The secret of a good disaster movie is to ensure that the victims hardly have chance to draw breath after one crisis, before another follows hot on its heels. Few have subjected the victims to a more sensational "frying-pan-and-fire" scenario than this Rank adventure, in which a plane crash-lands on an island, only for the survivors to discover that it is the site for an imminent atomic test. Considering there is only one outcome, director Guy Green sustains the suspense remarkably well, helped in no small measure by a sound cast led by Richard Attenborough, Pier Angeli and Eddie Constantine.

A flying boat has to ditch off an island in the Pacific. Along with the injured owner-pilot the passengers include a policeman and his smuggler prisoner, a slimey limey witness against him, a physicist, and a globe-hopping good-time girl. On the island they find a fleet of derelict ships, farm animals tethered, and cameras in a lead-lined bunker and a stark realisation soon dawns.