This is the story of the unrelenting escape in 1916 , the French prisoners (Jim Brown , Christopher George , both of whom giving the necessary chemical , and Richard Ely) sent to the horrendous and impenetrable prison establishment in French Guiana from which their attempts to getaway lead them with various periods at solitary imprisonment and dark confinement at the impregnable Devil Island . They suffer a great number distresses , tortures and horrible incidents carried out by the heinous wardens , as Christopher George being extremely mistreated , along with his fellow prisoner Jim Brown . Cruelty , brutality and favouritism are rife , prisoners are prepared to rat on each other . As they execute a risked escape , being mercilessly pursued by a villain Major and his underlings , but they never gives up . The hard-rock starring try a series of escapes , but they are always recaptured . The punishments will terrible and developed in graphic realism , including guillotine . And adding a perfunctory and non-sense ending . No man ever escaped this prison... until now ! He's the devil they named the island for! No man ever broke this prison! No prison ever broke this man!
The simple , plain and known script deals with a group of prisoners plot their escape from the notorious jail located on the beach , in Devil's island , French Guiana . Free and indirectly based on Henri Charriere bestselling epic about life imprisonment in a French penal colony . Tiring , rather than uninspired story, being complemented with nasty events , mistreats , harassing and horrendous tortures. As the title suggests the movie is very much on the level of those old Matinee and true adventure tales . However, it might have been a more powerful and provoking document against the wrongful, monstruous ,-and nowadays departed- system of indicts . Life after breakout looks like a rejected draft of the other movie , as the First Part concerns prison life that is painted in sufficient graphic terms , including political agitation and an aura of overinsistent homosexuality ; Second Part adding the following ones : shark attack with bloody gore , an encounter with lepers , a tumble with a native woman and an equally silly finale , full of fireworks . This Roger/Gene Corman production unlike Papillon , at least adopts the right approach , plenty of brutality , unrelieved crudeness , relentless machismo , exploitation , thrills , and violence. The picture is passable , but the yarn's strong doses of exploitation , bad acting and lousy edition are somehow hard to swallow . It is freely based on Henri Charriere's novel , adapted in the classy Papillon 1973 by Franklyn J Schaffner, starred by Steve McQueen , Dustin Hoffman , Victor Jory , Don Gordon , Anthony Zerbe . And a new recent version 2017 with Charlie Hunnam , Rami Malik , York van Wageningen , Christopher Fairfank , Michelle Forbes and brief acting by Tommy Flannagan . The hit of Henri Charrière's bestseller "Papillon" and Franklyn J. Schaffner rendition prompted brothers : Roger Corman and Gene Corman to finance a more exploitative version, this ¨I escaped from Devil's Island¨. Papillon's financers attempted unsuccessfully pursuit and condemn them for copyright infringement ; nevertheless , they were never properly allowed to file the case .
It packs an atmospheric and stirring musical score by Lex Baxter , Corman's ordinary . As well as a colorful cinematography by Rosalio Solano , being shot on location in Mexico . The movie was crudely and regularly directed by William Witney , containing a few vigorous scenes , though with no originally , because being a simple copy of the former film Papillon . Witney was a good craftsman who directed 140 titles from the 30s . Oklahoma-born William began his long screen career as a studio messenger in silent days joining Republic Pictures shortly after . By 1936 , he was already script supervisor on serials and his own directorial career started the following year . Witney graduated to director at 21, he was Hollywood's youngest , and he teamed with director John English on many of the period's best serials . He realized many of the era's best serials , most of them highlighted by kinetic fight and chase scenes that helped change the face of action movie-making and from 1956 , he transferred these stirring energies to TV Westerns with prolific and enjoyable results . The favorite shooting was the 1939 serial ¨Zorro's fighting legion¨ . As his pictures were mainly serials , after WWII service with US Marines , he moved on to Roy Rogers Westerns , inserting into them a new tough backbone that offended some Rogers purists . In 1954 he made one of the best films ¨The outcast¨ with John Derek . William Witney made lots of Westerns, such as : ¨Shadows of Tombstone¨ , ¨Heart of Rockies¨, ¨Border saddlemate¨, ¨Bells of Coronado¨, ¨North of the Great Divide¨, ¨The Trigger trio¨, ¨The painted stallion¨, ¨The lone ranger¨, ¨Home in Oklahoma¨, ¨On the Old Spanish Trail¨, ¨High Time in Nevada¨, ¨Gay ranchero¨, ¨Helldorado¨, ¨Bells of san Angelo¨,¨ Trail of Robin Hood¨, ¨Trigger Jr¨ , ¨Twilight in the sierra¨, ¨The Golden Stallion¨, ¨Roll on Texas moon¨, ¨Red Ryder¨, ¨Down Dakota way¨, ¨Eyes of Texas¨, ¨Grand Canyon trail¨, ¨King of Texas Ranger¨, among others . Besides his television work which includes some quite exciting episodes of such series as ¨High Chaparral¨, ¨Bonanza¨, ¨Laramie¨, ¨Zorro¨, ¨The Virginian¨ and ¨Wagon train¨ and he followed to work for cinema and was capable of making large-scale movies as ¨Santa Fe Passage¨ involving a wagon train against Indians , ¨The Bonnie Parker story¨about the famous gun-moll , and specially ¨Master of the world¨ . Rating : 4.5/10 , average . The flick will appeal to prison genre fans and adventure buffs . However , no exactly recommended , unless you misspent your youth .
