The Bamboo Prison (1954)

★ 6.4 1h 19m IMDb

A communist POW sides with his North Korean guards against his fellow prisoners.

The Bamboo Prison

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Cast

Robert Francis
Robert Francis as MSgt. John A. Rand Died 1955 · Glendale, California, USA Robert Charles Francis (February 26, 1930 – July 31, 1955) was an American actor. He appeared in only four Hollywood films, all with military themes, before he was killed at age 25 in the crash of a s...
Dianne Foster
Dianne Foster as Tanya Clayton Died 2019 · Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Dianne Foster (born Olga Helen Laruska; October 31, 1928 – July 27, 2019) was a Canadian actress of Ukrainian descent..
Brian Keith
Brian Keith as Cpl. Brady Died 1997 · Bayonne, New Jersey, USA Brian Keith (November 14, 1921 – June 24, 1997) was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his four decade-long career gained recognition for his work in movies such as the 1961 Disney f...
E.G. Marshall
E.G. Marshall as Father Francis Dolan Died 1998 · Owatonna, Minnesota, USA Everett Eugene Grunz (June 18, 1914 – August 24, 1998), known professionally as E. G. Marshall, was an American actor, best known for his television roles as the lawyer Lawrence Preston on The Defende...
Jack Kelly
Jack Kelly as Slade Died 1992 · Astoria, Queens, New York City, New York, USA Jack Kelly (September 16, 1927 – November 7, 1992) was an American actor. He started acting at age two, modeling in soap ads and garnering a lifetime supply of soap for his pay. Kelly continued to mod...
Keye Luke
Keye Luke as Comrade-Instructor Li Ching Died 1991 · Guangzhou, China From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Keye Luke (Chinese: 陸錫麒, Cantonese: Luk Shek Kee; June 18, 1904 – January 12, 1991) was a Chinese-American actor. He was known for playing Lee Chan, the "Number...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 6/10 Apr 02, 2023
Brian Keith is adequate here as the all-American "Brady" who is taken to a POW camp during the Korean War. It's there that encounters the ostensibly collaborative "Rand" (Robert Francis) who has befriended "Tanya" (Dianne Foster) who is, herself, married to another whose loyalties are distinctly questionable. Pretty quickly we learn that nobody is quite who they seem and with a backdrop of severe torture, manipulation and fear we find that each of the Americans now suspect the other and are constantly trying to vie for the upper hand - all under the outwardly benign gaze of "Fr. Dolan" (EG Marshall) who has, himself, been imprisoned by the communists. It's actually quite a simple story designed to highlight the atrocities carried out against the Allies by the commies despite the provisions of the Geneva Convention. It has plenty of plausibility issues, though. None of the prisoners look especially emaciated - clean shaven with Colgate smiles; the casting is pretty weak and the dialogue does little to develop the sense of peril that the imagery lays before us. There isn't much chemistry on display, either, and I found the on/off romance stuff just clogged up what could have been quite an intriguing fifth-column, who-to-trust affair. Essentially this is a piece of propaganda and though doubtless routed in aspects of truth, to some degree, it is just a bit too much of a blunt instrument for me.

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