Despite their modern reputation hinging on their horror output, Hammer always had a lot more strings to their bow. Starting out in the Thirties making British quota quickies and graduating to making film versions of popular radio and early TV shows, they also made thrillers, war movies, comedies and adventure films aimed at the family audience – albeit not without some family-friendly sadism - featuring the likes of Robin Hood, cavegirls, rebellious Kandahar brigands, roundheads and cavaliers… and pirates.
1962’s
The Pirates of Blood River is infamous as the pirate movie that takes place entirely on land (well, you do at least see a ship at sea from the shore). Kerwin Matthews is the rebellious youth trying to bring moderation to the fiercely religious island community of exiles who finds an even bigger problem when Christopher Lee and his band of pirates land on the island in search of the founding fathers’ hidden treasure, and aren’t too bothered by how many villagers have to die finding it. Gifted with some excellent dialogue that sets him apart from his unruly crew, sporting an eye patch, a good accent that strangely makes him sound like a French Max Von Sydow and a henchman called Hench, Lee is a villain so cool he doesn't even sweat, and if the movie isn’t a great high adventure it's a highly entertaining programmer that punches well above its weight and packs in plenty of action.
Although often overlooked, notoriously temperamental director and co-writer John Gilling was one of Hammer’s best directors despite his at times troubled relationship with the studio and here, thanks to the studio’s inspired production designer Bernard Robinson, he manages to give the film a surprising sense of scale that makes it look much more expensive than it was and does a fair job of passing off the British locations and for once unrecognisable standing backlot sets at Bray Studios as the Caribbean. There are plenty of familiar faces in the supporting cast, from Hammer regulars Andrew Keir, Michael Ripper and Oliver Reed (the latter two along with Lee all suffering badly for real from having to ford the polluted Black Park Lake in one sequence) to Glenn Corbett, Peter Arne, David Lodge, a young Dennis Waterman and a pre-Q Desmond Llewelyn.
Released in the UK in a hugely successful double-bill with Mysterious Island (contrary to some reports the Harryhausen film was the supporting feature) it was initially something of a problem picture for Hammer, who couldn’t decide whether to go for a restrictive X or a general U certificate, going back and forth with the censors several times (the main casualty was the amount of blood in the water after the piranhas lunch on one character). Along with the piranha sequence, most of the censor trims that saw it’s UK rating lowered from an A certificate to a U remained intact in the US version that’s presented here, though considering the film was originally submitted to the UK censors in a version reportedly running 94 minutes that was provisionally granted an X certificate it appears that some of the contentious footage may have been lost to the ages.
Twilight Time’s Blu-ray boasts a good 2.35:1 widescreen transfer that preserves cinematographer Arthur Grant’s vivid colour palette and carries over the audio commentary from Sony’s Icons of adventure US DVD edition moderated by Hammer expert Marcus Hearn with writer Jimmy Sangster and Don Mingaye (generally covering their entire careers at the studio rather than being specific to this film), the original theatrical trailer and adds an isolated track for Gary Hughes’ swashbuckling score and the obligatory booklet which offers Julie Kirgo a chance to swoon over Lee’s melancholy villain.
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