SOS Pacific ** (1959, Richard Attenborough, Pier Angeli, John Gregson, Eddie Constantine, Eva Bartok) – Classic Movie Review 9853

It is SOS Pacific when those still alive after an aircraft smashes on to a Pacific tropical island discover to their horror that an atom bomb is due to be detonated in their close proximity.

Director Guy Green’s 1959 British adventure thriller film SOS Pacific is a standard survival-melodrama that manages to maintain its tension thanks to the screenplay by Robert Westerby and Bryan Forbes, based on the story by Gilbert Travers Thomas, and the sheer scale of the disaster about to befall those stranded on the isle.

Director Green handles the drama efficiently, and there is capable acting by old favourites such as Richard Attenborough as Whitey Mullen, Eddie Constantine (Alphaville) as Mark Reisner, Pier Angeli, John Gregson, Eva Bartok, Clifford Evans, and Jean Anderson.

Also in the cast are Cec Linder, Gunnar Möller, Harold Kasket, Cyril Shaps, Tom Bowman, Andrew Faulds.

It is shot at Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, and on location in Las Palmas, Canarias, Spain, and London, England. Wilkie Cooper’s photography and the Las Palmas locations are a help too.

SOS Pacific is directed by Guy Green, runs 91 minutes, is made by Sydney Box Associates, Remfield Production and The Rank Organisation, is released by J Arthur Rank Film Distributors (1959) (UK) and Universal Pictures (1960) (US), is written by Robert Westerby (screenplay) and Bryan Forbes (additional scenes and dialogue), based on the story by Gilbert Travers Thomas, is shot in black and white by Wilkie Cooper, is produced by Sydney Box, John G Nasht and Patrick Filmer-Sankey, is scored by Georges Auric and designed by George Provis.

Universal Pictures distributed it in a double bill with Dinosaurus! (1960).

An early colorized version is available from Renown Pictures.

The location shoot was reported to be happy. Green and Attenborough cast Pier Angeli in The Angry Silence (1960) on the strength of the friendship they made.

Green had just made Sea of Sand with Attenborough and Gregson, and agreed to make what he called a ‘potboiler’ to work with Attenborough again before The Angry Silence. After the producers asked Green to find a Pacific-style desert island with palm trees fast, he went with designer Provis to London Airport and on a whim flew to Las Palmas, Canary Islands, where they found the ideal location at the southern tip of the island, with a beach and a few trees.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9853

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