SAVAGE ISLANDS

US/New Zealand, 1983, 95 minutes, Colour.
Tommy Lee Jones, Michael O'Keefe, Jenny Seagrove, Max Phipps.
Directed by Ferdinand Fairfax.

Savage Islands is an old-fashioned style South Seas pirate adventure. It is clearly influenced by the Raiders of the Lost Ark style of film. It has American stars but is a New Zealand production with facilities in Australia being used.

Tommy Lee Jones (Jackson County Jail, The Betsy, Coalminer's Daughter) and Michael O'Keefe (Caddyshack, Great Santini, Split Image) are the stars. Max Phipps is a snarling villain.

The film has some rousing action sequences, colourful settings and a spirit of adventure. As undemanding action entertainment, it passes.

1. Enjoyable action adventure?

2. A sense of period? Location photography? The Pacific and Samoa? Sailing ships? Pirates? Musical score?

3. The title and the focus on the Pacific? The islands, the natives? The invasion of white people, missionaries, pirates and exploiters, sailors? (The American title focuses on the relationship between the two men: Nate and Hayes.)

4. The structure of the film: the focus on Bully Hayes and his Indiana Jones-like adventures, the dangers, his escape, his capture and imprisonment, his memoirs? The flashback and the explanation of the hostility with Ben? His arrest? The finale with the breaking out of the jail, the final action heroics?

5. Bully Hayes as sea captain, pirate? The initial adventures and the arms-trading with the natives? His gung-ho attitudes? The imprisonment? The memoirs? His memories of trading, sailing, the clash with Ben? The encounter with Nathaniel and Sophie? Falling in love with Sophie? The attack on the island and the massacre? His being blamed? Nate attacking him, the banding together, the attack and rescue of Sophie from her execution? The clash with Ben? The adventure against the German Count and his arms-running? Derring-do and gung-ho combined?

6. Nathaniel as proper, dull, going to the mission, engaged to Sophie? The wedding? The attack on the island, the massacre, his grief for Sophie, blaming Bully Hayes, his being set adrift on the sea, stranded on the sand-bar, being rescued? His joining in action and coming to life? The clash with the German Count, the gun-running? The action adventure to rescue Sophie? The happy ending with her? The rescue of Bully Hayes? The gentleman turned action adventurer?

7. Sophie and her going to the mission, relationship with Nathaniel, attraction towards Hayes? Her message to him? The marriage, the attack, her being captured by Ben? The adventures and her being the sacrificial victim? The rescue? Reconciliation with Nathaniel?

8. Ben as snarling villain, unscrupulous, treatment of his men? The capture of Hayes? The background of their clash, the blackbirding? The massacre, the slaves? Their being sold to the Germans? The German warship? The gun battle? His being thwarted by Hayes's rescue and escape?

9. The picture of the missionaries, their proper style, the Williamses and their welcoming Nathaniel and Sophie? Their being massacred?

10. The influence of the Germans, the Count, the slaves and the arms? The gunboat and the battle?

11. The background of 19th. century treatment of the islanders, life on Samoa and the missions, the traders and the dissolute exploiters? The blackbirders and their trading in human lives? The film's underlying criticism of the 19th. century slave trade?

12. A blend of rousing action adventure with romance and underlying serious tone?