As R.K.O. imploded, increasingly erratic owner Howard Hughes went out not with a Bang, not with a Whimper, but with one of each. The ‘Bang’ was THE CONQUEROR, a fiasco with John Wayne as Genghis Khan (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-conqueror-1956.html); the ‘Whimper,’ this seriously uneventful ocean treasure hunt. Even the sharks refuse to menace. And that two-piece bathing suit is seen only in the poster. John Sturges, just off his breakthru on BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK/'55 (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2011/07/bad-day-at-black-rock-1955.html) has his hands full not with drama but in trying to match real ocean locations to studio mock-ups, tinted cycloramas* and a model shipwreck from the 1600s while Jane Russell (sporting a one-piece suit), Richard Egan (sporting blonde highlights), Gilbert Roland (fighting ‘the bends’), and Robert Keith (bringing in Catholic expertise) dive in to beat salvaging seaman Joseph Calleia and bring up an ancient gold Madonna before her waterlogged wreck sinks out of reach. As usual, the demands of underwater photography slowing things down considerably. Meanwhile, Hughes, with other irons in the fire, pulled the plug on R.K.O. after JET PILOT (https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2015/10/jet-pilot-1957.html), shot 1950/released 1957, selling out to Lucille Ball & Desi Arnaz’s ‘Desilu.’
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Like many a Hughes’ film, lots of exposition & explanatory narration between pushup bra shots. It evens things out between talkative Richard Egan & cushiony Jane Russell.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Sturges had an even tougher time of it on THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA/’58 where studio water-tank fakery & color-timed cyclorama vistas are far more important to the story and take up far more footage. Counter-intuitively, the effect, under great cinematographer James Wong Howe works far better seen on the big screen (where you’d imagine every dodge would be painfully revealed) than it does on a small home screen.
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