Blood Alley | | Cast : | John Wayne, Lauren Bacall | | Director : | John Wayne, William A. Wellman | | Studio : | Warner Home Video | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | October 01, 1955 | | DVD Released Date : | May 03, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled) | | Audience Rating : | NR (Not Rated) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | Duke & Bacall. What more do you want? | Content
 | Sort of a strange film but, dare I say it, entertaining. Nicely made. This feels as if were made in between major efforts. Not one of Wayne's best but certainingly not his worst. For that, see (or don't see) "The Conquerer". The pairing with Bacall is very good. The two stars work well together and their interaction provides the story's framework and keeps things interesting.
Just curious, are the Chinese village sets the same as those used in the Bogart film "The Left Hand of God"? Now there's a DVD candidate.
The DVD image looks good. Yes, the color is somewhat muted, but this film is around 50 years old and film stock from that period wasn't the best nor was it carefully preserved. Still, this film has never looked, or sounded, better on home video -- and at long, long last we have the full CinemaScpoe image!
Duke and Bacall in an entertaining film. Microwave some popcorn and enjoy. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 07, 2005 | | Summary | John Wayne Takes on the Red Chinese (And Lauren Bacall) | Content
| John Wayne has his hands full in this one. He plays an American sea captain captured by the Red Chinese and held for the crime of not being a communist. While he sits rotting in a prison, he gets a mysterious note telling of arrangements made for his escape. He makes good on his escape only to find that his benefactors are the daughter of an American doctor (Lauren Bacall) and a village of Chinese who are less than thrilled with their communist masters. They have arranged to steal a ferry boat and want John Wayne to pilot it 300 miles to Hong Kong and take the entire village with him. The communist gun boats make for dangerous adversaries but navigating the river with a decrepit paddle wheeler, no charts and lack of fuel makes the going even more difficult. Taming Lauren Bacall makes all of that easy in comparison.
As usual, John Wayne plays himself in this film. He is a tough, uncompromising man who sets out to do a seemingly impossible task. This time it happens to be in China and aboard a ship. The character does not change but no one expects the Duke to be anyone but himself.
Bacall plays her part as a feisty American woman. She is, of course, Wayne's love interest in this film and her strong willed nature seems perfect to clash with Wayne's own will of iron. The conflict of wills comes across well. The love story comes across less well. Still, it is an entertaining movie.
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| Rating | | | Date | June 27, 2005 | | Summary | One of my all-time favorites | Content
| I saw this movie on cable a few years ago, and I totally loved it. John Wayne has great chemistry with Lauren Bacall, despite the fact that she looks rather out-of-place at times (Western clothes in a Chinese fishing village? Hmmm...). Wayne's humor and heroism are well-displayed, much better than in "The Green Berets". The dialogue is snappy and the film never bogs down. My rating: 10/10. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 08, 2005 | | Summary | "We ask you to guide us through Formosa Straight to freedom" | Content
| During the early years of the Cold War when the so-called "red, John Wayne (1907-1979) and Lauren Bacall starred in a wonderful film entitled "Blood Alley" in 1955. John Wayne plays a merchant marine captain named Capt. Tom Wilder that has been imprisoned by the Chinese for several years. To keep from losing his mind during his imprisonment, Capt. Wilder creates an imaginary female friend that he names "Baby" and who he talks to frequently. One day, Capt. Wilder is given some unexpected assistance to escape, which he does by setting his mattress on fire. Wearing a Russian military uniform that had been smuggled into the prison, Capt. Wilder makes his way to a waiting junk that is steered by Big Han (Mike Mazurki, 1907-1990). Big Han takes Capt. Wilder along the river and into the East China Sea to a small fictional fishing village named Chikushan. There, he is taken to an old castle that overlooks the bay and the village and is the home of an American doctor, his daughter Cathy Grainger (Lauren Bacall) and a sassy maid named Susu (Joy Kim). Cathy then introduces Capt. Wilder to one of the village elders named Mr. Tso (Paul Fix, 1901-1983), who explains that the 180 residents of Chikushan have risked their lives to rescue him from prison so that he can assist in their escape from Communist rule to freedom in Hong Kong, which was under British rule at the time. Their intended means of escape is to hijack a steam-powered river ferryboat that was built in the nineteenth century and propelled by a large paddle wheel. Capt. Wilder initially doesn't agree to help them, but then changes his mind as he recollects the entire coastline between their position and Hong Kong. However, not everyone in Chikushan is aware of the villagers' intentions. Specifically, the Feng family, lead by Old Feng (Berry Kroeger, 1912-1991), is loyal to the Communists; but the village elders have decided to take the Fengs with them so that they will not be held accountable for the villagers' escape.
