The Secret of Blood Island is a 1965 British war film directed by Quentin Lawrence and starring Jack Hedley, Barbara Shelley and Patrick Wymark.
The film is a prequel to the 1958 film The Camp on Blood Island.
Premise
British Prisoners of War help a wounded female agent, Elaine, to escape the Japanese during the Second World War.
Main cast
Jack Hedley as Sergeant John Crewe
Barbara Shelley as Elaine
Patrick Wymark as Major Jocomo
Charles Tingwell as Major Dryden
Bill Owen as George Bludgin
Peter Welch as Richardson
Michael Ripper as Lieutenant Tojoko
Peter Welch as Richardson
Lee Montague as Levy
Edwin Richfield as Tom O'Reilly
Glyn Houston as Berry
David Saire as Kempi Chief
Philip Latham as Captain Drake
Ian Whittaker as Mills
John Southworth as Leonard
Peter Craze as Red
Henry Davies as Taffy
Production
According to TV Guide, the film was shot in Eastmancolor and released that way in Britain, but the U.S. prints were in black & white.
Reception
The film was not as well received as Camp of Blood Island. Michael Ripper later said, " “I thought the story was very dodgy. I don't give a damn how hungry you are, if you haven't seen a bird in four years, or whatever it was, she'd have been stampeded, wouldn’t she? Somebody must have had the strength. I don't believe the story at all, but I must admit I had a good part in it."
The Monthly Film Bulletin called it a "grotesquely inefficient melodrama." The Guardian called it "nasty".
TV Guide called the film "fairly silly". The Radio Times called it "lurid but fairly enjoyable."