Entertaining adventure movie with prisoners , intrepid pirates and exotic scenarios . The movie is set in XVIII century during Louis XVI-Maria Antonieta kingdom , previously French Revolution . Female prisoners are shipped to Devil's Island penal colony , in French Guayana , one of them is the beautiful Martine Foucher (Michèle Mercier) . They are indoctrinated into the prison life from abusive guards and then a new prison commander called Henri Vallière (Richard Harrison) replacing former named Lefevre (Paul Muller) arrives with planned reforms . There then takes place riots , fights and escapes .
This thrilling picture results a be a mixture of Pirate movie and Women in prison (WIP) sub-genre in Jesus Franco style . The film is a nice pirate-adventure movie , though average , being produced in mediocre budget . Amusing adventures with valiant pirates and spectacular scenarios on jungles and marshes plenty of crocodiles . This classic story of romantic adventure come to life enriched by Eastmancolor cinematography in charge of Carlo Bellero , though a perfect remastering being necessary . This release has some nice and even quite exciting moments here and there , though isn't always interesting , sometimes is diverting and fresh and on a couple of sympathetic occasions is frankly delicious . The picture is full of struggles , sword-play , villainy , romance , ambushes , swashbuckler and heroism . As for the cast, as was also usual, at the top, we found an American actor decided to try his luck in European cinema . In this case the character brought to life , was rightly played by Guy Madison . He is cool as the governor/pirate hero who encounters dangerous situations while trying to retrieve his love . He was an actor who had his first major role in "Until the End of Time" a drama directed by Edward Dmytryk, 1946 to then changed in action roles , mainly series B westerns , get some success with the series "Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok" and ends up traveling in Europe in the sixties where he made many Euro-westerns . Madison starred in Italy several adventure movies such as Last King of Incas , The adventurer of Tortuga , Il Vendicatore Mascherato , I Misteri Della Giungla Nera , Leopardo of Sarawak and Vengeance of Sandokan . The female role was performed by Michèle Mercier, unforgettable starring in the role of Angélique, "the Marquise of the Angels", was both a blessing and a curse. It catapulted her to almost instant stardom, rivalling Brigitte Bardot in her celebrity and popularity, but ruined her acting career. By the end of the 1960s, the names Angélique and Michèle Mercier were synonymous, and to escape type-casting, Mercier was compelled to leave France and try to re-start her career in United States, unfortunately without any success. The rest of the cast , we find a negative character to which the director gives a special treatment : the nasty Paul Muller , a secondary actor who interpreted various roles for Jess Frank .
The motion picture was middlingly directed by Domenico Paolella . He was a director and writer, known for filming all kind of genres such as Nunexploitation : ¨The nun and the devil¨, ¨Unholy Convent¨ , Peplum : ¨Maciste Nell'inferno Di Gengis Khan¨, ¨Il Gladiatore Che Sfidò L'Impero¨ , ¨Golia Conquista Di Bagdad¨ , ¨Ercole Contro Tiranni Babilonia¨ , ¨Maciste Contro Mongoli¨ , ¨Samson Against the Sheik¨ , ¨Ursus¨ and Eurospy genre : ¨Agent 003: Operation Atlantis¨ , among others .
