One of three films Roger Corman made in Puerto Rico – this was one not directed by him but was financed by him; the helmer was Joel Rapp and producer was Stanley Brickman. It’s based on a short story by Phil Roth. The story concerns two American survivors of a disastrous landing attempt on a Japanese-occupied island, one of whom is badly wounded. The healthy one runs around taking out Japanese one by one, and philosophising in the cave. They talk about morality, William Saroyan’s “The Time of Your Life”, people back home.
There’s a great scene where the Americans are about to attack the Japanese – but then the Japanese all kill themselves (it’s a shame we can’t actually see this). But most of it’s a two hander – the healthy soldier and the sick one start to squabble, the sick one makes an anti-Semitic crack and goes to kill himself, then they make up. It needed another subplot – a third person or an incoming storm or for them to go gay or something. Corman never made a film full of this much dreary talk. (At the end the island is becoming a test site for the atomic bomb – that would have made a good second act twist, or even premise.) Roger Corman has a small role in this – just like he did in Ski Troop Attack – only here he has more dialogue; he acquits himself not too badly (his fresh faced good looks suit a GI)
The DVD features commentary from Joel Rapp which reveals the budget for the film is $30,000, $1,000 of which went to Philip Roth (Rapp says 90% of the script is his dialogue). Rapp can’t tell an anecdote very well and isn’t the best judge about his own film but some interesting stuff sneaks through. He talks about writing some beach party movies for Roger.
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