Watch The Pirates of Blood River For Free

Highly Overrated But Still Good

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Hammer Studios was well known for the Gothic styled horror films. But they made forays into other genres as well including film noir, comedy and this gem, an actual pirate film. While the time period might be the same as those Gothic films this movie is far from those with the exception of a few actors who seemed to be in all their movies. What matters is the fact that it ends up being an enjoyable one to watch.On a small island in the Caribbean called Devon a group of Huguenots has made a home for themselves. While the group sought religious freedom here things have changed with men in power abusing their positions. The man in charge is Jason Standing (Andrew Keir), a religious zealot who finds himself forced to condemn his son Jonathan (Kerwin Matthews) to 15 years in a labor camp. Jonathan was having an affair with the wife of one of the town leaders, a woman who we watch eaten by piranhas as she fleas capture from Jason and his men.Jonathan is taken away to the work camp but eventually escapes months later only to fall into the hands of a band of cutthroat pirates led by Capt. LaRoche (Christopher Lee). Decked out in all black with a lame arm and the perfect pirate eyepatch, LaRoche decides to put Jonathan to good use. He wants him to escort him back to the settlement with two goals in mind. One is to use the settlement as a safe haven to rest in and the other is that he believes there is a treasure hidden there.The settlers and the pirates come into conflict with one another, a battle follows and eventually the pirates take over the town. Demanding to know where the treasure is Jason tells them there is none. Unwilling to accept that LaRoche tells him he will hang two people per day until he reveals where it is.An escaped Jonathan frees several of the men in town and gets help from his sister's boyfriend Henry (Glenn Corbett). Is there a secret treasure on the island? Does Jason know where it is? And will the pirates kill everyone on the island to find a treasure no one is certain exist? The movie offers plenty of action, plenty of swordplay and enough pirate clichés to fill several movies. What is most amazing is the fact that this pirate movie never goes to sea or involves their ship! One scene shows the ship in the harbor and one segment takes place in the Capt. LaRoche's quarters. Other than that it's all on land! Made in 1962 these movies were still a staple at the time, a genre which demanded little reality and plenty of action. This film did the genre well. The pirates are indeed scurvy dogs dress in tattered clothing, drinking to excess and on the prowl for any women they can find. The crew turns out to be a potentially mutinous group and LaRoche has his hands full with them as well as the settlers.All involved do a great job in the acting department. It was nice to see Lee play something other than Dracula and his LaRoche comes with the aforementioned accoutrements of a pirate along with a decent French accent. Matthews was still making sword play films at the time and this is just another in the notch on his belt. Corbett is wasted here but makes the most of his time on screen. In a small role and just 6 years before his breakout performance in OLIVER as Bill Sykes is Oliver Reed playing woman hungry Brocaire. My favorite though is Michael Ripper as one of the most vocal of the pirates. Ripper was a regular in nearly all Hammer movies that I can recall growing up.Having never seen the film or even heard of it I found it to be a treat. Twilight Time is presenting it in a beautiful presentation with the cleanest possible widescreen offering found for the film. Extras include an isolated music and effects track, an audio commentary track with writer Jimmy Sangster, art director Don Mingaye and film historian Marcus Hearn and the original theatrical trailer. As with all Twilight Time releases this one is limited to just 3,000 copies so if interested order yours today.

John Gilling directed this pirate adventure that stars Kerwin Mathews as Jonathan Standing, an inhabitant of a 17th century Huegenot village where he was exiled by his father for adultery to a penal colony. While there, pirates led by Captain LaRoche(played by Christopher Lee) kidnap him and force him to lead them back to the village, because the pirates want a rumored buried treasure that their founding fathers left behind, and LaRoche will stop at nothing to find it, not even murder. Marginal Hammer studios film certainly has a colorful title that sums up the plot, and good production values and acting, but story is strangely unappealing and unmemorable, despite an interesting "landlocked pirates" premise.

I saw this film once in 1967. My young friends and I had barely left the movie theatre and we had forgotten the plot of this movie. Apparently we got to see scenes that were cut when released elsewhere so it should have made more sense, but I remember in less than a week we argued over what had happened, and why. Since then we have forgotten almost everything about it, except for two things which we still laugh about today. One; the skeleton rising from the river after its flesh had been stripped from it by piranhas (why would a skeleton rise up? the don't float),and the terrible continuity gaffe of the potted palm tropical forest; one minute the trees were green and lush, in the next scene dry and brown, then back to green again. But it was a Hammer film, and we loved Hammer films back then. Still do. Aah nostalgia. But there is a lot to be said for production values and a budget.