Not only did John Wayne star in "Blood Alley", he also produced it and co-directed (uncredited) it with William A. Wellman (1896-1975). Though not a completely believable story, "Blood Alley" does have some very good action sequences (such as when Chinese soldiers visit the village and when the ferryboat is shelled), some very emotional scenes (usually between Wayne and Bacall) and good color cinematography for 1955. Though some aspects of the film would be regarded as stereotypical and politically incorrect by today's standards (such as the manner in which Susu talks), the story is both engaging and entertaining as are the characters. Overall, I rate John Wayne's 1955 film "Blood Alley" with 4.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars, and I am very glad to see it finally released on DVD. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 14, 2005 | | Summary | Ferryboat to Hong Kong | Content
| "Blood Alley" is a big, sprawling, grandly mounted and sumptuously photographed adventure story starring John Wayne and Lauren Bacall that tells the tale of a merchant sea captain (Wayne) who has had his freighter stopped and boarded illegally in international waters by the Red Chinese, and who has been imprisoned by them for some time since. A village downriver from the prison where Wayne has been kept antes up a bribe to the prison guards and gets Wayne sprung. Taken downriver by his "contact", big Mike Mazurski made up to look oriental, Duke is informed that the entire village wants to escape to Hong Kong and they want him, Duke, to captain them all down the Formosa Straits ("Blood Alley") to Hong Kong and freedom...and they want this to be done on a leaky, creaky, pokey-slow and prone-to-breakdown stern-wheeled ferryboat. With no charts.
Wayne mulls this and decides he has no choice in the matter. He makes a homemade chart from memory and sets about to put the escape plan in motion, taking everyone with him, including the headstrong daughter (Bacall) of a medical missionary, and an entire family of loyal communists who can't be left behind because their masters would kill them as "responsible" for this flight.
Down the straits goes the ferry boat, dodging commie gunboats day and night and slipping into forests of reeds for camouflage when their pursuers draw too near.
The telling of the story of this journey is so well done that the viewer tends to be detoured away from the story's great glaring logical pothole. This escape is set in the mid-1950s and NOT the EIGHTEEN fifties. Decades earlier it COULD have happened the way it is shown, but NOT in its supposed time period. The reason? Airplanes. In the mid-1950s Communist Chinese forces would have aircraft up and down the Formosa Straits LOOKING for this ferry and they WOULD find it. Yet there is never a mention of aircraft here and no aircraft ever shows up anywhere in the movie. Its almost as though there is no such thing as a search plane in existance...or any kind of plane at all!!!
Very Strange. Yet, it is only later that you realize this. Throughout the film the movie-makers keep you so involved with the dangers and rigors of the journey that you don't even THINK about planes while you're watching it. Very clever diversion.
There is good chemistry with Wayne and Bacall and they go through the typical "difficult" time with each other before becoming hard-breathers as they enter Hong Kong Harbour together.
Aside from some minor silliness (Duke perpetually talks to an "imaginary friend" named "Baby"....which happened to be Bogart's pet name for Bacall) and the aforementioned mysteriously missing aircraft, this William Wellman-directed story hangs together well and delivers the goods on excitement and interest.
Good movie overall.
Now...WHEN are they EVER going to release one of Wayne's all time masterpieces? WHEN are we EVER going to see "The High And The Mighty"??????? |
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