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List Price: $12.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 91505
Released: May 3, 2005 |
| Our Price: $4.60 |
| Used Price: $2.89 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
An American merchant marine captain ferries a group of Chinese refugess down the Yangtze River to escape the Communists.
Blood Alley Reviews:
Not as good a movie 40 years later... 
2009-10-16 - This was one of my mom's favorite movies. She too had left Communist China after the 1949 revolution. One of our customers at our laundry was an extra in the movie. I've always been a big John Wayne fan but this was not one of his best performances. It looked like he was walking through the role. Lauren Bacall could have also given a better performance. Seeing Blood Alley forty years later from the viewpoint of an adult was a little disappointing.
I think some people are missing something. 
2009-03-05 - I saw this movie many years ago and thought it was great, however, I was rather young at the time. I recently bought the DVD and was apprehensive about it not living up to my memory of it. It was actually better than I remembered it. I am also surprised at how many people seem to share my opinion. I thought this movie was far less well known and appreciated than it seems to be.
However, I think some people miss why it is such a good movie. Yes, it is a John Wayne movie and the narration follows his character throughout, however, the real star of the movie is the Chinese village. The villagers are the ones who plan and execute the ingenious escape from Red China. Wayne is just a hired hand; hired to accomplish one of the necessary tasks; and not a very enthusiastic hand at that.
The real story is about the patience, ingenuity, dedication, sacrifice, and determination of the village to accomplish their escape. Although the scenes featuring Wayne and Bacall appear as if they are the main thrust of the story, they are actually, for the most part, just interludes in the real story; which is of the progress of the villagers' plan.
I think this is the key to why this movie holds up so well after many viewings and after 30 years. It would have been a fine movie even without the Hollywood stars. Adding Wayne and Bacall was just the iceing on the cake.
blood alley is bloody great
2009-02-02 - If you are a John Wayne fan this is the movie for you. Great action and alot of personality for everyone.
One of the worst John Wayne films 
2008-07-26 - Well, I guess I'm out of step with most reviewers on this one. I'm a great fan of the Duke, but this is one of his worst films. I didn't buy the plot for a minute. The scenes between Lauren Bacall and Wayne show zero chemistry. Frankly, much as I love Bacall's early films, she never quite made the transition from alluring ingenue to fully adult actress. This film is Exhibit A as to why her career never made it to the heights it might have. I don't think Wayne's conversations with the invisible "Baby" work either. They are annoying and don't add anything to the film. Finally, I have no political objection to using Caucasian actors to play Asian parts. In this case, though, using such familiar faces as Paul Fix to play the Chinese villagers is a major distraction and detracts from the realism of the film. So, unless you are determined to watch every film the Duke made, I would say not to waste your time with this one when there are so many better films to watch.
"Powder your nose, Baby!"
2008-02-28 - BLOOD ALLEY (directed in 1955 by William A. Wellman and produced by John Wayne's film company Batjac) is one of the more unusual John Wayne adventures of the period. Set in Communist-run China, Wayne plays Tom Wilder, a sea captain assigned the task of taking a boatload of Chinese refugees to the safety of the Hong Kong harbour. To do so he must guide the boat down the dangerous 300-mile waterway known as 'Blood Alley'...
Also along for the ride is Lauren Bacall. She provides a much-welcome presence as Cathy Grainger, the daughter of a local doctor who has been murdered by the Communist regime. The cast also includes familiar Batjac personalities Joy Kim ("The High and the Mighty"), Anita Ekberg ("Man in the Vault"), Paul Fix and Barry Kroeger.
Although John Wayne's Batjac production company bankrolled the film, Robert Mitchum was originally-cast in the role of Captain Wilder; but he was later fired following a violent on-set incident. Both Gregory Peck and Humphrey Bogart (Bacall's real-life husband) were considered until it became necessary for John Wayne himself to step into the role.
Released hot on the heels of the previous years' John Wayne/William A. Wellman collaboration "The High and the Mighty" (1954), BLOOD ALLEY did very well at the box office, earning great notices for it's stars Wayne and Lauren Bacall. The timely political theme of the story had a lot to do with it's resonance with film audiences of the period. Today, we can still enjoy BLOOD ALLEY for it's tense action scenes, stunning CinemaScope photography and the memorable chemistry of Wayne and Bacall (they were later reunited in 1976 for "The Shootist"). Highly-recommended.
(Single-sided, dual-layer disc).
