Five Gates to Hell

I saw this movie long ago and I remember being riveted to the story. I thought Neville Brand was a great bad guy and the Five Gates to Hell were where he ruled. It was a very different war theme. I would like to purchase this in video if I could find a copy. I have looked about everywhere on the internet.

Vietnam, 1950. A band of Vietnamese guerillas invade a French hospital camp and carry off the nurses and doctors to perform an operation on some old geezer who is gonna croak anyway. The nurses are subjected to various atrocities (the worst of which is being cast in this film) before the inevitable breakout. This is about as close to an exploitation film as you can get from a major studio (20th Century Fox) considering the time period. The movie was shot in Cinemascope, although the print I saw was cropped.

Neville Brand, as the guerilla leader, looks as Asian as Mantan Moreland. His slicked-down hair doesn't help, either. He speaks in broken English. He yells out commands in what I assume is supposed to be Vietnamese, although I suspect he was really saying "get my freaking agent!" Dolores Michaels plays a nurse that Brand has the hots for. Nancy Kulp plays an ugly nurse that no one has the hots for. Ken Scott plays a doctor. Shirley Knight plays a nun. Benson Fong plays an Asian. Audience plays with their cell phones.

The climax isn't half bad, nor is it half good. I am no military strategist, but I'm pretty sure if the enemy is firing at you, you don't stand out in the open. Also, there is another lesson to be learned here. Never let Nancy Kulp anywhere near a hand grenade.

Nancy Kulp is comedic genius in this role. Otherwise just a story of attractive women in danger. This film is not to be taken serious but for camp value.

The day I was watching this movie, I went into labour with my second son, who has now passed away., therefore this particular movie has stuck itself into my memory, and when a friend told me today of this website, I had to see if it was listed....and it was.

I never actually saw the entire movie, and would now love to purchase it if at all possible.

Thank you. Mary Anne Sibley

The five gates to hell are five fortresses in Vietnam, built by the French to safeguard their colony, which in the insurrection war against the French were taken over by Vietnamese war lords. The strongest of them is the main scene of this drama, where eight nurses and two doctors are held prisoners with the intention to have a dying old war lord cured of his cancer, which of course the doctors fail to do, which they realise and the necessity of their escape before it is too late. The escape is not entirely successful, as there are casualties among them, but the ladies manage to get out and then have to face running the gauntlet to get into safety some 30 miles away. Their struggle and ordeals is the main drama of the film, which reminds quite a lot of "A Town Like Alice" a few years earlier, for the trials of the women. James Clavell, who wrote and made the film, always knew what he was describing, as he himself had been a war prisoner with the Japanese. His films like his novels are replenished with action and very dramatic developments, and they are all readable and impressive also as films. This is one of the best, and he would go on making more films for ten more years, until he concentrated wholly on only novels. The most impressive acting here is actually the villain, Neville Brand, a very brutal war hero but with human feelings, and the development of his character and his downfall is the most interesting part of the film, although it is not quite credible. Why do villains in films always have to be shot and killed over and over again? Can't they never do it right the first time?