Blood Alley is a 1955 American seafaringCold Waradventure film produced byJohn Wayne, directed byWilliam A. Wellman, and starring Wayne andLauren Bacall. The film was distributed byWarner Bros. and shot inCinemaScope and Warnercolor.^[2] The film depicts a voyage from Chiku Shan, a village on the Communist Chinese coast, all the way to Hong Kong via theFormosa Strait.^[3]

Blood Alley
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	William A. Wellman
Screenplay by	Albert Sidney Fleischman
Based on	Blood Alley 1955 novel byAlbert Sidney Fleischman
Produced by	John Wayne
Starring	John Wayne Lauren Bacall Paul Fix Joy Kim Anita Ekberg Mike Mazurki Berry Kroeger
Cinematography	William H. Clothier
Edited by	Fred McDowell
Music by	Roy Webb
Production company	Batjac Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	October 1, 1955 (1955-10-01)
Running time	115 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million[citation needed]
Box office	$2.2 million (US)[1]

Captain Tom Wilder, an AmericanMerchant Mariner, is taken prisoner after his ship is seized by the Chinese Communists. After two years in prison, he is helped to escape with both bribery and by disguising him as a Soviet army officer. A large Chinese man transports Wilder to Chiku Shan village without divulging why he was broken out of prison.

The village leader, Mr. Tso, tells Wilder he has been recruited to transport nearly 200 Chiku Shan residents out of Red China to freedom in the British port ofHong Kong. For the task, Captain Wilder must pilot a stolen, wood-burning, flat-bottomed, 19th Century stern-wheel riverboat. He will need to utilize his detailed memory of the China coast to draw a chart and navigate using an unreliablemagnetic compass, and without achronometer. Finally, he must rely upon the villagers' determination and resources to escape.

The villagers have been planning their escape for more than a year, gradually raising the harbor channel's bottom with stones in order to trap the local Red Chinese patrol boat once it has been lured inside. Sinkingsampans loaded with rocks at the channel mouth will cause the patrol boat to run aground while the village escapes. The villagers have also been secretly accumulating arms, ranging fromBrowning machine guns toMosin–Nagant rifles andNagant revolvers. Their plan is complicated by having to bring along the large Communist Feng family so they will not be blamed for allowing the mass escape.

The villagers include the riverboat's Chief Engineer, a U.S. Navy-trained marine engineer named Tack, who helps steal the steamboat. Tack and Wilder bring the stern wheeler to Chiku Shan village where it is loaded with furnace firewood, boiler water, and all their provisions; it is re-christened with the village's name.

Wilder meets and is attracted to a tough and determined American woman named Cathy Grainger, whose father is a medical missionary in the village. Dr. Grainger was recently executed by the Red Chinese following unsuccessful surgery on a political commissar. To prevent her staying behind, Wilder tells Cathy about her father's death just before the villagers leave Chiku Shan, though she refuses to believe him.

Following their plan, the villagers lure the patrol boat into the harbor and trap it there. They flee down the coast in the stolen ferryboat, bluffing their way past aPeople's Liberation Army Navy destroyer. They disappear into a fog bank, hiding by day in shoreline reed marshes and sailing south only at night. The Fengs attempt to sabotage the escape, first by poisoning the food and water supply, then attempting and failing to take overChiku Shan during a heavy storm. Cathy eventually comes to terms with her attraction to the gruff Captain Wilder.

A shortage of firewood, drinking water, and boiler water compels theChiku Shan to pull into the Graveyard of Ships at Honghai Bay. Captain Wilder orders the wrecks stripped of wood and water siphoned from various depressions and abandoned tanks for both the boiler and for drinking water. A loose heavy timber suddenly plows through the stern wheel while mooring the steamboat, snapping two of the paddle blades. Wilder is forced to stay in the Graveyard longer than planned in order to make repairs. At the same time, Cathy goes ashore and returns after learning of her father's fate. The Fengs are put ashore, only to be taken back aboard when the pursuing Red Chinese destroyer begins shelling the Graveyard from a distance. It launches power boats to search for the ferry in the shallow harbor.

Chiku Shan makes a run for it into a marshy estuary, and disappears. Because smoke would reveal their position, the villagers both pole and tow the riverboat through miles of marshlands until reaching the open sea beyond the destroyer's search area. Tack fires up the boiler, and the steamboat proceeds to Hong Kong with the refugees. Their triumphant arrival is hailed by the steam whistles and ship sirens of every vessel in the harbor.

