AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

mark.waltz Here's a rare chance to see Jane Russell give a truly ridiculous performance as a sultry Latina with an unconvincing Spanish accent. She is married to deep sea diver Richard Egan, who along with older Latin lothario Gilbert Roland, wants to go down to the depths to collect the gold from a sunken ship in the Caribbean. Russell fills her performance with fury, but she's not at all believable in her part (where was Abbe Lane?) so her presence becomes a distraction from the often dully plotted adventure yarn. The film opens on a fantastic note with the credits (set underwater) rolling over a very classical sounding version of "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White" which Cuban bandleader Perez Prado made very popular in a mambo recording that has stood the test of time. The Prado version appears several times in the film, once with Prado and his band playing it in a cafe sequence, and another rather sultry sequence where Egan chases a playful Russell on the beach of the island that they, along with Roland and his younger girlfriend, Lori Nelson, have a picnic on.There's the typical danger with both the risks of diving in these rocky waters (and going into the hull of a much damaged ship that could collapse in on the divers at any minute) and crew members who may have nefarious plans of their own. The film is narrated by the third billed Egan who is really the lead, and at one point, I had a chuckle over his line, "Capital is the least of my worries", considering that his last acting job was as the wealthy patriarch Sam Clegg on the daytime soap opera "Capitol". Technically, this film is extremely well done, with the photography breathtaking and almost 3-D in nature, but script wise, it often becomes boring when the actors (or stuntmen) are not diving down to the depths to retrieve the gold and other treasures they find. I've been searching for this film for years ever since first seeing it when it came out on VHS in the early 1990's, and while the second trip underwater was a slight disappointment, I did find many things in it to enjoy. If only director John Sturges had gotten Russell some lessons in a proper Spanish accent where she didn't sound like a female version of Speedy Gonzalez!

James Hitchcock Johnny Gray, his wife Teresa, his friend Dominic Quesada and Dominic's girlfriend Gloria (who just happens to own a boat) are on a diving expedition off the coast of Cuba, searching for sunken treasure. (Teresa is supposed to be Cuban, and some of her dialogue is in Spanish, but Jane Russell does not attempt a foreign accent in her English-language dialogue). In particular, they have dreams of finding a 17th century ship containing a life size solid gold Madonna with precious jewels. They realise, however, that even after they have found the wreck, they will have to face many perils before they can recover the treasure. They also discover that they face competition from a group of local shark fisherman who are suspicious about their activities and who refuse to be fobbed off with their story that they are merely geologists collecting samples. The film was directed by John Sturges, a director whose work could vary in quality but who at his best was responsible for some of the great classics of the fifties and sixties such as "Bad Day at Black Rock", "Gunfight at the OK Corral" and "The Great Escape". "Underwater!" is not really in the same class as any of those great films. One of its main weaknesses is the casting of Richard Egan, a rather stiff actor more notable for his impressive physique than for his acting talents, in the leading role of Johnny. As Johnny is a complex character, not a mere action hero, the film would have been better with a stronger actor in this part. The rest of the cast are rather better, although I suspect that a lot of the film's appeal, at least for male viewers, was the chance to see Jane Russell showing off her own equally impressive physique in a swimsuit. Overall, however, "Underwater!" holds up pretty well today. On one level it is an exciting adventure story, in which the treasure-hunters have to battle sharks, moray eels and other underwater dangers. (In this respect it is far superior to something like "The Deep" which attempted to tell a roughly similar story some two decades later). A film shot underwater must have been something new and original in 1955; these scenes were not actually shot under the sea but in a specially constructed tank. On another level, however, it is a parable along the lines of "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" about what gold can do to men's souls, although it does not have quite the dramatic power of John Huston's masterpiece and lacks its tragic ending. Johnny becomes obsessed with the quest for the statue to such an extent that he is quite prepared to sacrifice his own life, or the lives of his companions, to find it. In the conflict with the fishermen it is Johnny who is the aggressor. It is notable that the cast includes a Catholic priest who acts as a sort of moral compass for the rest. These two layers of meaning help to keep the film watchable nearly sixty years after it was made. A bonus is the attractive musical score based around the popular hit tune "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". 6/10

gooey2 Why is this film never shown --even on Turner Classics-- in its original aspect ratio? I believe it was the first RKO widescreen film. The pan and scan version makes all the underwater photography look murky and that had been the movie's big allure, along with Jane Russell of course. But I have noticed, especially on Fox Movie Channel, that some widescreen films are never shown in widescreen. Others are. Perhaps the original prints are rotting in a can somewhere. SKY DIVERS, a movie with James Coburn and filmed in Greece is another example of one never shown in all its original glory. Both of these films' experience would be greatly enhanced by full view of the scenery.

whpratt1 This was the last picture that Howard Hughes, Executive Producer, would produce with Jane Russell. Howard produced "The Outlaw" with Russell years ago and it was a big success because it was baned by many Christian churches, because too much cleveage was exposed by Jane R. In this film, Jane Russell,(Theresa Gray),"Young Widow",'46, appears mostly in a bathing suit and shows off her body in all the right places and was the wife of Richard Egan,(Johnny Gray),"Untamed",'55, who had a great addiction to trying to find treasure and was down on his luck and just got married; so he was looking for a big find. Gilbert Roland, (Dominic),"Sonora",69 was also a skilled diver who also desired to find sunken riches from the deep coral reefs. Lori Nelson,(Gloria),"The Naked Monster",'05, was a cute petite blond friend of Dominic and played a rather dumb role. In 1955, scuba diving was a new feature and underwater films were of great interest to the public. There even was a priest who went along on the boat, who had great interest in religious relics that had sunken into the sea. There is some exciting scenes which captured the audiences of the 50's; it is truly a great Classic Film.