Traquées par les Japs

Patricia Owens is a fine actress and very pretty, but after the late 1950s, she either made bad choices or was given the lousy movies nobody else wanted. I sat through 7 Women from Hell because I thought her acting chops would be utilized, but it felt like a college production.

Patricia and a group of women are captured in New Guinea at the start of WWII and sent to a Japanese prison camp. The guards aren't nice to them, the men are separated and sent to a different camp, the food is inedible, and there's an attempted rape that involves and intense physical struggle. It's a total copy of Three Came Home, even down to the "She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain" song that isn't nearly as effective in this movie as in the original. This version is really cheap, so you're better off sticking with the original. You don't believe for a minute Patricia or her friends are in a prison camp, from their endless attitude towards their captors that would undoubtedly earn them beatings or death in real life, to their salon-style hairdos that never get disheveled. And if you're waiting for Cesar Romero or John Kerr to show up, you're bound to be disappointed. John only has about five minutes of screen time, and Cesar doesn't show up until the last ten minutes.

This Fox Cinemascope feature bridges the gap between the women in prison flicks of the 1950s and the AIP Women In Cages cycle of the 70s. There's rape, torture, and large breasts straining against tight tops---but only in moderation. Seven women--most of them looking like refugees from, oh, 1961 rather than the wartime Philippines--find themselves at the mercy of the merciless Imperial Japanese Army and endeavour to escape the clutches of the fiendish Orientals, personified best by Richard Loo in the scenery-chewing role of the ruthless sergeant in charge of the prison camp. Cesar Romero shows up for the final reel in what turns out to be a most unsatisying ending. The film looks good thanks to Floyd Crosby's camera work but is let down by a weak script and incredibly poor costuming, make-up, and (in most cases) acting.

A group of women from different walks of life were captured by the Janpanese army during WW II and separated from their husbands and boyfriends.

All these women soon learned that the Japanese army was very cruel in their treatment of women and expected the gals to bow upon greeting and leaving their presences.

All the women tried to escape on many occasions and failed and were punished by beatings and torture methods. There was plenty of action and even some romance was created by veteran actor Cesar Romero who had a great way of charming the ladies.

There was even time for humor and you will never guess how this film ends. Enjoy.

War drama and women in prison movie directed by Robert Webb (The Glory Brigade) and written by the Laskys (Pirates of Tortuga, from the same). Grace (Patricia Owens, Hell to Eternity) is an Australian ornithologist working for a scientific expedition in the Australian Territory of Papua in February 1942. But as the war has begun, a Japanese patrol arrests her brutally and takes her to a prisoner camp with other women from Allied countries.

In the camp are gathered there Mara (Margia Dean, Savage Drums), a distinguished American, Claire (Denise Darcel, Vera Cruz), a popular French woman, Anna (Sylvia Daneel, Danger - A Shadow on the Sand), a Dutch whom disliked husband has been shot by the Japanese, Janet (Yvonne Craig, Eighteen and Anxious), a pregnant American wife whom husband is also prisoner, Regan (Evadne Baker, Shock Treatment), who doesn't want to submit, and Mai-Lu, a Christian native woman working for the Australian Medical Mission.

While the camp commander, captain Oda (Bob Okazaki, Jungle Heat), is rather comprehensive, the women become victim from the sadistic sergeant Takahashi (Richard Loo, Flight for Freedom) and his guards (among them, Lloyd Kino, The Wackiest Ship in the Army, and Kam Fong, Ghost of the China Sea). As Grace manages to become friend with the humanist doctor Matsumo (Yuki Shinoda, Midway), whom Japanese family is itself prisoner in an internment camp in America, she plans to escape with the others through the Papuan jungle.

Will Grace and her friends manage to flee from the Japanese troops and their abuses? Will they manage to survive in the jungle and reach the Allied liberated settlement of Gona? Shall the men they'll encounter, the US pilot Bill (John Kerr, South Pacific), and the Argentinian planter Luis (Cesar Romero, Donovan's Reef), be reliable to help them in their journey? This pleasant movie shot in Hawaii, featuring courageous women, and which reminds in some way the former and good Claudette Colbert's Three Came Home, should retain the attention and sympathy of the public.

This movie starts off with women of different nationalities being captured by the Japanese in New Guinea at the start of World War 2 and sent to a concentration camp in the jungle. While there they are forced to do manual labor and are given very little to eat. When an allied air patrol strafes the compound their rations are cut even further. Then, after a guard tries to rape one of them, six of them escape into the jungle. One woman named "Mara Shepherd" (Margia Dean) is caught almost immediately afterward and is crucified in front of the remaining prisoners as a lesson. The remaining five face imminent danger and possible recapture by the Japanese as they try to find safety. Anyway, rather than disclose what happens next and risk spoiling the movie for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this is a mediocre film in the "Women in Prison" genre which is watchable enough but isn't quite able to convey the horror and brutality women in this situation surely had to endure. There is no sex, nudity or graphic language and even the violence is toned down to a certain degree. But the acting is sufficient and there are a few attractive women, specifically Patricia Owens (as "Grace Ingram"), Yvonne Craig ("Janet Cook") and Pilar Seurat ("Mai-Lu Ferguson") to brighten the screen. All things considered then I give this movie a rating of average.