Nice, sharp black and white photography of Cataluna, Spain. It provides a colorful background for this story of two sailors -- McLaglen and Baker -- competing for the affections of Luciana Paluzzi, which are well worth competing for.
McLaglen is the blustering skipper of a rescue tug that makes its living by salvaging ships that are in distress. It's a familiar role for him. He gets to booze it up a lot and throw things around and look broody when he's disappointed.
Paluzzi is a local senhorita in the Portugese port out of which McLaglen and has half dozen crewmen operate. Her father is a Macher and tries to arrange an affair between her and McLaglen. Her Dad is some nice guy, full of hypothetical imperatives. After all, he reasons, McLaglen is old and has never been married and when he kicks it, his money and his assets must go to his wife. How can you argue with that? Paluzzi is reluctantly drawn into his scheme. But then Stanley Baker arrives, handsome, young, virile, and applies for a job as a deck hand with McLaglen. He has his First Mate's certificate but he's hard up for a job. McLaglen strikes up a friendship with him and hires him.
Inevitably, Baker and Paluzzi fall for one another behind McLaglen's back. The dialog is unimpeachable but the logic behind the characters is a little murky. Here is Paluzzi, pretty and virginal, and after meeting Baker and chatting with him two or three times, she takes him to the top of a nearby mountain, teases him into making a move on her, then throws herself into his arms and murmurs, "Love me! Love me!" Well, this happens to me all the time, but I don't see Baker having such an effect on the luscious Paluzzi. When it comes to pheromones, you either have them or you don't -- and Baker don't.
Poor McLaglen. We know immediately that he's not going to get Paluzzi. If he did, what would he do with her? He was in his 70s when this was shot and he looks it. The comic/brutish face is still there but the eyes are puffy and the shoulders seem shrunk. His torso is bulky but shapeless and sagging. Baker is always outfitted in tight turtle necks and other glam devices.
Cy Enfield was the director. They should have given it to someone else. It's one of the few movies in which the direction is really so poor that it draws attention to itself. If you doubt it, just watch the scene in which Paluzzi is changing clothes behind a screen and McLaglen is trying to keep himself from peeping. It's played with complete sincerity. And there must be half a dozen cuts between garments dropping down Paluzzi's shapely calves and McLaglen doing his best to seem in an approach/avoidance conflict. Terribly done.
At the climax, Baker leaps aboard a listing ship in a storm. The ship's cargo includes metallic sodium, which is highly dangerous stuff. I won't describe it but the scene is quite well done and full of tension. It would have been nice, though, if instead of ordering, "Shoot the towline," McLaglen had given the more proper order to "shoot the messenger line," because that's what they do.
A nice supporting cast -- Barry Foster, Robert Shaw, et al -- make up for a not-unwatchable story of competition at sea and on the beach. It could have been better.
McLaglen is the blustering skipper of a rescue tug that makes its living by salvaging ships that are in distress. It's a familiar role for him. He gets to booze it up a lot and throw things around and look broody when he's disappointed.
Paluzzi is a local senhorita in the Portugese port out of which McLaglen and has half dozen crewmen operate. Her father is a Macher and tries to arrange an affair between her and McLaglen. Her Dad is some nice guy, full of hypothetical imperatives. After all, he reasons, McLaglen is old and has never been married and when he kicks it, his money and his assets must go to his wife. How can you argue with that? Paluzzi is reluctantly drawn into his scheme. But then Stanley Baker arrives, handsome, young, virile, and applies for a job as a deck hand with McLaglen. He has his First Mate's certificate but he's hard up for a job. McLaglen strikes up a friendship with him and hires him.
Inevitably, Baker and Paluzzi fall for one another behind McLaglen's back. The dialog is unimpeachable but the logic behind the characters is a little murky. Here is Paluzzi, pretty and virginal, and after meeting Baker and chatting with him two or three times, she takes him to the top of a nearby mountain, teases him into making a move on her, then throws herself into his arms and murmurs, "Love me! Love me!" Well, this happens to me all the time, but I don't see Baker having such an effect on the luscious Paluzzi. When it comes to pheromones, you either have them or you don't -- and Baker don't.
Poor McLaglen. We know immediately that he's not going to get Paluzzi. If he did, what would he do with her? He was in his 70s when this was shot and he looks it. The comic/brutish face is still there but the eyes are puffy and the shoulders seem shrunk. His torso is bulky but shapeless and sagging. Baker is always outfitted in tight turtle necks and other glam devices.
Cy Enfield was the director. They should have given it to someone else. It's one of the few movies in which the direction is really so poor that it draws attention to itself. If you doubt it, just watch the scene in which Paluzzi is changing clothes behind a screen and McLaglen is trying to keep himself from peeping. It's played with complete sincerity. And there must be half a dozen cuts between garments dropping down Paluzzi's shapely calves and McLaglen doing his best to seem in an approach/avoidance conflict. Terribly done.
At the climax, Baker leaps aboard a listing ship in a storm. The ship's cargo includes metallic sodium, which is highly dangerous stuff. I won't describe it but the scene is quite well done and full of tension. It would have been nice, though, if instead of ordering, "Shoot the towline," McLaglen had given the more proper order to "shoot the messenger line," because that's what they do.
A nice supporting cast -- Barry Foster, Robert Shaw, et al -- make up for a not-unwatchable story of competition at sea and on the beach. It could have been better.