Sea Devils

Dick Sand (Gabriel Jimenez as Gaby Jimenez) is assigned by his godfather Captain Hull (Gerad Tichy) to control the whaler "Pilgrim" as second-in-command , but his travel aboard is plenty of problems. The Pilgrim is a whale-ship captained by Captain Hull , with a motley crew , as a suspicious cook (Aldo Sambrell) , harpoonists , and on board is the ship owner's wife (Patty Shepard) and her daughter (Flavia Zarzo) , among others . After a while , they find a shipwrecked drifting boat with a group of teens , as six adolescents (Ian Sera , Jimmy Johnson...) of various nationalities are on their way to Australia when their ship was taken by evil pirates led by Van Hassel (Frank Braña) , a slave hunter who attacked the ship on sea . Shortly after , things go wrong when the brave seamen and the captain die attacking a Cachalote , following dramatic events, the ship becomes without a captain , then the fifteen Year Old Boy shall command the ship with the teens brought on board . As the young captain will attempt to keep all sailors in peace , and arrive in their destination . But along the way , they are shipwrecked and then disembark on a dangerous island inhabited by furious tribes and nasty slavers who chase them .

Adventure movie by Juán Piquer Simón, full of action , thrills , made in medium budget and filled with familiar faces from the 60s and 70s . The movie is narrated by means of a continuous pursuit in the jungle and we are seeing several African animals and use of stock-shots .Following dramatic and adventurous happenings , as the captain is attacked by a whale as the ship becomes without a captain and the second-in-command results to be a fifteen-year-captain , while Pilgrim crew find a boat shipwrecked adrift and a group of teens are picked and they are put on board , ultimately , they're taken prisoners and tied to be devoured by Killer Ants but they succeed in escaping. The picture starred by several unknown teenagers and various notorious secondaries in the ordinary co-productions as Western , terror , and Euro-spy, from the Sixties and Seventies , such as : Patty Shepard , Frank Braña , Aldo Sambrell , Gerard Tichy and Luis Barboo . Freely based on Jules Verne novel , and the movies have been adapted to Verne's best known films are the following ones : George Melies immortalized ¨From the Earth to the Moon¨ in an early silent film . Walt Disney did films on ¨Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea¨ and ¨The Children of Captain Grant¨ (the latter entitled ¨In search of the Castaways¨) . Ray Harryhausen's special effects are one of the treats of ¨Mysterious Island¨ directed by Cy Enfield . Mike Todd produced Around the world in 80 days with Cantinflas and David Niven . And James Mason did make that ¨Journey to the Centre of the Earth¨. What is usually not realized is the lesser known titles that have gotten onto the screen - for Jules Verne wrote nearly 80 novels . ¨Miguel Strogoff¨ was made into a film in Great Britain in the 1930s with Anton Walbrook . ¨Five weeks in balloom¨ was made into a comedy adventure with Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Red Buttons in the 1960s . A Mexican version of the long forgotten ¨Eight Hundred Leagues over the Amazon¨ was made in the 1950s . A French version title Matia Sandorff was made starring Louis Jordan in the 1960s and ¨Fifteen Year Old Captain¨ 1973 by Jesus Franco with William Berger , Edmund Purdom, among others.

This average and humdrum Los diablos del mar (1982) turns out to be a special version of the Jules Verne adventure yarn titled : Fifteen Year Old Captain . There's rip-roaring action , spirit of adventure , derring-do , humor, emotion , including copying some scenes from ¨Blue Lagoon¨ and resulting to be briefly entertaining but mediocre . Among the most attractive of its visuals there are the semi-spectacular scenes in which the tough fishers chase a whale , and the colorful backgrounds of the lost African places . It's a slight fun with primitive special effects by Emilio Ruiz , passable set decoration , and functional art direction . The fable is silly and laughable , and the effects and action are regularly made . Being clumsily made but the movie has some good moments here and there . Some illogical parts in the plot are more than compensated for the excitement provided by the scenes about the whale hunting , shootouts and moving pursuits . Shot on location by cameraman Juan Mariné in Islands Azores, Portugal , Africa Ecuatorial and interiors in Madrid, Spain . Being regular but professionally directed by craftsman Juán Piquer Simón.

This isn't exactly recommended. It's nominally based on a Jules Verne story (The Fifteen Years Old Captain), but it's hard to infer any literary influence whatsoever beyond the appalling dubbing, coupled with the fact that you can see better, less stagy acting on 'You've Been Framed'. As an indicator of directorial quality, consider that Simon is Spain's most exported director next to Jess Franco; the difference being that whereas Franco kept on working so long as the projects interested him, Simon just kept on working.

Attempts at exciting action are strictly confined to close-ups of the ship supposedly wildly thrashing about at sea (probably a Spanish harbour in a moderate wind and a few too many brandys for the cameraman). Imagine a feature length compilation of out-takes left over from the filming of a Captain Birdseye commercial, and you're half way there.

"Un capitaine de quinze ans" is an obscure Jules Verne's book which I read when I was about 14 and which I liked very much. An adventure yarn,it displayed Verne's disgust for slavery .It's also the initiatory voyage of a teenager who must surpass himself to save a mother and her young son.

A first version was made by Jesus Franco in the seventies : its lack of means and its could-not-care-less directing made the effort worthless.

If that was bad, "los diablos del mar" is worse , a mess of incompetent writing ,directing, acting,and editing .Besides Verne's cast of characters (Dick Sand, Mrs Weldon and Jack ,cousin Benedict, Hercule,Nan, the dog ,the villains Harris and Negoro (check the name!) )the screnwriters felt compelled ,to sound "hip",to add six young shipwrecked teenagers ,a gorgeous big sister of Jack ,which provides a soft erotic scene,which comes at the most awkward moment and seems taken by force from "the blue lagoon" .

The novel told an eventful story ;its best moment is when the hero and his mates discover they are not in America but in Africa .In the movie,the screenplay is so disjointed it's hard to catch up with the plot,even though you 've read the book ;acting is dismal , directing is,to put it mildly,amateurish, some characters (Mrs Weldon and son) disappear and reappear only to secure a happy end. Besides the young hero, Dick Sand , the young captain,has almost nothing to do and is reduced to a supporting role,and I mean supporting !Some horrible pictures were thrown in,now and then for good measure

Take to your heels !