structure consists of gradually justifying his seemingly unreasonable behaviour -- but it is not that simplistic, and the revelation of the final consequences of his decisions (was it, ultimately, all unnecessary?) leaves a note of deliberate ambiguity.

The prisoners in the women's camp are, perhaps inevitably, shown as rather more glamorous than their male counterparts, with their fetching dishevelment a token gesture towards the starvation and illness stated in the script. Barbara Shelley, playing Kate, does appear rather too healthy in her close-ups for the degree of weakness and collapse she is supposed to portray during her escape. But unsurprisingly this is a male-dominated film, and all the really intriguing characters are male. Lambert himself, and the fretful diplomat Beattie, chafing under what he sees as the military mishandling of their situation. Father Paul, jeopardising his life and his cloth to pass messages via the medium of the funeral Mass. The former planter Van Elst, driven to repeated risky sabotage.

For a film that was condemned on release for its 'orgy of atrocities', "The Camp on Blood Island" is actually quite restrained in what is implied, let alone shown on screen: the horrors and Japanese 'bestiality' are as much psychological, based on petty humiliation and anticipation, as anything else. This is not torture porn -- the worst that we see is machine-gunning, plus one clean beheading. ("Bridge on the River Kwai" actually goes further in this respect.) But there is never any doubt that the prisoners' situation is horrific, and that ultimately they are prepared to throw lives away in a desperate attempt at group survival.

I will put this movie between BRIDGES OVER THE KAWAI RIVER and KING RAT. This one is of course less spectacular and known than the David Lean's movie but it is so powerful, especially for the opening scene, with this skeleton human being - a prisoner - cold bloody shot by Japanese guards after this poor man has dug his own grave. The tone was then done. And I would have never expected to see a so skinny actor playing in a movie, as if he was really a real starved Japanese camp POW. However the other actors - except Andre Morell - seem a bit too good fed for me. British movie industry provided such good films between late fifties and early sixties about war in the Far East: THE LONG, THE SHORT AND THE TALL, YESTERDAY'S ENEMY - from the same Val Guest, by the way.

Having waited years to see this film I was astounded just how bad it is, a Hammer production that has pure cockneys playing Japanese guards!, the acting verges on the utterly bad to utterly impossible!,take for instance long time Hammer fave Michael Ripper who as a Japanese guard bursts out laughing every time he is in a scene, the head guard who is clearly of Indian origin is another badly cast member, the commander of the camp is also another British actor hamming it up, I thought they had wandered off set from an Alladin pantomime!, the premise for all the controversy that it was brutal beyond belief had me scratching my head, i've seen worse in a Tom & Jerry cartoon.