Interesteg What makes it different from others?

EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Juha Hämäläinen This was the first film seen in theaters as a widescreen presentation in Finland in the fifties. So much for the film history, because the video version I saw was in 1.33:1 format leaving a lot of the visual underwater spectaculars out of the picture. Not that it might have helped much the otherwise lackluster presentation. The underwater photography of scavenging a sunken treasure does look great and very well done for its time. But above the surface there are the all too static scenes made in a studio with painted skies and wind machines. The dialog and acting are stiff and more like posing instead of running smoothly along the story. Not that the plot is much of a help either. A bit more care for the script would have been needed for a working balance next to the well executed underwater scenes and such ambitious plans for marketing tricks like underwater screenings with aqualungs for the press. The whole story is very slow moving and largely without excitement until the final fifteen minutes. Only then is the movie finally able to fill some of the expectations that have been promised all along with claustrophobic mood, shark danger and Jane Russell stuck in a favorable position in open red swimming suit. John Sturges was usually a very capable director, but this time his skills have probably been too tied under the command of the producer Howard Hughes. I'm sure they didn't really mean the whole movie to sink like that.

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.

Nazi_Fighter_David "Underwater!" is a routine treasure-search adventure with Jane Russell (Theresa) in love with Richard Egan (Johnny) diving with him and with Dominic (Gilbert Roland), his best friend, in the deep blue water of the Caribbean looking for bars of gold lost in the wreck of a Spanish sailing ship...The essential point of the film is not the legendary treasure shared in part with an unscrupulous 'bandido' named Rico (Joseph Calleia) but a nice shot worth to be remembered: Jane Russell in her distinctive particular one-piece red bathing-suit moving underwater in front Sturges' camera...With a great Latin music score, and the blessing of Father Cannon (Robert Keith) for winning his gold cross, and with Lori Nelson (Gloria), the owner of the beautiful boat in love with Dominic, the film photographed in SuperScope and Technicolor, imparts a special Latin flavor, serving one and only purpose, the figure and the natural wonders of Jane Russell in her last film for Howard Hughes...Ironically another pin-up girl, and another 'Jane' was about to be born, the screen goddess Jayne Mansfield.