Michael O'Keefe This action adventure has American Lt. Commander Jeffords(James Franciscus), serving with the British Royal Army being sent on a dangerous mission to Malta. His top secret assignment is to take command of a flotilla of motor torpedo boats and use them to destroy a Nazi glider bomb depot on Sicily. Jeffords is distracted, but not totally, by a naked woman, Alison(Elizabeth Shepard), swimming in the sea. Romance will begin to flare, only to flame out, when the American finds out that the woman is the wife of his immediate commander(Ronald Allen).This movie is actually filmed in Malta; scenery is nothing to speak of. HELL BOATS seems to have no real ambition and could easily be described as both dull and unmemorable. If there is any redemption, it is Miss Shepard providing some sizzle in a wet shirt. The cast also features: Mark Hawkins, John Heller, Magda Konopka, Takis Emmanuel and Reuven Bar-Yotam.

zardoz-13 "Attack on the Iron Coast" director Paul Wendkos stages several exciting combat scenes in "Hell Boats," but shallow characterization makes this energetic World War II thriller little more than a solid, standard-issue Navy actioneer. The story takes place against the singularly spectacular looking setting of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea in the early years of the war when the British were losing. The biggest celebrity name in a largely British cast, "Youngblood Hawke" actor James Franciscus plays a rugged American officer in the Royal Navy, Lieutenant Commander Jeffords, with a caramel tan that George Hamilton would envy. As one officer explains, our hero's mum was British, and he enlisted in 1939. The Admiralty dispatched him on special orders to the island of Malta, and Jeffords cannot malinger when it comes to disembarking from his transport plane. The German Luftwaffe likes to wait long enough for transports to land before they strafe them. Elizabeth Shepherd makes an unforgettable entrance as Alison, the lonely wife of Jefford's commanding officer on Malta, while Jeffords is out roaming the beach. She is naked, but of course we cannot see any nudity. To make herself presentable to Jeffords, she borrows his shirt. They meet once after Jeffords learns about her. Apparently, Alison's husband, Commander Ashurst, R.N. (Ronald Allen), has more of a stiff upper lip than anything else won't have her. Eventually, everything works out between them, but not before he puts his life on the line for the mildly insubordinate hero. The big mission in "Hell Boats" involves hijacking a Nazi patrol boat and gathering a flotilla of motor torpedo boats (MTBs) to blast to smithereens a Sicilian-based submarine pen that contains an arsenal of German glider bombs used to sink British shipping to Malta. These bombs have made devastating inroads on His Majesty's shipping. Happily, scenarist Anthony Spinner has more luck with the mission itself rather than the love triangle that sputters out. Before our hero can launch his attack, he must obtain information about the gun emplacements on the island. Consequently, he sneaks onto the island disguised as a native and reconnitors the place. They have a brief encounter with the Germans and a running firefight ensues. Our heroes escape, but the people who guided them die valiantly. This is good because otherwise "Hell Boats" would have been pretty dull if our hero remained at the helm of a boat during the fireworks. The behind-enemy-lines scenes bolsters the suspense. The special effects make the grade, and the action is the strongest part of the narrative. Unfortunately, one-dimensional characters abound and the talented cast does as best it can. "Hell Boats" was one of a number of World War II actioneers made in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as "Mosquito Squadron" and "The Last Escape."

julianj-1 I've become fascinated by the small-scale war of coastal craft in WW2 - the nightly battles between allied and axis fast light craft, the buccaneering nature of some of the commanders and the stoicism and bravery of the crews on both sides fighting with grim and unrecognised heroism.When I realised Hell Boats was showing on C5 I turned it on, missing the first 20 minutes or so. Unfortunately this is a horribly creaky drama, and doesn't do any favours to realism. It's basically ridiculous, even allowing for the terrible model work, with German "E Boats" (actually called S-Boats) that don't look remotely like the real thing. The hero and his mate plus comedy partisans and eye-candy sneak into a German port and shoot their way out....{SPOILER} At the low point of three men with pistols capturing an "E Boat" I gave up.A disappointment. I'm sure there is a great film to be made about the coastal war, but this isn't it.

Theo Robertson You'd have thought with the concept of total war it might have given film producers more scope to make a film that doesn't revolve around this cliché: a British woman is romantically involved with an American serviceman and a Brit and both male characters have to work together on an extremely dangerous mission in which either only one of them or neither of them will come back . Stop me if you've seen this type of movie before . In the film producers defence they can claim that women won't instinctively feel the need to watch war films hence they need an angle , usually a love triangle , to sell a film to the widest possible audience HELL BOATS continues this cliché and brings many other clichés to the party . Being a film that features the Royal Navy it means they have to be led by an American in order to boost its box office stateside . As can be expected the best looking member of the cast is the American as well as being the bravest member on the suicide mission . Guns when fired by the good guys never run out of ammo while Germans never seem to be able to shoot straight etc etc In it self there's nothing fundamentally bad about HELL BOATS . The problem lies that it's a victim of film studios churning out one war film after another which all use the same type of premise and plotting and nothing in this movie sets it apart from its peers . It's not helped either that channel 5 broadcast this movie then followed it up with the brilliantly cynical THE BRIDGE AT REMAGEN immediately afterwards