Review: I Escaped From Devil’s Island
Set on the notoriously brutal French penal colony of the title in 1918, Jim Brown is prisoner Le Bras who along with the rest of the colony is serving a life sentence of hard labour. Le Bras is determined to escape the inescapable island. Also on the island are pacifist Davert (Christopher George), and gay prisoner Jo-Jo (Richard Ely). You’ve gotta hand it to shrewd producer Roger Corman and his brother Gene, who produced this 1973 William Witney (“Zorro Rides Again”, “Darktown Strutters”) island prison film and managed to get it into theatres a few weeks before the prestigious big-screen adaptation of “Papillon” . I’ll credit ‘The Corman Company’ with that distinction at least. Quentin Tarantino is an admirer of the film, too. I am not particularly admiring of this one. Scripted by Richard DeLong Adams ( “The Slams” ), it arrives, stays for a bit, and then leaves without making much of an impression either way on me. Like several Jim Brown vehicles it’s been largely forg...