Sono fuggito dall'isola del diavolo

This film beat 'Papillon' to the box office by a month: A typical Corman attempt to get a jump on the bigger competition. As for the film, it's a pile of swill stirred by hack William Witney and featuring ever-wooden Jim Brown as one of the four escapees. Lots of beatings and sniggering over homosexuals while in the penal colony, then, after the escape, a required pit stop at the leper village (also featured in 'Papillon') followed by Indian native assaults, some breast baring (even full-frontal) local gals, and a lame finale involving fireworks. Funniest aspect is having Brown stubbornly refusing to continue running because he keeps falling for the first local gal he latches onto. Still, a cheesy, sleazy piece of junk only for the easily entertained.

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.

There are many stories arising from the infamous and nightmarish prison on French Guiana. This film, " I escaped From Devil's Island " is one of them. If one is not too critical, which is easy, then the movie is good entertainment as it's got several ingredients of a plausible and brutal prison scenario. It has harsh treatment, unconscionable deaths and the social turmoil of a savage structure gone wild. Still, it endeavors to please. The star of the film is acclaimed athlete Jim Brown who plays Labras, which is strange as he is listed on the IMDb board as a minor player. He and Christopher George, Richard Ely and James Luisi execute an escape which is desperate and clumsy at best. With Major Marteau (Paul Richards) chasing them from the island to the mainland, makes for exciting pursuit. In addition the pretty sexy local distractions they meet along the way, proves that brief nudity might make up for a lackluster script. As a result and despite the convoluted story which lacks necessary elements, the movie ends up becoming a poor-man's Papillon. Nevertheless, I think it tries hard to entertain and I would give it an 'A' for effort. ***

I saw this at 1 am Saturday on this TV out of Indianapolis and couldn't tape, tiVO or DVD it, so I stayed up to watch.

I liked the rough, LOW budget Corman style of this movie without the "composition and mannered shots" of the big budget Papillon with McQueen and Hoffman.

You could feel the roughness, smell, and atmosphere of being in prison in the middle of nowhere. The pig skinning was very realistic as was the language and full nudity.

This is not Camp Granada.

James Luisi goes on to become the constipated Lt. Doug Chapman in Rockford Files and Christopher George becomes an action cop on Hawaii five-O.

James Brown is the lead, but absent in the top of credits on IMDb, and Corman utilizes this low budget action star who was in many low budget films to interesting effect.

The guards, the brutality, the hopelessness... are all there in the French prison.

It almost feels like a documentary through the kinetic energy and cutting of the movie.

I really like Corman's attitude of "get 'er done" way before it became a catch phrase.

Enjoy.

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!