Die Piraten am Todesfluss (1962)
47KDie Piraten am Todesfluss: Directed by John Gilling. With Kerwin Mathews, Glenn Corbett, Christopher Lee, Peter Arne. A group of ruthless pirates attack a seventeenth century Huguenot settlement on the Isle of Devon in search of treasure and will stop at nothing to obtain it.
“THE PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER, a 1962 swashbuckler from Hammer Studios, is one of their lesser outings. You can put this down to Jimmy Sangsteru0026#39;s lacklustre story and the lack of a decent budget, which substitutes British locations for the tropics and doesnu0026#39;t even include a pirate ship (apart from in an opening stock shot).u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOf course, those of us who enjoy B-movie fare will no doubt enjoy the spectacle of some nondescript British woodland standing in for a more exotic locale – adding a single fern leaf into the shot and a couple of pot plants isnu0026#39;t doing much to fool the viewer! At least it helps take the vieweru0026#39;s mind off the plot, which after a decent first half hour soon descends into repetitive inanity.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eKerwin Matthews (THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD) stars as the youthful, romantic hero figure whou0026#39;s sent to a penal colony after falling foul of his puritan elders. He escapes just in time to help his villagers defend themselves from the clutches of a group of dastardly pirates looking for treasure.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOne of the problems with the production is the lack of a sense of menace. The pirates just donu0026#39;t seem to be particularly villainous and the script resorts to them fighting between themselves to supply the action. It doesnu0026#39;t help any when all the best actors play the pirates either: Christopher Lee, Michael Ripper, Peter Arne and Oliver Reed are all having a ball, supplying endless energy, while the villagers (including Dennis Waterman as a kid and an extra-dour Andrew Keir) are a bore.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eStill, itu0026#39;s as colourful as ever for a Hammer romp, and Iu0026#39;m predisposed towards this genre so that it held my attention from beginning to end. But with a little more imagination, it could have been a whole lot better and more like the above-average DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES that Hammer made a couple of years later.”
