Saturday, March 14, 2015

Escape from Hell Island (1963)

Escape from Hell Island is not a good movie. Besides that even its name is problematic, especially given the way its three act structure plays out. Now presumably Hell Island is Cuba, which the films hero Capt.. James (Mark Stevens) helps a number of people escape from in the first half hour of the movie. However the movie then goes on for an additional 50 minutes, including a stay on Key West  which Capt. James eventually leaves to sail a ship to Bermuda. So might Key West also be considered a potential Hell Island? I mean the Capt. leaves there on a boat, and I suppose the drinks there are overpriced and that might be something worth escaping from. The bad guy (Jack Donner) later takes over Jim's boat, so in a sense the boat becomes a Hell Island? It's so confusing. Perhaps the movie should be called Fleeing the Islands of Hell, or even Beyond Escape from Hell Island. However even with a name correction you'd still be left with what for the most part is a very weak movie, with only one really satisfactory sequence, the standoff for the boat at the end. So maybe watching the last 20 minutes of this might be worth your time, over all though *1/2.

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