Opening titles:- “At the end of the seventeenth century, men, women, and children voyaged far from their mother country seeking some haven from persecution. They were known as Huguenots. They found their haven and called it the Isle of Devon and gave thanks to God for their deliverance. But in the years to come, the just laws of the Colony began to yield to greed and tyranny. Happiness became an echo of the past. Freedom – just a memory.” When he escapes from the prison compound, Jonathan Standing runs into a gang of bloodthirsty pirates led by the cunning La Roche, who is convinced that the little community is hiding a treasure in gold.
Production Details
A Hammer film production released by Columbia Pictures Copyright MCMLXI Hammer Film Productions – All rights reserved
MPAA Approved Certificate
The characters and incidents portrayed and the names used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the names characters or history of any person is entirely accidental and unintentional
RCA Sound Recording
Made at Bray Studios, England
Eastmancolour 84 mins
A Hammerscope production photographed in Megascope
Filming Began: 3rd July 1961
UK Release: 13th August 1962
Studio:
Bray Studios, Down Place, Oakley Green, Berkshire
Locations:
Black Park Lake, Black Park, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire – Blood River
Burnham Beeches, Buckinghamshire – Jungle
Callow Hill Sandpit, Virginia Water, Surrey – Penal colony
Stills from film
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Original Poster
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Footnotes
Michael Carreras formally left Hammer in 1961 to pursue projects elsewhere and, although he came back for the occasional film, he did not return full-time until 1971. Carreras’s departure seems to have provided Anthony Nelson Keys with a promotion opportunity and this is his first film as Producer.
A very young Dennis Waterman appears here. Later famous for his roles in Thames TV’s The Sweeney and Minder series, he also worked for Hammer in Scars of Dracula (1969).
John Gilling’s other credits for Hammer as director are The Scarlet Blade (1963), The Brigand of Kandahar (1965), The Plague of the Zombies (1966), The Reptile (1966) and The Mummy’s Shroud (1966).