classic vintage scuba movies

[Deleted]

I know Broxton said no documentaries, which Silent World and World Without Sun were, but if we include them (say just the films that made it to the theaters) that opens up a whole new realm. That would take us back to 1939 with Hans Hass's early films, also:
Blue Water White Death (Stan Waterman, The Taylors, Rodney Fox)
Sesto Continente (Sixth Continent, Italian from 1954)
and several more. There were an amazing number of underwater films made during the early years of diving when you stop to think about it.

[Deleted]

Woops. I see now that Blue Water White Death was already mentioned. Sorry, but it was an interesting film.

[Deleted]

Oh yeah, I just realized that I mentioned Great White, the infamous Jaws knock off, but not the actual Jaws movies themselves, each of which have a bit of scuba in them. My personal favorite is still the third one, the one they did in 3-D...(coming right at ya!)

Hmm....this is weird...in my first post in this thread, I had mentioned the Italian movies featured the divers using aqualung gear, but somehow, it's been changed to "aqualung". I wonder how that happened. I'm sure that's not how I wrote the post.

Uhm, is there a reason why everytime I refer to a certain Italian make of scuba gear, the name keeps getting changed automatically to "aqualung"? I notice I can mention Voit ok, but why not the Italian company?

[Deleted]

A few more additions to the list:

L'Ultimo SOS aka Encounters From The Deep: Another great late 70's Italian film, again featuring that great looking Technisub gear. Like Shark's Cave, this one stars Latino heartthrob Andres Garcia in a Bermuda Triangle type mystery flick with several scuba scenes. This one I think must have been at least partially inspired by Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. The version I have has Italian audio, but yet, I have no trouble figuring out the plot.

The Diamond Connection: Why should the Italians have all the fun?! This one is Swiss made, early 80's, and has one really good scuba scene in the middle.

Secret Of Seagull Island: A British/Italian co-production, this was originally shown on British TV as a five part miniseries, but then got edited down to 90 minutes and released on video and shown on American TV. Everyone speaks English, there's a few notable actors, including Jeremy Bret, Nicky Henson and Pamela Salem, and there's those black and orange Technisub wetsuits again! ;D

Evil In The Deep: This one's a weird one. Originally, there was a film called Treasure Of The Jamaica Reef, which was mentioned earlier in this thread. After it had been out for a couple years, Jaws came out and became a huge hit. So the producers of Treasure Of The Jamaica Reef recut their film, added a lot of extra footage, including some pretty gruesome shark attacks, and retitled Evil In The Deep. Whichever version of the film you see, you get a young Cheryl Stoppelmoor (before she changed her name to Cheryl Ladd) and some hideously bad acting from Chuck Woolery and Rosie Greer.

[JohnA]

Sharks' Treasure, Cornell Wilde. All single hose, US Divers gear.

[Nemo]

Walt Disney's 1954 movie version of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Rene "inny bottom" tanks, USD regulators...yeah, that's vintage SCUBA gear.

Interesting (maybe?) anecdote about Blue Water White Death:

There's a dropzone tradition among skydivers: someone will yell out "Blue Sky?" And everyone in earshot will reply with thunderous "BLAAAACK DEAAAAATH!" That tradition has been immortalized in a couple skydiving movies in the past few years. (I'll think of the titles later.)

Anyway, that got started about the time Blue Water White Death was in the movie theaters. Perry Stevens wanted to start flight training at the Antioch Sport Parachuting Center in California, using his own C-150. At the time, the Piper Dealership in nearby Concord had an introductory flight called the Blue Sky program. Twenty bucks bought you a flight with an instructor to see if you'd like it or not.

Well, somehow one of their signs wound up on the Antioch dropzone, and got painted over to advertise the ASPC's new "Blue Sky" flight training program.

Anyway, you might imagine..a bunch of beer drinking skydivers were sitting around after hours, talking about the new flight training program. The movie Blue Water White Death got mentioned, and in some alcohol induced twist of logic, the phrase, "Blue Sky, Black Death" was born: first as a dig at the new flight training program; but later adapted to skydiving in general.

