After a war breaks out in England, all English children are evacuated to an unspecified place. A plane carrying a bunch of them crashes near a deserted island. Only the children survive. On the island, most of the children revert to savagery.
Though it, or rather the novel on which it is based, and which I haven't read, has inspired its share of intellectual elaborations or interpretations, I couldn't honestly see that it warrants anything deeper than the truism that boys will be boys. I watched a 1990 remake in 2001, and liked it better than I liked this 1963 version twenty years later. I don't know whether my relative judgments would hold if both films were watched closely in time. Anyway, the plot development is sketchy, and the concepts the film toys with are handled in a very arbitrary way. I couldn't understand why the majority of the boys didn't seem to care much about being rescued. Even unruly boys have a certain rationality to them. All in all, not a terribly serious movie. The cinematography is good, and the island landscapes are truly gorgeous.
Rating: 40
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