Director Samuel Fuller, the Man with the Tabloid Touch, hadn’t made a feature in five years when he took on this lowball assignment, a water-logged thriller designed for quick payoff in the international market. It’s got a pretty lousy rep, Fuller disassociated himself from it after the producers wanted to use footage of a stunt diver who died on the shoot, while journeyman Mexican director Rafael Portillo did some scenes. (Which?) Yet no pall of crumminess hangs over the film, it’s all bright energy and probably exactly what everyone involved must have expected. A pre-stardom Burt Reynold (working under his own thinning hair) looks like Brando and sounds like Sinatra as a cocky gunrunner caught with his pants down when his cargo blows up (his truck explodes a fraction of a second before impact) leaving him to wander the desert until he stumbles into a corrupt town and a new gig helping sunken ship salvagers Barry Sullivan & Mexican diva Silvia Pinal. And Fuller loads on all the usual filler: Cute local kid to show Reynolds the ropes and get under his skin? √ Alcoholic doc to get the DTs just when he needs to operate? √ (Arthur Kennedy: weirdly good.) A shark attack when the men dive for the underwater bars of gold? √ Pinal needlessly exposing her breasts for Euro-sales? ☒ Oh, well, you can’t have everything. Fuller (or his stunt coordinator) goes overboard on the fights (see Reynolds needlessly screw up his knees), plus lousy stock shots, bad sound and a post-Code super ‘60s cynical ending. For a bad film, what’s not to like?
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Eleven years would pass before Fuller directed another feature.
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