I'd been wanting to check this one out ever since coming across a poster of it, as a double-bill with MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (1961), amongst a whole bunch of old newspaper cuttings of local releases from the 1950s and 1960s which my father used to collect and glue in scrapbook form in his teenage years! It's never been shown on TV in my neck of the woods, so I had to wait until now to watch the film – and it didn't disappoint: a familiar but undeniably vivid, indeed vigorous, action-packed adventure with no ounce of fat during its 87-minute length…yet containing the expected Hammer touches of nastiness, particularly with its notorious piranha sequences (which is the reason why the river of the title is so named!). Casting is terrific all round: Kerwin Mathews (at his best in such surroundings) is a believable hero; Christopher Lee looks great with an eye-patch and even affects a more-or-less authentic French accent; his pirate entourage, then, includes the likes of Peter Arne, Oliver Reed and Michael Ripper (though his quaint pirate lingo begins to grate after a while); among the locals are Glenn Corbett, FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959)'s Marla Landi (as Mathews' sister and over whom Arne and Reed engage in a duel blindfolded!), and Andrew Keir (as the hero's stern father but who ultimately sacrifices himself for the good of the community). Incidentally, considering the piracy theme, one of the oddest aspects about this particular film is that the action takes place entirely on land! When we first see Lee and company, they 'save' the life of Mathews – who's just escaped from a penal colony (to which his own father had sentenced him after being caught red-handed in an adulterous liaison and whose partner ended up food for the killerfish!). They decide to accompany him to his people's settlement – fugitive Huguenots who have established themselves in England – because Lee believes them to be in possession of a fortune (even if Mathews himself tells the pirates there's no such thing). Soon, the buccaneers take over the village and start to exterminate the citizens (in twos) for the length of time that the location of the treasure isn't divulged!; eventually, Mathews is told it does exist and that, as community leader, his father is the only one who might be aware of the actual 'site' – so he pleads with him to give up the gold for the sake of the people…but the old man is still cross with his son and refuses! The sly Lee, observing the scene from afar, concludes that the plunder may be hidden behind the statue of the community's founder – which he orders his men to pull down, only to reveal nothing; however, Mathews insists and decides to scrape off the paint on the statue, which turns out to be made of solid gold! After this, the pirates are ready to leave but they take both Mathews and Keir for insurance – especially since a small group of townsfolk, led by Corbett, have fled their control and are organizing raids against them and laying booby-traps in their path! Finally, the two bands meet head-on by the river (where the pirates have built a raft to transport both the loot and their own ever diminishing number); incidentally, the buccaneers themselves rise against their leader – an opposition led by former lackey Ripper, whom Lee had earlier slighted. In any case, as is typical of such films, the prime members of each group are made to face off – so that we get Arne fighting Corbett and Lee dueling with Mathews…and, as always, however inexperienced, good triumphs over evil (though, in the meantime, as I said earlier, the burly Keir throws himself into the river to demolish the raft – before both he and the pirates on board once more attract the attention of the piranhas).From what I've read since this film's DVD release as part of Columbia/Hammer's "Icons Of Adventure" set, it seems to be the one getting the least consideration; I beg to differ and find it perhaps the most purely enjoyable of the lot – if, for nothing else, due to the stalwart cast but also the sure-fire elements of hidden loot and underwater menace. Finally, it's worth noting that co-writer/director Gilling (here working from a Jimmy Sangster story which he would himself rehash into another Hammer/Lee/Ripper adventure outing, THE DEVIL-SHIP PIRATES [1964], conveniently also included on the Columbia set and which I actually watched soon after!) made quite a few films in similar vein: THE BANDIT OF ZHOBE (1959) with Victor Mature; FURY AT SMUGGLERS' BAY (1961), a non-Hammer effort with Peter Cushing; and, for the famed horror company, THE SCARLET BLADE (1963) and THE BRIGAND OF KANDAHAR (1965) – both with Oliver Reed. For the record, out of all of these, only the Cushing title is available on DVD and a Region 2 exclusive at that!