A "cultural " warning at the beginning of the film tells us that "under king Louis the Sixteenth 's ,reign, blah blah blah .......". Actually, this penal colony did not exist at the time : Napoleon The Third created it. The most famous prisoner was captain Alfred Dreyfus (1894) unjustly found guilty of treason and deported to Devil's Island. So historically , do not take it seriously when one of the poor girls says that she was deported because she was L'Autrichienne's enemy !Poor Marie-Antoinette was responsible for all the misfortunes of her kingdom ! And that's not all ! The noble pirate who passes himself off as a king's captain is stealing and plundering only for the sake of the soon-to-come Revolution! Beyond belief indeed!
This is a poorly written screenplay ,with all the clichés of the "female prisoners " flicks ;the sadistic lieutenant who runs the place , the exhausting work which consists of finding gold in a swamp with a sifter ;and when they want to have a rest ,the girls have to sleep with their wardens ;as soon as the hero (Guy Madison) appears (he keeps people waiting for it's half an hour before he appears ) , one knows he will be fair, chivalrous, generous. And that he will fatally fall in love with the prettiest girl on the place : Michèle Mercier , whose career would often be in Italian movies ,before she hit the big time with the Angélique series ,which made her ,for a very short time ,one of the top three French actresses (just after Bardot and Jeanne Moreau) .Disjointed story and could-not-care-less directing , the girls' physique being the one and only asset.
This is a poorly written screenplay ,with all the clichés of the "female prisoners " flicks ;the sadistic lieutenant who runs the place , the exhausting work which consists of finding gold in a swamp with a sifter ;and when they want to have a rest ,the girls have to sleep with their wardens ;as soon as the hero (Guy Madison) appears (he keeps people waiting for it's half an hour before he appears ) , one knows he will be fair, chivalrous, generous. And that he will fatally fall in love with the prettiest girl on the place : Michèle Mercier , whose career would often be in Italian movies ,before she hit the big time with the Angélique series ,which made her ,for a very short time ,one of the top three French actresses (just after Bardot and Jeanne Moreau) .Disjointed story and could-not-care-less directing , the girls' physique being the one and only asset.