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The best excuse to watch again this long forgotten film of the late 50s is the exquisite and gorgeous Sophia Loren. What a beautiful woman; a sight for sore eyes indeed!

The Jean Negulesco film shows its age. This film has a little bit of adventure, love story, suspense with the backdrop of Hydra, one of the most enchanting Aegean islands. The film might look a bit outdated to today's audiences, but it's fun to watch Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb doing their best out of roles that don't require much acting. Sophia Loren is perfect as the sponge fisher who discovers a hidden treasure.

I saw this movie recently on cable. It was a trip to another, more innocent era.

Boy On A Dolphin concerns a statue that is just that which is found by lovely sponge diver Sophia Loren in the Aegean Sea. She's got two people interested in it, archaeologist Alan Ladd working for the Greek government and antiquity collector Clifton Webb.

Sophia likes Ladd, but Webb's got the big drachmas. I'll leave it to the experienced movie goer to figure out who she winds up with.

The film was shot in the Grecian Isles it really was her first big exposure (literally) to American audiences in an American film. Originally this was to star Robert Mitchum with her, but he backed out and Ladd was substituted.

Ladd had a miserable time during this film because of the rough humor of the Greek crew regarding his height. Sophia towered over him and 20th Century Fox did the usual compensating that Paramount and Warner Brothers did with him that involved Sophia in a trench or Ladd on a box. Alan Ladd was one of the nicest of Hollywood stars, but a sensitive soul and the barbs wounded him deeply.

The color cinematography in Greece is first rate, you can't photograph a bad color film in that location. Sophia Loren looks real good wet or dry. Reason enough to see Boy On A Dolphin.

This film was one of 1957's top grossers mainly due to the fact that in those years the public wanted exotic European location shooting and the film certainly does a good job of showing Greece and Sophia Loren who is ravishing.The story is a thriller.Alan Ladd plays a archaeologist ,Sophia a poor sponge diver and Clifton Webb an unscrupulous collector of art.The plot is not really that important.What counts is the scenery and Sophia.Alan Ladd whom I have always considered as a very good actor, but underrated by critics does a good job,like always(he always tried his best), all the more so that his partner was really very much taller than him and he suffered from that.I don't understand why everybody made so much fuss about Alan Ladd's size.He was just as short or tall as Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney or even George Raft.The film is very enjoyable.

I saw this film on network TV sometime in the late 1960s. It seems to NEVER be shown. I found it very involving and suspenseful (even with many commercial interruptions). Sophia Loren never looked better, Alan Ladd makes a good foil for Clifton Webb's dry wit. Beautiful location photography. Worth waiting for; a highly watchable film.

Sophia Loren is the key to this whole film and whatever you experience with it. Her natural acting gifts, screen presence, beauty and overall pulchritude are remarkable. View it to experience the phenomenon of Sophia. Everything else I am about to write is secondary, but here you are:

The location is attractive as is the lovely theme song. Clifton Webb is notable of course. The story is sort of "An American sojourns in Greece" with nice scenery and water and a cute kid. Its inoffensive and OK 1950's fare.

As for Ladd, he is giving his competent leading man performance that he did on a sort of standard basis, always in his quiet underplayed manner. He's adequate.

Ladd was taller than Robinson, Cagney and numerous others. Paul Newman was often unfairly called "short". Ingrid Bergman was an inch taller than Bogart yet who taunts Bogart about "Casablanca"? Here are the 2 real issues :

(1)- Sophia is a tall woman, taller than her own husband Carlo Ponti, and she towers over many male actors in most of her movies. She is a half inch taller than was Humphrey Bogart (she never made a movie with him so we don't know if he would have stood on a box).

(2)- Sophia was half Ladd's age! The problem in this film is mostly the tremendous age difference between an older, declining leading man and a vigorous, very young beginner actress.

"Taunts" of Ladd's height then and now are missing the point: I believe that the veteran and savvy Ladd probably was rather disinterested as he realized something was awkward here but not height. He was wondering "what am I doing here in these scenes with this young chick half my age?" The following year Ladd made a film with 41-year old leading lady Olivia DeHavilland and it worked.

So these are my theories but please keep them in perspective. "Boy on a Dolphin" is all about Sophia and all this other stuff is really only minor details.

Hugo Friedhofer's musical score, the enchanting beauty of Greek islands, and the incredibly luscious Sophia Loren combine to make this film memorable despite the thin story.

Alan Ladd steps out of the saddle to play an archaeologist that is determined to preserve Greek treasures for Greece. Too bad he wasn't around to save the Elgin marbles. He teams with Sophia Loren to retrieve "The Boy on a Dolphin" and kept the evil Clifton Webb (three Oscar nominations) from spiriting it out of the country.

