An alcoholic missionary (Spencer Tracy) and three convicts (Frank Sinatra, Bernie Hamilton, Grégoire Aslan) work to save a colony of leper children from a Pacific island menaced by a smoldering volcano. In the high adventure tradition of "The Guns of Navarone"!. In the great high-adventure tradition of "The Guns of Navarone" and "The Bridge on the River Kwai"!. They jumped into hell to save part of heaven !. It was Father Perreau who arrived, Father Doonan who was to be replaced !.
The film is developed through 48 hours of terrific suspense as nature goes on a relentless rampage of destruction. Quality cast barely compensates for mediocre plot. Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra have a battle royal for performance honours in this Pacific island threatened by volcanic eruption. The characters are reminiscent of Graham Greene's. Spencer Tracy is very good , playing one of his ordinary kind roles, as the crusty, eccentric priest who recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony. And Frank Sinatra is pretty fine as the prisoner with a heart of gold who desires his redemption through love. Along with the always great Tracy and Sinatra, a number of pleasant secondary characters appear, lending their due support with their sympathetic performances, such as: Kerwin Mathews, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Grégoire Aslan, Alexander Scourby, Barbara Luna, Cathy Lewis, Bernie Hamilton and Marcel Dalio.
It displays a colorful cinematography by cameraman Joseph F. Biroc, most of the movie was made on location in Hawaii, but the volcanic explosion was shot in California. The island you see in the blast was realy a 200-foot long, 45-foot high pile of lanscaped mud, filled with explosive. Adding a thrilling and imaginative musical score by composer George Duning. This Grand scale catastrophe movie was professionally directed by Mervyn Leroy and it was successful enough. Mervyn was a Hollywood craftsman who earlier made the classic mobster movie : ¨Little Caesar¨ with Edward G. Robinson and furthermore , he produced and partly directed, without credit the studio's classic Wizard of Oz (1939) . He was a typical Hollywood filmmaker who directed a lot of lavish and usually successful movies, such as : ¨Gold Diggers 1933¨ , ¨I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang¨ , ¨Waterloo Bridge¨ , ¨Anthony Adverse¨ , ¨Gypsy¨ , ¨Million Dollar Mermaid, Without Reservations¨ , ¨Little Women¨ that won Academy Award : Oscar 1949 Art Direction/Set Decoration, ¨Thirty seconds over Tokyo¨ and his big hit : ¨Quo Vadis¨ . The picture will appeal to Sintara/Tracy fans and disaster genre enthusiasts. Devil at 4 O'Clock rating: 6.5/10. Well worth watching.
The film is developed through 48 hours of terrific suspense as nature goes on a relentless rampage of destruction. Quality cast barely compensates for mediocre plot. Spencer Tracy and Frank Sinatra have a battle royal for performance honours in this Pacific island threatened by volcanic eruption. The characters are reminiscent of Graham Greene's. Spencer Tracy is very good , playing one of his ordinary kind roles, as the crusty, eccentric priest who recruits three reluctant convicts to help him rescue a children's leper colony. And Frank Sinatra is pretty fine as the prisoner with a heart of gold who desires his redemption through love. Along with the always great Tracy and Sinatra, a number of pleasant secondary characters appear, lending their due support with their sympathetic performances, such as: Kerwin Mathews, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Grégoire Aslan, Alexander Scourby, Barbara Luna, Cathy Lewis, Bernie Hamilton and Marcel Dalio.
It displays a colorful cinematography by cameraman Joseph F. Biroc, most of the movie was made on location in Hawaii, but the volcanic explosion was shot in California. The island you see in the blast was realy a 200-foot long, 45-foot high pile of lanscaped mud, filled with explosive. Adding a thrilling and imaginative musical score by composer George Duning. This Grand scale catastrophe movie was professionally directed by Mervyn Leroy and it was successful enough. Mervyn was a Hollywood craftsman who earlier made the classic mobster movie : ¨Little Caesar¨ with Edward G. Robinson and furthermore , he produced and partly directed, without credit the studio's classic Wizard of Oz (1939) . He was a typical Hollywood filmmaker who directed a lot of lavish and usually successful movies, such as : ¨Gold Diggers 1933¨ , ¨I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang¨ , ¨Waterloo Bridge¨ , ¨Anthony Adverse¨ , ¨Gypsy¨ , ¨Million Dollar Mermaid, Without Reservations¨ , ¨Little Women¨ that won Academy Award : Oscar 1949 Art Direction/Set Decoration, ¨Thirty seconds over Tokyo¨ and his big hit : ¨Quo Vadis¨ . The picture will appeal to Sintara/Tracy fans and disaster genre enthusiasts. Devil at 4 O'Clock rating: 6.5/10. Well worth watching.