• John Wayne as Captain Tom Wilder
• Lauren Bacall as Cathy Grainger, a medical missionary's daughter
• Paul Fix as Mr. Tso, the senior village elder and headman
• Joy Kim as Susu, Cathy Grainger's housekeeper
• Berry Kroeger (Berry Kroger), as Old Feng, the Communist Feng family patriarch
• Mike Mazurki as Big Han, Wilder's First Mate
• Anita Ekberg as Wei Ling, Big Han's wife
• Henry Nakamura as Tack, the Chief Engineer
• James Hong as Communist Soldier (uncredited)
• Lowell Gilmore as British Officer (uncredited)

The film's screenplay was written byAlbert Sidney Fleischman, based on his novel, and was produced by Wayne'sBatjac Productions.^[4] Location filming took place in and nearChina Camp,^[3][5] a shrimp fishing village in theSan Francisco Bay. Additional filming occurred atPoint Orient shrimp camp where the film crew was largely based in what is now known asPoint San Pablo Yacht Harbor (located on Point San Pablo). Filming occurred at theSacramento River,Stockton, California, and the northern California coast.^[6][4]

The Chinese Communist soldiers who search the village are armed with Model 1891 Mosin–Nagant rifles (probably ex-U.S. Rifle, 7.62 mm, Model of 1916 rifles) rather than the more appropriate Model 91/30s the Communists would have carried, having been exported to Mao's army during the Chinese Civil War. The determination as to model can be made in the scene where Captain Wilder is shown watching Mr. Feng in his car with the Mosin–Nagant laid across his knees. The single blade front sight and thick barrel bands of the Model 1891 are unmistakable.

Blood Alley is a nickname for theFormosa Strait.^[4]Blood Alley is a nickname for Rue Chu Pao-san, a short street off Avenue Edward VII, located inShanghai,^[7] where Fleischman had visited as a sailor on theUSS Albert T. Harris (DE-447). He was paid $5000 for the rights for his novel and was hired to write the screenplay.^[8]

The Communist patrol boat that the villagers trap on their artificial reef was actually a rescue boat on loan to the film company by the U.S. Air Force.

"Later, my dad (John Wayne) discovered that William Wellman drove Robert Mitchum to quit (though not necessarily to drink). The TV showThis Is Your Life had once profiled Wellman. When the show’s producers asked the acclaimed director for a list of people to interview, Wellman included Mitchum, whose stalled career Wellman had boosted in 1946 by casting Mitchum as the lead inThe Story of GI Joe. Mitchum told the producers, no, he didn’t have time to talk about William Wellman. When Wellman found out, he was livid. When the two men worked onBlood Alley, he took his revenge by badgering Mitchum around the clock."^[9]

Wayne plays aMerchant Marine captain in a role originally intended forRobert Mitchum prior to an altercation with the producers.^[4] Mitchum was fired from the production by Wellman.^[10][11] Wayne took over the lead afterGregory Peck turned the film down andHumphrey Bogart requested a large amount of money to assume the role.^[12]

Swedish actressAnita Ekberg, veteran actorPaul Fix, actorBerry Kroeger, and film character actorMike Mazurki all playChinese roles in Hollywood "yellowface". Most of the extras, however, are ethnic Chinese.

Anita Ekberg was awarded theGolden Globe for Best Female Newcomer for her performance inBlood Alley.

In addition, the United States Air Force awarded the cast and crew ofBlood Alley a Certificate of Merit for encouraging recruitment for the United States Air Force by their work in the movie. John Wayne took the oath on behalf of the film's company as Honorary USAF Recruiters.^[13]

The film was promoted by the appearance of Wayne on the number-one rated television show,I Love Lucy. In an unusual two-episode arc airing as the show's season opener on October 10, 1955, Lucy and Ethel steal Wayne's footprints from the forecourt ofGrauman's Chinese Theatre the night before the premiere ofBlood Alley, and complications ensue. During the second episode, a studio employee interrupts Wayne in his dressing room to show him a poster forBlood Alley.^[14] The film was also promoted during the closing credits.^[15]

Despite the star power of its lead actors and director,Blood Alley received a lukewarm reception from critics.^[16]The New York Times said, "Blood Alley, despite its exotic, oriental setting, is a standard chase melodrama patterned on a familiar blueprint."^[3] Today's critics have focused onBlood Alley's anti-communist aspect.DVD Talk called it "preposterous but entertaining" and said, "Wayne and Bacall have no chemistry at all".^[17]

Blood Alley was released on DVD May 4, 2005 by Warner Bros. Home Video. The film was re-released on Blu-ray July 18, 2017 by the Warner Archive Collection.

• List of American films of 1955
• John Wayne filmography
• Soldier of Fortune (1955 film), a movie with a similar plot

• Blood Alley atIMDb
• Blood Alley at theTCM Movie Database
• Blood Alley at theAFI Catalog of Feature Films