The Antioch Skydivers were a rowdy fun bunch. In their own dropzone bar, on other dropzones, or at local establishments, they would do the Blue Sky chant. Sometimes much to the dismay of dropzone owners who wanted to maintain a "healthier" image for their business operations. But it caught on, and now it's become fairly universal.

And that, friends and neighbors, is how a well-known underwater shark movie engendered what is now established tradition among skydivers the World over. I know, because I was there. ;D

VBR,

Pat

[SeaRat]

Pat,

What a wonderful anecdote. Many traditions start in very weird ways.

John

[Nemo]

Feb 9, 2010 22:38:11 GMT -8 SeaRat said:

Pat,

What a wonderful anecdote. Many traditions start in very weird ways.

John

Mahalo John!

Yes, those were some wild, weird, and wonderful days back when square parachutes were new and Canopy Relative Work was just getting started.

Some of the things that happened were pretty outrageous. I've written some of them down, and would like to publish them as a book some day. It's the kind of thing you just can't make up, ya know? Some of it is kinda grisly, and some of it is so far out, if I hadn't lived through it I wouldn't believe it myself. But it's all true, and a lot of the time it's kinda funny.

Like the time Dave Correia (If you saw the old Wide World of Sports program about jumping off El Capitan in Yosemite, Dave was the little guy with dark hair, in a white jumpsuit with red and black trim, who looks back at the camera and says, "This is the ultimate" before jumping off the mountain) made his 1,000th jump. Tradition says he gets hit in the face with a pie. (Usually, a pie tin filled with whipped cream.) Everyone just ignored him like it was no big thing. He was walking around all day moping because he thought nobody cared. That night we were draining a keg in the Antioch dropzone bar, and on a cue from Gene Ballard, we all grabbed Dave, picked him up, got all his clothes stripped off by the time we got him out the door, and forceably stretched him out on a picnic table. Then, several of the dropzone ladies covered his body in whipped cream and licked it off. I think that started the saying, "Skydivers have more fun than people."

Anyway, the book's on my bucket list. ;D

BLUE SKY???!!!

[JohnA]

Here is another, double hose action in this one:

The Wreck of the Mary Deare

[Deleted]

From the very depths of my memory, as a wee youngster I saw a film, I believe Ray Milland starred, where two divers (good guy - bad guy) met face to face inside a sunken ship. That's the only memory I have of it. I think it might have been "Jamaica Run" or some similar name.

Oh yes, I haven't seen the movie but have the movie poster for "King of the Coral Sea". From the pictures on the poster, it looks like they were diving O2 rebreathers.

[Deleted]

great lists of u/w films! I do own several of these that were mentioned. but you must add these to the list, ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, and THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD.

[Deleted]

Here's one from 1955. It's called "The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues"
Watch it here:
www.hulu.com/the-phantom-from-10000-leagues?c=Horror-and-Suspense

[Broxton Carol]

Nemo, you mention 20.000 leagues the movie, but does anyone have the film featured on the disneyland TV show about the production of the film, and the promotion of it? That would be a find. Aloha and mahalo. Chucko

[Broxton Carol]

THE ATTACK OF THE LEECH PEOPLE Takes place in Florida at the Dizzyland amusement park... radiation creates a new species of leeches which look a lot like someone in a mouse suit with a big sucker where the head ought to be. They end up abducting a Minnie Pearl lookalike and take her underwater to a submerged flying saucer. An unemployed Game Warden dons his double hose rig and goes mouth to mouth with the leeches. In the process he also meets the professor's daughter and says to her "there must be a better way to make a living"! and prevents the professor from using liquid DRANO to blow up the leech people as that might cause collateral damage to the stupid camera men. Sick flick-I give it two hoses CUT up![/quote] Wow, thats great stuff. The sequel will be "LEECH PEOPLE vs ILLEGAL ALIENS" Maybe they will do a better job than the govt. Watch em clean up this mess! Ugh gross.............

[Deleted]

Fun Topic. Yeah I would agree "The Frogmen"(with RichardWidmark) and "UP PERISCOPE"(w/ James Garner- colour - I think 1959) and "The Wreck of the Mary Deare"(Gary Cooper- near the end of his career- If memory serves he uses the same Voit gear that Lloyd Bridges used in his first years of Sea Hunt)