A Brilliant Conflict

The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The scuba diver partners Dominic Quesada (Gilbert Roland) and Johnny Gray (Richard Egan) are treasure hunters that are seeking for sunken treasures in the Caribean waters. When they find evidences of the Seventeenth Century galleon Santo Bello in the bottom of the sea, they raise money and an adequate boat and they sail to the spot with Johnny's wife Theresa Gray (Jane Russell), the boat's owner Gloria (Lori Nelson) and Father Cannon (Robert Keith), who is an archaeologist, to recover the treasure. They find the galleon located in a dangerous location on the edge of a cliff and they use a winch to try to hold it in position. Meanwhile they feel threatened by greedy shark hunters but they leave them in an island. When Theresa is trapped in the debris of the sunken vessel, Johnny and Dominic have difficulties to rescue her. But when they return to they vessel, they have a surprise."Underwater!" is a naive popcorn movie with a great adventure of treasure hunters. The attractions of this film are basically the underwater filming and Jane Russell, but it is entertaining in a rainy afternoon on DVD. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Alforje do Diabo" ("The Devil's Saddlebag")

Full-figured Jane Russell (as Theresa), her skin-diving husband Richard Egan (as Johnny), and his Cuban partner Gilbert Roland (as Dominic) search for treasure in the Caribbean. They find a shipwreck, shark, and others interested in the booty. Early in the running time, listen for Perez Prado's mega-hit instrumental "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White". This Howard Hughes production unabashedly showcased the chests and legs of its co-stars; other than the obvious, note how the Ms. Russell's legs are made visible while under the ship's table and Mr. Egan's shirt blows open in the breeze, for a loving camera. The "Underwater!" climax (and Russell cleavage) is routine, but it does not bore.***** Underwater! (2/9/55) John Sturges ~ Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Gilbert Roland, Lori Nelson

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.

**MINOR SPOILERS** Midly entertaining sunken treasure adventure movie that's only kept afloat by it's star Jane Russell, Theresa Gray, who's constantly competing in the movie with the breath-taking Caribbean scenery off the coast of Cuba. Finding some underwater artifacts that suggest their from a Spanish Man of War it's decided by the sunken-ship treasure hunters Johnny & Dom, Richard Egan & Gilbert Roland, to get a bigger boat to go back out at sea to recover the hundreds of gold bars and box-loads of priceless gems submerged there.It takes a while for Johnny to first get his wife Thereas to go along with his, what seemed to her, water logged plan. It's then that Lady Luck struck him and Dom when looking to rent a 50 foot boat from this guy Robinson they finds that he checked out of town and left his boat over to his totally land-locked minded young secretary Gloria, Lori Nelson, who's more then willing to let the two treasure hunters use it.There's a number of unexpected event happen to the quintet with a local padre Father Cannon ,Robert Keith, coming on board who's only interested in recovering a life size solid gold Virgin Mary statue studded with diamonds to be returned to her rightful owners in the little church in Panama where she originally came from. Later there's this boat-load of shark hunters headed by the scuzzy-looking Rico, Joseph Caileia,looking for garbage from John's boat to use as bait to attract the underwater predators. Rico smells a rat, or a gold bar, when John tells him he and Dom are only looking for underwater rocks to be studied by the professors and students at Havana University.The movie "Underwater" comes to it's very predictable conclusion when after reaching the underwater sunken treasure site Johnny is left by himself with Dom suffering from the bends. It's then when we finally get to see Theresa or actress Jane Russell, who we earlier briefly saw in a swimsuit, put on her bathing suit and dive underwater to help and possible save her husband, Johnny, from either drowning or getting eaten up by sharks. Theresa for all her efforts gets stuck in the sunken ships wreckage where we then have Johnny making it back to the boat to get her an extra oxygen tank. You wonder why all this was really necessary when Theresa has those two giant natural air supply tanks that can easily keep Theresa breathing for at least a week! With Johnny and Theresa as well as Dom who heroically came to both their aid, risking his life doing it, back on the boat their again confronted by the shark-hunters who were disarmed and left on shore by Johnny & Dom just a while earlier. We then have another boring battle between them and Johnny & Dom which ends with everybody shaking hands and becoming friends> This happens when one of the shark hunters got very religious, which quickly affected the rest of his crew-mates, over the the fact that all this violence was over a golden statue of the Virgin Mary the mother of the Prince of Peace!Nothing that you wouldn't expect or want in a movie like "Underwater", except hoping to see a lot more of Jane Russell in a tight swimsuit, with a happy ending without anyone in the film getting killed. With the most seriously injury among the cast being that they got a bit wet under and between the ears and,in the case of Dom, a very bad case of the Caribbean cramps.