Underwater! (1955)

Boring

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

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!

Underwater is a soggy adventure story with personable characters, little tension or plot and some nice underwater photography in colour even though some of the underwater scenes go on for too long. At the time such scenes would had been a gimmick.Johnny Gray (Richard Egan) and his Cuban business partner Dominic Quesada (Gilbert Roland) think they have made a discovery of a valuable wreck although Dominic might had sugared the pill a little. They pretend to be scientists collecting rocks to a nosy shark hunter to put him off the scent.They get some funds, equipment and a boat together and return this time with Johnny's wife Theresa (Jane Russell) Gloria (Lori Nelson) and a knowledgeable priest Father Cannon (Robert Keith) who thinks that the boat they discovered escorted a bigger ship carrying a valuable religious artefact which sank.As they look for the treasure Johnny and Dominic know that they need to keep one step ahead of the nosy shark hunter and his crew who are always nearby in shark infested waters.The film really is by the numbers, in fact it is padded with the underwater scenes and Jane Russell in various bathing suits. The soundtrack features music to the song 'Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White.'Egan is wooden, Roland is charismatic. Russell and Nelson are easy on the eye.

I saw this movie, the first time, in NYC at one of the big screen palaces, as a child. I remember distinctly my father calling one of his friends afterward and telling him he HAD to go see this movie because near the end, you got to see Jane Russell's bare breast for an instant. 50 years later, watching this on Turner Classic Movies, I saw he was right. However, it may have been Ms. Russell's stunt double, as I'd read she'd used one during the diving scenes. Yes, I did TiVo it and yes, Egan clearly exposed her nipple for a second. Subliminal? I bet the editor and director, on the Moveola machine DID know this and left it in!

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.