UNDERWATER!

US, 1955, 99 minutes, Colour.
Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Gilbert Roland, Lori Nelson.
Directed by John Sturges.

Underwater! (a title with an exclamation mark) was a celebrated entertainment of 1955, and was premiered underwater to a group of journalists and an audience wearing diving equipment!!

Jane Russell had made an impact in the late 1940s with Howard Hughes’ The Outlaw. She then made a series of entertainments, comedies and musicals with Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx. However, her main achievement was with Marilyn Monroe in Howard Hawks’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. She also caused some uproar from more prudish objectors, including the Catholic Church of New York, for her costumes (and lack thereof at times) in The French Line. However, these films seem rather innocent in later decades.

This film traded on her reputation, teamed her with Gilbert Roland and Richard Egan in an underwater diving adventure. And, apart from Jane Russell, that’s about all it is – a popular matinee entertainment.

Direction is by John Sturges who was beginning to emerge as a quality director at this time with Bad Day at Black Rock. He was to go on to a very successful career with such big-budget adventures as The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape and The Eagle Has Landed.

1. The quality of the film as a diving adventure story? How conventional? Its particular qualities?

2. Film-making in the fifties, colour and Cinemascope, the glamour associated with this work? The presence of Jane Russell? The popular music?

3. How conventional was the basic plot? Audience interest in it, involvement in it?

4. Themes of money, professionalism, risks, danger, love?

5. Grant and Dominic as hero types? American and Mexican? Their tricks, their work, their energy, their success? Their standards for right and wrong and success?

6. How convincing a character was Teresa? Jane Russell's style, as Grant's wife, her criticisms of his work, her participation in the work and in the dangers?

7. Gloria as a conventional character and the provider of the yacht?

8. Father Cannon and the religious background, the Jesuit, the explanation of the buried treasure? How did this interest audience and hope for the recovery of the wreckage?

9. The shark hunters as symbolic conventional villains? Their staying about, their challenge and threats, the way in which they were given money?

10. The value of the underwater scenes of exploration and audience interest in these?

11. The crises and the resolution as regards salvaging the wreck, the shark hunters, the building of the future?

12. The conventional appeal of this type of film, the traditional values it presents and stands by and presupposes in audiences?