PamelaShort In this outlandish, adventure film, John Wayne plays a hardened sea captain, who is freed from a Communist prison. He is heroically taken to a hamlet of villagers who want to escape Red domination. There he encounters Lauren Bacall, the daughter of a missionary doctor killed by the Red Chinese. The villagers reveal their grand plan of escape, taking all 189 souls aboard an ancient, wood-burning ferryboat, with Captain Wayne at the wheel, along the 300-mile route to Hong Kong and freedom. Before all this takes place, there are some tense encounters to the village from communist Chinese soldiers and a smouldering current between Bacall and Wayne. This movie was filmed at China Camp in San Rafael, near San Francisco, and in the San Francisco Bay, which sufficiently captures authentic hilly Chinese locales as well as the reedy shores and choppy waters of the Formosa Strait. Blood Alley is one of John Wayne's most politically propagandistic films, and was produced by his company Batjac, with William Wellman directing. The acting is adequate with a charming performance given by Kim Joy as Bacall's maid. Although the going is rough along " Blood Alley, " the trip is reasonably absorbing with the help of the entire cast of interesting characters, who amazingly manage to pull it entertainingly all together. John Wayne fans may find this film an interesting change for the Duke.

SanteeFats John Wayne plays a ship captain that has been rescued from the commies by some local villagers. He is basically shanghaied into captaining an old paddle steamer for a run to Hong Kong with an entire village on board. They are trying escape the commies and get to freedom. This role was a bit different than most John Wayne roles, as a matter of fact he only took it when Robert Mitchum went nutso and got fired. It ended up that the only way to save the picture was for Wayne to play the lead. His production company, Batjac, was doing the movie and so that is when he jumped in and did the movie. Lauren Bacall plays the second lead and she is very good. I don't think she gets enough credit for how well she acted.

EndlessBob Others have reviewed this film better than I could, but I would like to point out one misconception I've seen in a couple of places: "Blood Alley" is not the Formosa Straits.The Straits are approximately 420 miles ENE of Hong Kong, and are 118 miles wide at its widest point, which is practically the open sea. It's also nearly 250 miles from the end of the Straits to Hong Kong, which definitely would be open sea. The movie makes it clear that the refugees are moving 300 miles downriver to escape to Hong Kong, and at one point John Wayne's character worries about about what might happen to the boat in any kind of real waves.Most likely "Blood Alley" is the Pearl River, which is China's third longest river after the Yangtze and Yellow, second largest in terms of volume, and does empty into the sea at Hong Kong. The delta near Hong Kong is wide and deep enough for the Chinese warship that was firing at the refugees later in the film. (Terrible shots weren't they?) The refugees also would have been following the east side of the delta rather than what appeared on Wayne's hand-drawn chart to be the west side, but hey -- it's the movies.

kknd really, a comment by nnnn45089191 is exactly what this movie is, Right-wing propaganda of the 50's Author: nnnn45089191 from NorwayMost of the views here are from western countries, where people had tunnel vision of what china was about in the 1950s. propaganda is a universal tool used by Germans, Japanese, Americans, Chinese, English, in fact all government in that chapter of earth's history.the movie didn't even try to depict the real environment in china, having westerners dressed in feudalism period Chinese costumes and speak cantonese (mandarine is the official Chinese language and cantonese is only spoken in one Chinese province - canton) is just hilarious. And it also shows how desperate the film producers are trying to convey the story, no matter how unprofessional the movie looks.and when the "Chinese navy" fired, the battleship officers were speaking cantonese too... and Chinese army had absolutely no such fire power in the 1950s. if you don't get the hang of this, try imagining this way, 1. American's war against the native indians, 2.a bunch of white Americans dressed like indians, speaking a minority Indian language poorly 3.indian army's fighter jet rains deathreally, the film makers have no idea what china really is and they clearly showed no intention of even trying to convey the true image... the whole story was a make up.u really need to ask, what is it that they want to achieve by making such a film.i think they just want to evilize the Chinese communist government (they may be or not be, now their people are manufacturing for the world), like what GW Bush did to the old iraq regime whom was once supported by the USA government itself.