No one really doubts Sinatra's prowess or talents as an actor. When he got a part he could sink his teeth into ("From Here to Eternity") or one that fit him like a glove ("The Detective") he could be brilliant. At other times he could just walk through a part ("Ocean's 11") or be actually lousy (the "Tony Rome" series). There are flashes of all these facets of Sinatra in this movie, and the premise of the film itself is a good one, but Sinatra's shortcomings as a director pretty much torpedo whatever chance this movie had to stand out as something really different. Obviously the film meant a great deal to him, as it was the first time he decided to direct a movie himself. The three scriptwriters (two Japanese, one American) put together a good story about two groups of opponents stranded on a deserted island, who must at least tolerate each other in order to survive, and soon realize that not only must they tolerate each other, but they actually have to depend on each other. Part of the problem is in some of the performances. Clint Walker is OK, a bit better than in many of his films, but not especially noteworthy. However, he is Laurence Olivier compared to Tommy Sands. Sands, who plays an inexperienced lieutenant, hasn't the slightest inkling of what he's doing; his idea of exercising authority among his men, for example, is to thrust forward his jaw, lower his voice, look angry and bark. It's an entirely one-note performance, and that note is off-key almost beyond belief. He is so unalterably, unbelievably bad that your first reaction is, "Where's a sniper when you need one?" I don't buy the theory that Sinatra directed Sands to act that way as revenge for his having divorced Sinatra's daughter. The other performances range from adequate to quite good (especially the lead Japanese actors), so it looks like Sands' performance was entirely his own idea. That explains why he only made one more movie. Sands just wasn't a good enough actor to make a go of it, as a perusal of any of his other movies will attest, especially 1958's "Sing Boy Sing", where his performance is almost as jaw-droppingly awful as it is here, showing that he had learned absolutely nothing in the seven years between that picture and this one.
The film starts out well, gets a little sluggish in the middle, and has a bit more pontificating than is really necessary, but overall it's not really a bad picture (even though you could see the ending coming a mile away). It's just that if the film meant so much to Sinatra, he should have hired an experienced director suited to this kind of picture--John Sturges comes to mind--and concentrated on his performance, which is, frankly, uneven. This was actually an innovative idea for its time (1965); offhand, I can't think of any other film of that period that portrayed the Japanese as even remotely human (Cornel Wilde's "Beach Red" did, but that came two years later). Sinatra had a good idea in this film. It's just too bad that he really didn't know how to get it to come across.
The film starts out well, gets a little sluggish in the middle, and has a bit more pontificating than is really necessary, but overall it's not really a bad picture (even though you could see the ending coming a mile away). It's just that if the film meant so much to Sinatra, he should have hired an experienced director suited to this kind of picture--John Sturges comes to mind--and concentrated on his performance, which is, frankly, uneven. This was actually an innovative idea for its time (1965); offhand, I can't think of any other film of that period that portrayed the Japanese as even remotely human (Cornel Wilde's "Beach Red" did, but that came two years later). Sinatra had a good idea in this film. It's just too bad that he really didn't know how to get it to come across.