Tell someone that you're going to watch a "Hammer movie" you might instantly get back a series of "ooohhhs," "aahhhs," and possibly a knowing smile. Hammer films seem to occupy a space all their own. They seem to be thought of differently, accepted differently, and have an incredibly devoted fan base.
Hammer Film Productions made inexpensive (but sometimes very successful) films for a number of decades. Though best known for their horror pictures, particularly their Christopher Lee-Peter Cushing pairings, they certainly produced more than just horror features. They made crime films, mysteries, and adventure stories that took place in exotic locales. Four of these last type of films have just been put together in a brand-new two-disc set entitled Icons of Adventure.
Included on the discs are The Pirates of Blood River, The Devil-Ship Pirates, The Stranglers of Bombay, and Terror of the Tongs. Sticking with one of their most famous faces, three of the four films in the box star Christopher Lee, and several other actors appear in more than one feature as well.
Divided onto two-discs, the set has a very different feel depending on which disc is being viewed. Disc one contains The Pirates of Blood River and The Devil-Ship Pirates, both, as their name indicates, pirate movies. They each feature a band of bloodthirsty pirates, captained by Christopher Lee, who are trying to pillage, ransack, and control a small town. A small band of townsfolk opposes the pirates, and the groups do battle. The particulars of the stories differ slightly (the pirates are after hidden treasure in one and to convince an English town that England has lost a war to Spain in the other), but the overarching idea is the same.
Disc two, while having a completely different feel than disc one, also contains two very similar films, The Stranglers of Bombay, and Terror of the Tongs. Both pictures find a British man working in a colony (India in one and Hong Kong in the other), who uncovers a hidden society of corrupt locals who are murders/mobsters. The hero is the only person with the will to stay the course, uncover the truth, prove everyone else wrong, and try to fix the world.
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