moonspinner55 A sea-plane bound for Tahiti, carrying three prisoners and a young priest, stops for the night on a small tropical island where tempers--and an angry volcano!--are flaring. Embarrassingly overacted adventure yarn pits salty priest Spencer Tracy with smart-mouthed convict Frank Sinatra in their attempt to save a leper colony of adults and children from the spewing lava. This may be the worst movie ever directed by veteran Mervyn LeRoy, who must have been so overwhelmed with the location shooting in Hawaii and California, the pyrotechnics involved, and the ill health of top-billed Tracy that he allowed the picture to get away from him. Liam O'Brien adapted his weak screenplay from the novel by Max Catto. Once the agonizing preliminaries and character conflicts are out of the way, moments of the perilous escape are worthwhile, and the volcano looks good. ** from ****

Edgar Soberon Torchia If we had a Catholic western as "The Bravados" with a big star (Gregory Peck) in 1958, why not a Catholic adventure drama with two stars three years later? It is a pity that the drama becomes a melodrama, and the adventure turns into an endless "mano a mano" between Tracy and Sinatra. The fun and the excitement of the perils the cast has to face vanish in the last 30 minutes, which is the time when all the dramatic and adventure elements reach their peaks, but they are all knocked down with the silly dialogues and situations that plague the final act (most concerning Grégoire Aslan's fear of leprosy, and Bernie Hamilton's sudden spiritual enlightenment). I spent most of that time spotting "dramatic" stretches that could have easily been cut without affecting the central plot and effectiveness of the film. It also becomes too predictable, as the characters begin to disappear, and --what is worse-- after being announced that they will be soon out of the action (for example, the flower that falls before Fleur's death). Still it is not terribly bad, it is entertaining for the most part and the cast makes it work.

mitch1492 I'm astounded at the generally good reviews this film has received. The farther along you get in this movie, the worse the writing becomes. I'm a huge Frank Sinatra fan, and an even bigger Spencer Tracy fan, but neither of them can save this cliché-ridden mess. The idea of this old man parachuting into the jungle is absurd enough, but what was the point of it? Logically, they should have found the leper colony abandoned. There were plenty of adults there. Why were they just sitting around, meekly awaiting death? Why didn't they pack up their charges and try to get out of there? Then, of course, all the rescuers have to die, in order that their sacrifice appears noble. The convict who dies in the quicksand is the silliest. I've always seen people die in quicksand in movies by sinking downwards. In this case the poor man encounters quicksand with a current, and he's swept away from his would-be rescuer at an absurd speed. The worst writing is saved for the very end, when Sinatra throws his life away, for no reason whatsoever. Noble? He's committing suicide! The nobility escapes me.

imdbman-8 this is an excellent movie: the characters are multi-dimensional, and particularly Spencer Tracy reveals a rare depth in character development. overall, many of the personal developments throughout the movie remind me of graham Greene's "the burnt out case", not because of the leprosy association, but because of the definition of "terminal". warmly recommended for fans of Sinatra, Spencer Tracy, and graham Greene.generally, a good movie. somehow, it gets a bit sentimental, but the overall idea does not disappear until 2/3 of the movie.