Sea Devils (1953)

The Worst Film Ever

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This is a wannabee swashbuckler set in the Napoleonic era with Rock Hudson as a bare chested dashing pirate evading the customs men and Bryan Forbes as his faithful mate. Maxwell Reid plays his rival who is a true bounder.The lovely Yvonne DeCarlo is mixed up in this as a British spy send over to France to obtain important information but Reid ends up in jail after getting involved in a fight with Hudson.DeCarlo has to use Hudson to get over to France but only for Hudson to be a hindrance as he thinks she might be a French spy and even worse he fell for her sob story to get her over there.The film has no swash or buckle. There are some decent sailing sequences and Hudson will keep his male fans happy with his bare chest. However the story is pants, with little chemistry between DeCarlo and Hudson, we neither care if DeCarlo is a double spy or not and the sequence where Reid and Hudson join up is stupid because they hate each other and we can guess betrayal in in the air.Director Raoul Walsh has made better films.

After a bit of trial-and-error, I managed to acquire a workable copy (unlike another Rock Hudson vehicle in the same vein, CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT [1955]!) of this swashbuckler set in the Napoleonic era – with the Emperor himself played by Frenchman Gerard Oury; incidentally, I had intended to close off 2008 by revisiting the latter's most popular directorial effort i.e. the WWII farce DON'T LOOK NOW – WE'RE BEING SHOT AT! (1966), but had to forego it due to time constraints! While I can't say that SEA DEVILS is very well-regarded within the genre (Leonard Maltin dismisses it with a :star::star: rating), in spite of the revered Walsh's involvement, I have to admit that I rather enjoyed it. Hudson is an impetuous rum-shipper, flanked by an amusingly grumpy Bryan Forbes, who's constantly clashing with rival Maxwell Reed; their quarrel comes to a head when they involve a woman (Yvonne De Carlo) whose activities as a spy, however, are jeopardized when Hudson misconstrues the situation! De Carlo's contribution here is far more engaging than when she played the BUCCANEER'S GIRL (1950), which I watched earlier in the month; for the record, she and Hudson had already been teamed for SCARLET ANGEL (1952), yet another costumer but which I'm not familiar with.By the way, despite American leads, director and studio (RKO), this is a British-made effort – with typically reliable supporting cast (including Dennis O'Dea as De Carlo's superior and Michael Goodliffe as her contact in France) and production values (ensuring stunning color photography throughout and a suitably rousing score). As expected, then, we get plenty of action and intrigue – spiced with equally obligatory bouts of romance and comedy relief; the result hardly makes for a classic film but, in this agreeable company, it's perhaps more satisfying than such hokum has a right to be!

The dialogue in this movie is ploddingly pedantically awful - and there is so much of it! Maybe it is because the film is set the early 19th Century and people are trying to make it look classy but everyone in this film gives full weight to every syllable of their every line. There is not a single "ain't," "shalln't," "can't," or "won't" in the whole thing. Everything is delivered in a very stagy mock-formal manner that, had it been camped up might have been amusing, but, as it wasn't, is merely grindingly dull.The writer, Borden Chase, was obviously much happier with westerns - he wrote the classic Red River amongst others - and seems to have been overawed by the language when adapting a novel by such a revered writer as Victor Hugo (who also wrote Les Misrables) - or he was just plain out of his depth when attempting to write a 'period' piece. For whatever reason, the dialogue is stilted and clumsy; sounding at times like a dubbed Italian movie rather than a film written by someone who's first language was English.Not as bad as some - but dull.

The early 1950s were a sort of Golden Age for those modest but entertaining costume adventures set within pirate ships, French Foreign Legion forts, lost cities in the jungle, medieval castles, Arabian courts, etc. These "costumers" were always in color, the better to lure viewers away from black-and-white TV sets, and they featured such names as John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Alan Ladd, Jeff Chandler, John Derek, Arlene Dahl, Tony Curtis, and Burt Lancaster.This 1953 swashbuckler from RKO features a top-billed Yvonne de Carlo and an up-and-coming Rock Hudson under the competent but uninspired direction of veteran film-maker, Raoul Walsh. It's a minor effort, diverting enough to pass the time but lacking flair and style and unlikely to linger in the memory. A bit more action and a dash of humor would have been welcome additions.The movie's main fault, however, lies in the relationship between leading man and leading lady. They're supposed to be falling in love during the course of the story but there's no passion or feeling here, merely some dutiful lines of romantic dialog. De Carlo seems too old and matronly for Hudson who needs someone sprightlier to play off against.Hudson hadn't yet reached star status but it's pleasant to see him here before the "movie star" gloss hardened around him. His acting abilities are no more than average but he's attractive and likeable and the script finds several excuses for him to take off his shirt. At one point he's not only bare-chested but in bondage with his hands tied behind his back and a with a length of rope looped twice around his torso. This being the early '50s, his pants are worn high enough to mostly cover his navel, but those ropes passing just above and just below his nipples impart a fetishy quality which is probably sexier than many of today's nude scenes.