''SOS Pacific'' is a 1959 British adventure

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by Guy Green and starring

Richard Attenborough Richard Samuel Attenborough, Baron Attenborough, (; 29 August 192324 August 2014) was an English actor, filmmaker, and entrepreneur. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) and the British Academy of Film and Televisio ...

Pier Angeli Pier Angeli (19 June 193210 September 1971), also credited under her real name, Anna Maria Pierangeli, was an Italian-born television and film actress who starred in American, British and European films throughout her career. Her American motio ...

John Gregson Harold Thomas Gregson (15 March 1919 – 8 January 1975), known professionally as John Gregson, was an English actor of stage, television and film, with 40 credited film roles. He was best known for his crime drama and comedy roles. He was cr ...

Eva Bartok Éva Márta Szőke Ivanovics (18 June 19271 August 1998), known professionally as Eva Bartok, was a Hungarian-British actress. She began acting in films in 1950 and her last credited appearance was in 1966. She acted in more than 40 American, ...

and Eddie Constantine. The film was shot in black and white, but later underwent colourisation.

Plot synopsis

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

is forced to ditch in the Pacific during a thunderstorm. Aboard are the owner-pilot Jack Bennett (

), the navigator Willy (

Cec Linder Cecil Yekuthial Linder (March 10, 1921 – April 10, 1992) was a Polish-born Canadian film and television actor. He was Jewish and managed to escape Poland before the Holocaust. In the 1950s and 1960s, he worked extensively in the United Kingdom, ...

), the flight attendant Teresa (

) and six passengers: a policeman, Petersen ( Clifford Evans); his prisoner Mark ( Eddie Constantine); Whitey Mullen (

), a witness against Mark; Dr Strauss, a German scientist ( Gunnar Möller); Miss Shaw, a middle-aged Englishwoman ( Jean Anderson) and Maria, a young European woman (

). The plane comes down near an island. The navigator has been killed by toxic gas produced when the wrong kind of extinguisher is used on an electrical fire aboard the plane but the others make it to land in two rubber dinghies. Just offshore a fleet of derelict ships is anchored. On the island are two concrete bunkers. In one, a number of goats are tethered. The other, which is lead-lined, contains cameras and measuring instruments. The cameras are trained on a device standing on a smaller island some distance away. The castaways realise that they are in the middle of an H-Bomb testing range and that a bomb is to be detonated in a few hours.

Cast

as Whitey Mullen *

as Teresa *

as Jack Bennett *

as Maria * Eddie Constantine as Mark Reisner * Jean Anderson as Miss Shaw *

as Willy * Clifford Evans as Petersen * Gunnar Möller as Krauss *

Harold Kasket Harold Kasket (26 July 1926 – 20 January 2002) was an English actor in theatre, films and later television from the 1940s. Kasket usually played Arabs or mainland European types in many films and TV programmes such as ''Maigret'', ''The Saint ...

as Monk (as Harold Kaskett) *

Andrew Faulds Andrew Matthew William Faulds (1 March 1923 – 31 May 2000) was a British actor and Labour Party politician. After a successful acting career on stage, on radio and in films, he was a Member of Parliament from 1966 to 1997. Early life Fauld ...

as Sea Captain * Cyril Shaps as Louis * Tom Bowman as Alberto

Production

The script was originally developed by

Joseph Losey Joseph Walton Losey III (; January 14, 1909 – June 22, 1984) was an American theatre and film director, producer, and screenwriter. Born in Wisconsin, he studied in Germany with Bertolt Brecht and then returned to the United States. Blackliste ...

and

Ben Barzman Ben Barzman (October 12, 1910 – December 15, 1989) was a Canadian journalist, screenwriter, and novelist, blacklisted during the McCarthy Era and best known for his screenplays for the films ''Back to Bataan'' (1945), '' El Cid'' (1961), and ''T ...

which Losey called a "melodrama... intended as a warning about the dangers of the bomb and the moral consequences of exploding it." Sydney Box was to produce and Columbia agreed to finance subject to a star agreeing to play the lead. Box sent Losey to meet with

Hardy Kruger Hardy may refer to: People * Hardy (surname) * Hardy (given name) * Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica * Mount Hardy, Enderby Land * Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island * Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands Australia * Hardy, Sou ...

who was making a film at Cambridge University called ''Bachelor of Hearts''. Kruger agreed to make the film but Box said Columbia would not approve Losey as a director because of the Hollywood blacklist. However Box had a lower budgeted film he could finance, ''Blind Date'', and Losey made that with Kruger instead. Filming took place at Pinewood Studios with location work over five weeks shot on the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

. Richard Attenborough called it "a pretty indifferent picture" but he enjoyed working with Pier Angeli so much he invited her to co star in his and Green's next film, ''The Angry Silence''. According to Jean Anderson, Attenborough almost died filming an action sequence which rendered him unsconscious. Green later said there was "nothing remarkable" about the film.

References

External links

* *
SOS Pacific
at Letterbox DVD {{DEFAULTSORT:S.O.S. Pacific 1959 films 1950s thriller films British thriller films British black-and-white films Films about aviation accidents or incidents Films directed by Guy Green Films about nuclear war and weapons Films about sharks Films set in Oceania Films set on uninhabited islands Films shot in the Canary Islands 1950s English-language films 1950s British films