Seven Were Saved (1947)

Shortly after WW2, a military transport plane carrying an assortment of passengers crashes into the South China Sea forcing the survivors to await their rescue into a life-raft.

Director:

William H. Pine

Writers:

Maxwell Shane (screenplay), Maxwell Shane (original story)

Stars:

Richard Denning, Catherine Craig, Russell Hayden

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Richard Denning	...	Captain Allen Danton
Catherine Craig	...	Lt. Susan Briscoe
Russell Hayden	...	Captain Jim Willis
Ann Doran	...	Mrs. Rollin Hartley
Byron Barr	...	Lt. Martin Pinkert
Richard Loo	...	Colonel Yamura
Don Castle	...	Lt. Pete Sturdevant
George Tyne	...	Sergeant Blair
Keith Richards	...	Smith / Philip Thompson
John Eldredge	...	Rollin Hartley

Storyline

A nurse is taking an amnesia victim, who was imprisoned by the Japanese during WW II, to the United States in a plane piloted by Richard Denning. The passengers include a Japanese colonel on his way to Manila to face war-crime charges, and a couple who were married on the day they were liberated from a Japanese prison camp. During the flight, the colonel breaks away from his guards, causes the plane to go out of control, and it crashes into the sea. The survivors get into a rubber boat and go through a minor-league version of "Lifeboat, with no Alfred Hitchcock sightings, until Air-Sea Rescue pilot Jim Willis rides to the rescue.

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Plot Keywords:

deception | consolidated pby 5 catalina | rescue | lifeboat | amnesia | 

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Taglines:

Daring men facing death over... Dangerous seas in a thrilling... Drama that will leave you breathless!

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Genres:

Adventure | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 March 1947 (USA)

Also Known As:

S.O.S. Rescue

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pine-Thomas Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

73 min

Sound Mix:

Mono Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.

User Reviews

Melodrama in another Lifeboat

Seven Were Saved was another project from the 'Dollar Bills' of Paramount, that B unit production company that churned out a lot of the second features for Paramount, stuff that got 2nd billed to main features that Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Alan Ladd when they were being shown. It's a story of air/sea rescue post World War II and had they stuck to that it might have been a decent film. William Pine and William Thomas were the 'dollar bills'.

Instead we got a cut rate version of Lifeboat when an army transport plane went down and several people were stranded in a rubber lifeboat the plane carried. How it happened was a bit on the bizarre side also. Richard Loo who was of Chinese background played many a cruel Japanese officer during and after World War II. He's in custody going to trial for war crimes in the Phillipines, but breaks free and tries to hijack the plane. It goes sufficiently off course to make tracking most difficult.

Richard Denning is piloting the plane and Catherine Craig otherwise known as Mrs. Robert Preston is an army nurse is one of the passengers and married to Russell Hayden. Hayden is one of the air/sea rescue pilots who's temporarily out of action and he breaks regulation to aid in the rescue.

I won't go into the melodrama in the lifeboat, you saw it all before and better with Alfred Hitchcock.