SEA DEVILS

US, 1953, 91 minutes, Colour.
Yvonne De Carlo, Rock Hudson, Maxwell Reed, Dennis O’ Dea, Michael Goodliffe, Bryan Forbes, Ivor Barnard, Gerard Oury.
Directed by Raoul Walsh.

Sea Devils is a minor Raoul Walsh adventure. Walsh made a number of films from the early decades of the 20th century and achieved more status in the 1930s with The Big Trail. He made a number of action adventures at Warner Bros in the late 30s and early 1940s including High Sierra. He had a long career, generally making action films as well as action dramas.

Rock Hudson is the star, he was up-and-coming at this period. He is supported by a British cast including Bryan Forbes who was to be better known as a director (The Whisperers, Whistle Down the Wind, The Wrong Box). The leading lady is Yvonne De Carlo – a spy in Napoleonic times who has to get from the Isle of Guernsey, where Rock Hudson is a fisherman-turned-smuggler, to the French coast. French director Gerard Oury appears as Napoleon.

1. Was this a good adventure spectacle? What appeals to audiences in adventure spectacles? Historical spectacles?

2. The significance of the title for the film? The use of adventure conventions, navy conventions, spying, the Napoleonic Wars? how well were these conventions used?

3. Comment on the British atmosphere of the film? The Channel isles, Britain and France during the wars? The use of colour, locations, music?

4. The importance of the stars for the film? Glamour and heroics? How convincing?

5. How authentic did the settings seem to be? The use of the sea, smugglers and fishermen, ships, government of the Channel islands, spies? Why do these ingredients attract audiences?

6. Comment on the patriotism portrayed in the film: Napoleon, his dreams of Empire, his ministers and police? The British and their patriotism? The use of spies?

7. How convincing and interesting a hero was Gilbert? His heroics, patriotism, love, capacity for fighting and action?

8. How attractive was the heroine? Convincing as a spy? The importance of her being abducted, reinstated. trying to persuade Napoleon and the police, being rescued?

9. The portrayal of the British in Guernsey island? The sailors?

10. The portrayal of the Prince, Napoleon, the police, the torturing, the innkeeper?

11.What were the highlights of the adventures in this film?

12.Was it a good example of action spectacular?