Trivia
The fictional vessel, the United States Coast Guard cutter (USCGS) "New Hope", was portrayed by the real life USCGC, the "Dauntless" (WMEC-624). This movie is one of two films that she has appeared, the other being Licence to Kill. Coast Guard cutter USCGC Dauntless (WMEC 624) used to deploy out of Florida, but now is home ported in Galveston, Texas.
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German Import DVD has a Super-8 Version (German language only), as a special feature on the disc.
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Third filmed adaptation of a Peter Benchley novel after Jaws and The Deep. Movie versions of Benchley novels became popular in Hollywood for a brief time during the mid to late 1970s due to the box-office success of Jaws, itself producing three sequels, which included Jaws 2 made during this period.
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Despite the film's initial poor showing at the box-office theatrically the picture has since developed a cult following.
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American film debut of Australian actress Angela Punch McGregor. Director Michael Ritchie cast McGregor after he saw her in the Australian film Newsfront where she had recently won the Australian Film Institute's AFI Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
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The movie was nominated for two Razzie Awards at the inaugural Golden Raspberry Awards in 1981, for Worst Actor (Michael Caine) and Worst Director (Michael Ritchie).
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The amount of time that the pirates and their ancestors had been said to have been living on the secret Carribean island was around three hundred years.
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In the film's story, the estimated number of vessels that had in three years gone missing in the Bermuda Triangle was 610 pleasure craft with over two thousand people sailing on them.
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The film was made and released only about a year after its source novel of the same name by Peter Benchley had been first published in 1979. Benchley also wrote the screenplay for the movie.
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The disappearances of vessel occur in the Bermuda Triangle. When the movie was made and released, the topic of the real-life disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle was of high topical interest during the mid to late 1970s. Other movies of the period which treated the Bermuda Triangle in its story-lines included Airport '77; The Bermuda Triangle; Beyond the Bermuda Triangle and Misterio en las Bermudas as well as the documentary Secrets of the Bermuda Triangle.
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One of actor Michael Caine's notorious "paycheck pictures" alongside Ashanti, The Swarm, Jaws: The Revenge, Blame It on Rio and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.
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Michael Caine went onto to star in Jaws: The Revenge, the third sequel to Peter Benchley's Jaws, giving Caine two star appearances in Benchley related movies.
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The fictional vessel, the United States Coast Guard cutter (USCGS) "New Hope", was portrayed by the real life USCGC, the "Dauntless" (WMEC-624). This movie is one of two films that she has appeared, the other being Licence to Kill.
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The filming location for "The Island", the secret modern pirate island setting, was the volcanic island of Antigua in the West Indies. Key location filming on this island took place at a region known as Indian Creek. Here, huts, trails and a village were constructed in a mango grove to create the pirates' hideaway society.
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The main movie poster of this Peter Benchley filmed adaptation featured an arm and hand protruding from the sea clenching a pirate's knife. A similar shot appears in the final sequence of the film of Peter Benchley's The Deep where an arm and hand rise from the sea clinching a piece of treasure.
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Final theatrical feature film adaptation [to date, March 2013] of a Peter Benchley story.
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Second and final of two movies that actors David Warner and Michael Caine both worked on. The first had been Ivan Passer's Silver Bears made and released around a couple of years earlier.
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This filmed adaptation of a Peter Benchley novel was the second from a Benchley novel made by the Jaws producers, David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck, that film having been the first. That movie had been a box-office hit but this film was a box-office flop. The Island was the third and final Benchley related movie that Zanuck & Brown produced as the pair had previously also made Jaws 2.
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First, final and only ever theatrical feature film starring the then young actor Jeffrey Frank who played Justin, the son of Blair Maynard (Michael Caine).
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The name of the leisure craft seen in the beginning of the film was called "The Lady" whilst the name of the three-masted schooner was the "St. Croix".
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The person played by Michael Caine is called Blair Maynard. The character has the same last name as the Royal Navy Captain Robert Maynard RN (c. 1684 - 4 January 1751), First Lieutenant of the HMS Pearl, who killed the legendary pirate Blackbeard in a fight. Such a connection is referred to in the film's story when the pirates make such an association with the same last names.
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The name of the law / book of rules that the pirate society followed was called "The Covenant".
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As the isle setting of "The Island" is a secluded uncharted island off the coast of Florida in the Carribean Sea, this makes the modern day buccaneers in the film literally "Pirates of the Carribean".
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Both the movie's director (Michael Ritchie) and main star (Michael Caine) were both first-named "Michael".
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When Beth (Angela Punch McGregor) is first seen, for the whole scene, her entire face is covered in mud.
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The adoptive name given to teenager Justin Maynard (Jeffrey Frank) by the pirate clan was "Tu-Barb".
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One of thirteen productions from the year 1980 where Ennio Morricone was credited as composer.
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The movie actually features the most famous of all pirate flags, the Jolly Roger, which was said to have been first flown by French pirate Emanuel Wynne during the 18th century.
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The names that the pirates had for penis and sexual intercourse were "Thruster" and "Thrusting" respectively.
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The name of the book that Dr. Windsor (Frank Middlemass) was reading was "The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence" (1977) by Carl Sagan.
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One of two films released in 1980 that were directed by Michael Ritchie. The other movie was the concert film Divine Madness.
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One of two pictures released in 1980 starring Michael Caine. The other was Dressed to Kill. Both films were in the suspense genre.
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The movie was the second sea-related film that actor Michael Caine made in back-to-back consecutive years as Caine the previous year had starred in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.
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In the film's story, the pirates are descendants of the French Buccaneers of Hispaniola. The secret enclave of them has been in existence since it was established by Jean-David Nau aka François l'Olonnais (c. 1635 - c. 1668) during the 17th Century. L'Olonnais was a real life pirate who was active in the Caribbean Sea during the 1660s. The pirate leader played by David Warner is also called Jean-David Nau, named after their legendary ancestor.
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