Seven Were Saved

There is absolutely nothing fancy about this. It's a simple story with a simple set. While escorting an accused Japanese war criminal to his trial in Manila, an American air force plane crashes in the South China Sea, and the passengers and crew (including the Japanese war criminal) have to find a way to work together to survive until they're rescued. Along the way they face the sorts of things you would expect in the circumstances - a lack of food and water, injuries from the crash, tension around the presence of Colonel Yamura, shark attacks, etc. Almost the entire movie is set on the life raft, so the composite cast had to work together pretty well in order to make this interesting - and for the most part they succeeded. Catherine Craig and Richard Denning had the most significant parts as the two on the raft who seemed to be the most in control, and they did well with their parts. The basic bit of suspense in the movie is which seven are going to survive. The title tells us that there will be seven, but there are eight survivors of the crash, so it's a bit of a guessing game as to which one isn't going to make it.

This seems to be a bit of a tribute to American air and sea rescue forces, and it's interesting enough to see how they handle the rescue once the raft is discovered. It's a definite B-Movie, but it's not a bad one. (6/10)