Seven Were Saved

A Japanese colonel being transported to face war crimes charges in the Philippines causes his transport plane to crash in the middle of the South China Sea and the survivors must battle each other and the elements whilst the air sea rescue service try to find them. At times there is a little jeopardy as they gradually run out of supplies and mishaps begin to befall their party, and tensions mount too as the pilot "Capt. Danton" (Richard Denning) insists that they share their meagre rations with their enemy but oddly enough the film is just too short to do the plot justice and the ending is really rather flat.

There is absolutely nothing fancy about this. It's a simple story with a simple set. While escorting an accused Japanese war criminal to his trial in Manila, an American air force plane crashes in the South China Sea, and the passengers and crew (including the Japanese war criminal) have to find a way to work together to survive until they're rescued. Along the way they face the sorts of things you would expect in the circumstances - a lack of food and water, injuries from the crash, tension around the presence of Colonel Yamura, shark attacks, etc. Almost the entire movie is set on the life raft, so the composite cast had to work together pretty well in order to make this interesting - and for the most part they succeeded. Catherine Craig and Richard Denning had the most significant parts as the two on the raft who seemed to be the most in control, and they did well with their parts. The basic bit of suspense in the movie is which seven are going to survive. The title tells us that there will be seven, but there are eight survivors of the crash, so it's a bit of a guessing game as to which one isn't going to make it.

This seems to be a bit of a tribute to American air and sea rescue forces, and it's interesting enough to see how they handle the rescue once the raft is discovered. It's a definite B-Movie, but it's not a bad one. (6/10)

A plane bound for Manilla is skyjacked by Richard Loo and crashes several hundred miles off course. While the survivors squabble and struggle in a life raft, the Sea Air Rescue Service searches for them.

If that half-sounds like Hitchcock's LIFEBOAT with Catherine Craig sitting in for Tallulah Bankhead, that's how it struck me. It's produced by William Pine and William Thomas, and the Dollar Bills never saw a plot they didn't like -- even if the Hitchcock original was one of his few financial failures. Add in the rescue effort, and have William Pine make one of his occasional directorial appearance, and profits would flow. A few Hero Poses of Richard Denning -- doing a Joel McCrea impersonation -- with Miss Craig looking up at him adoringly, and Bob's your uncle.

Any subtext is buried way down, and the bravura composition work that Hitch and his crew accomplished is missing, but the Dollar Bills knew how to get a bang for their buck. It doesn't aspire to be a great picture, but it accomplishes its modest goals of filling 75 minutes entertainingly.

This movie takes place a year after World War II and features a United States air-sea rescue pilot by the name of "Captain Jim Willis" (Russell Hayden) who is stationed on an island in the South China Sea and flies a PBY in search of survivors who might be shipwrecked in that area. His fiancé, "Lieutenant Susan Briscoe" (Catherine Craig) is a nurse who also works in that area and is eager for the both of them to return to the United States where they can get married and start a family. Unfortunately, a quarrel breaks out between them when Jim decides to extend his tour of duty and as a result Susan decides to leave not long afterward in order to escort a sick patient to Manila and from there to the United States. Another key passenger just happens to be a Japanese prisoner by the name of "Colonel Yamura" (Richard Loo) who is about to be tried for war crimes. As luck would have it, Colonel Yamura manages to temporarily skyjack the plane which then results in it crashing into the ocean. Eight passengers manage to survive in a life raft but with limited rations the question soon becomes whether any of them will be able to survive the rough seas of the shark-infested waters long enough to be rescued. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this turned out to be an okay film which suffered from a lack of suspense and a rather predictable ending. Part of the problem for that was the title which clearly disclosed how many passengers would eventually be saved. Additionally, it also had a grade-B quality to it from start-to-finish. In any case, while this movie clearly wasn't great by any means, it still managed to keep my attention for the most part and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

"Seven Were Saved" takes place at the end of World War II. An Army Air Force plane is flying to the Philippines with several military passengers on board. One is a nurse and one is a POW Japanese colonel. He is under guard and going to the Philippines to stand trial there for war crimes. He throws hot coffee on the solder guarding him and grabs the pistol from his holster. After shooting the officer escort, knocking out the navigator and shooting the copilot, he hijacks the plane. He sends it off in a different direction, apparently intending to take his chances on a small island somewhere. But when the plane runs out of gas and crashes in the sea, eight people make it to the raft.

The colonel has lost the pistol and now all have to try to stay alive until rescued But they have flown a couple hundred miles off their course. So, the sea rescue planes sent out don't find them anywhere. After more than a week, the head of the rescue operations decides to stop the searches. But, one pilot, who had been sick and grounded, decided to make one last sweep outside their known route. The nurse onboard was his sweetheart. Well, one can guess how this will come out. Before they are ultimately rescued, one of the men who had been ill disappears over the side during the night.

This isn't a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1944 "Lifeboat," but that film no doubt influenced Paramount on this film. The prologue on the screen dedicates the film "to the men of the AAF Air Sea Rescue Service, who risk their lives daily that others may live."

Instead of trying to be so sociable and humorous, the Sergeant should have been more alert guarding the prisoner. After he tells the nurse that he would have a cup of coffee and it would be okay for the prisoner to have a cup, he says, "You know, I really can't stand coffee. I just take it to cure my insomnia."

This is a B-level film with no prominent actors among the cast. But, they all give good performances.