The Deep **** (1977, Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw, Louis Gossett Jr, Eli Wallach, Dick Anthony Williams) – Classic Movie Review 8,739

The 1977 adventure film The Deep may be tremendously shallow, but that’s good, right? Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte and Robert Shaw star in a great fun movie based on Peter Benchley’s 1976 deep sea hokum novel.

The 1977 adventure film The Deep may be tremendously shallow, but that’s good, right?

Peter (Jaws) Benchley’s deep sea adventure hokum novel about the discovery of a sunken drugs cache off Bermuda makes for a great fun movie, thanks to larky performances (by Jacqueline Bisset and Nick Nolte as hunky heroes Gail Berke and David Sanders, and Robert Shaw as Jaws-style sea-dog Romer Treece) and the sparkling underwater filming.

Gail Berke and David Sanders are young vacationing amateur treasure-hunting divers who find the secret cargo of a World War Two shipwreck in in Bermuda waters and clash with local treasure-hunting criminals.

Director Peter Yates keeps the silly story swimming along and relishes the extended underwater sequences, and when the going gets choppy diverts attention to the giant moray eel or Bisset’s wet T-shirt. Bisset and Nolte prove good company, and there are entertainingly eccentric support turns from Louis Gossett Jr as bad guy Henri Cloche and Eli Wallach as beach bum Adam Coffin.

It runs 123 minutes but there are 53 minutes of extra footage in the US TV version of 176 minutes (special edition).

Also in the cast are Robert Tessier, Earl Maynard, Dick Anthony Williams, Bob Minor, Teddy Tucker, Peter Wallach, Lee McClain and Peter Benchley.

Benchley’s screenplay was rewritten by Tracy Keenan Wynn and Tom Mankiewicz, though Robert Shaw and Nick Nolte rewrote much of their own dialogue.

Robert Shaw was paid $650,000 with a percentage of the profits. but Bissett and Nolte were paid only $200,000. The budget was $9 million, and it took $100 million at the box office.

Cast and crew were taught how to scuba dive and filmed their scenes underwater after Shaw said the film would be more realistic if filming was underwater. Though some scenes were shot in the ocean at depths of 80 feet, many were filmed in underwater sets to eliminate the need for decompression.

The score is by John Barry, famed for the James Bond films. He collaborated with Donna Summer on the film’s theme song ‘Down Deep Inside (Theme From The Deep)’ a top-five singles hit in the UK.

The cast are Robert Shaw as Romer Treece, Jacqueline Bisset as Gail Berke, Nick Nolte as David Sanders, Louis Gossett Jr as Henri ‘Cloche’ Bondurant, Eli Wallach as Adam Coffin, Dick Anthony Williams as Slake, Earl Maynard as Ronald, Bob Minor as Wiley, Teddy Tucker as Harbour Master, Robert Tessier as Kevin Lee McClain as Johnson, and Colin Shaw as young Romer Treece.

Colin Shaw is Robert Shaw’s real-life son.

Jacqueline Bisset turned 80 on 13 September 2024.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,739

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