Underwater! *** (1955, Jane Russell, Gilbert Roland, Richard Egan) – Classic Movie Review 2109

Director John Sturges’s 1955 skin-diving adventure movie for the reclusive billionaire producer and RKO studio boss Howard Hughes, is designed to exhibit Hughes’s busty protégée film star Jane Russell (The Outlaw) paddling around in the shallows in her bikini. And it does the job very nicely. Meanwhile manly menfolk Gilbert Roland and Richard Egan search for sunken treasure.

Russell and Egan play married couple Theresa and Johnny Gray, who are searching for sunken treasure in the Caribbean off the coast of Cuba along with mercenary Dominic Quesada (Gilbert Roland), priest Father Cannon (Robert Keith) and boat owner Gloria (Lori Nelson). While SCUBA diving, they come across the wreck of a 17th century ship on the sea floor they think holds an untold worth of treasure. But the ship is dangerously teetering on the edge of a 300 foot cliff in in shark infested waters. And there are other, human, sharks after the treasure.

Based on the story The Big Rainbow by Hugh King and Robert B Bailey, as a yarn it’s entirely amiable and entertaining, if a little bit soggy an familiar seeming. But Russell is appealing and game for anything, and of course looks lovely – and so does Harry J Wild and Lamar Boren’s underwater cinematography in Technicolor. It was RKO’s first production in SuperScope. Sturges is a strong, powerful director, keeping all the elements of the show together.

The story of its premiere is even more ambitious and entertaining than the film. Producer showman Hughes actually staged the world premiere of the film underwater on January 10 1955. Around 200 journalists were flown to Florida with the movie’s stars, and the film was projected on a submerged movie screen at Silver Springs, Florida. The invited guests were given bathing suits, goggles, aqualungs and swim fins and viewed the film 20 feet beneath the surface of the clear water of Silver Springs while swimming. Ah, those were the days in film publicity!

It was a huge, complex, costly production, a bid undertaking for small studio RKO. They advertised that it took three years to make and cost $3million, though the actual cost might have been even more at an estimated $3,500,000. It was popular, taking $2.2 million in US cinema rentals, so it might even eventually have made its money back. In 1958, the film was widely distributed on a double bill at many drive-in theatres with Disney’s Old Yeller. It still plays quite happily on afternoon TV.

Partially filmed on location in Mexico and Hawaii, it was completed in a newly constructed underwater tank in an RKO sound stage, which can be seen when Theresa pushes Johnny off the boat at the end of the movie, as the wall of the tank in which the boat is floating is clearly visible in the background.

The song ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’ featured in the film became a major hit. With music by noted French composer Louiguy, it is performed in the movie by Dámaso Pérez Prado’s renowned Latin band while Russell dances,

Lori Nelson had good and bad luck. She claims she was paid to be the lead, but a new part was written for her when she was ousted by Russell, and she kept her salary.

Jayne Mansfield has an uncredited appearance as a girl in bikini by pool. At a promotional event for the movie, Mansfield was one of several swimmers participating in a underwater skit when the top of her bathing suit came off.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2109

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