Sophia Loren was only 23 when this film, which is almost as old as I am, was made. Those who have never seen her in her prime would do well to see what you fathers lusted after when your mother wasn't looking. If all you've seen is Grumpier Old Men, you may wonder what all the fuss was about.

As a bit of trivia, she was required to walk in a trench in this film in order to give audiences the impression that her diminutive co-star, Alan Ladd, was taller than she.

Not to dismiss Loren, the beauty of the Greek islands where this was film equals her allure to me. A film made in Greece is always worth watching, especially one that shows it before it was ruined by tourism.

While diving, a young Greek sponge diver named Phaedra discovers a priceless ancient statue, the "boy on a dolphin" of the title. The plot deals with the efforts of two rival archaeologists, James Calder and Victor Parmalee, to obtain the statue. In order to do so, both need the assistance of Phaedra and her boyfriend Rhif. The two men are very different in personality. The American Calder is an honest man who believes that the statue is the cultural property of the Greek nation and belongs in a museum. Parmalee, whose nationality is never made clear, is an amoral rogue who wants to steal it for his own private collection. A sub-plot deals with the growing romance between Calder and Phaedra. In this area at least, Calder faces no competition from Parmalee, who has no feelings for anyone but himself. (His rather camp manner suggests that he might be gay, but in the fifties film-makers could not be too explicit about such matters).

Surprisingly, Calder does not face much competition from Rhif either, as he turns out to be an unscrupulous bully who cares more for money than he does for Phaedra. If anyone is thinking that "Rhif" is not a Greek name, you are right; he is an illegal immigrant from Albania. This was the first ever Hollywood movie to be shot in Greece, and I wondered if Rhif was made a foreigner to keep on the right side of the Greek authorities, who might not have taken too kindly to the idea of a Greek villain.

I was surprised by the number of ten-star reviews this film has received on here. "Boy on a Dolphin" is an agreeable romance-adventure, the photography of the Greek scenery is good and there is a tuneful theme song. Clifton Webb as Parmalee makes an effective villain. On the other hand, it certainly has its weaknesses, particularly the performance of Alan Ladd, who as Calder makes a singularly uncharismatic hero. He was handicapped by his height, or lack of it; in some scenes he was forced to stand on a box to hide the fact that his leading lady Sophia Loren was considerably taller than he was. (In others she had to stand in a trench). The role, apparently, should have gone to Cary Grant, but he was forced to pull out after his wife was involved in a shipwreck. (Later in the same year Grant and Loren did indeed make a film together, "The Pride and the Passion").

This was Loren's first ever English-language film, and it shows. She never really seems at home in the language, and this is far from being her best performance. I suspect that most of those ten-star reviews were awarded less for the film's intrinsic merits than for the beauty of its leading lady. Beauty alone, however, cannot automatically make a film a masterpiece. 6/10

"Boy on a Dolphin" looks fabulous. It was shot for the most part in the Greek Isles and if ever there was a film that did justice to Cinemascope it's this one.

It has one of the most beautiful music scores for a film ever. It also has Clifton Webb, who like George Sanders could lift any movie he was in. And then it has 22-year-old Sophia Loren, also doing justice to the Cinemascope process in a wet, figure-clinging dress - diving into the sea, swimming under the sea and climbing out of the sea - the Production Code people back in Hollywood must have been on holidays when that footage came up for review.

It stars Alan Ladd. This was toward the end of his career, but we saw a lot of him in the 1950's. He has an easy assurance here although it's sad watching him knowing that he was gone a few years later aged only 50.

Sophia Loren plays Phaedra who dives for sponges off her loser boyfriend's boat. When she discovers an ancient statue she tries to change their fortunes by selling it to a ruthless collector of antiquities, Victor Parmelee (Clifton Webb). However an honest American archaeologist Dr. James Calder (Alan Ladd) steps between Phaedra and Parmelee and also between Phaedra and her boyfriend.

This was Sophia's first movie in English and she plays the whole thing in a fairly shrill manner, she is much better when she is diving into, swimming under or climbing out of the sea etc. However, it's hard to take your eyes off her. I first saw this film back in 1957 at age 10, an era when the thought of sex education made everyone feel uncomfortable, but I'm sure Sophia in this film helped set my gender preferences for the future.

The music was by Hugo Friedhofer, and orchestral colour was his forte (he had orchestrated for Steiner and Korngold). He was brilliant at incorporating folk music and instruments into his symphonic scores. Here he infused his score with Greek music and gave the whole thing an ethereal quality - just listen to the music that accompanies Parmelee on the road to the Metoria Monastery.

Watching "Boy on a Dolphin" is always a happy experience for me, nostalgia plays a part of course, but then again, what's not to like?

Phaedra (Sophia Loren) is an unfortunate and poor sponge-diver on the lovely Greek isle of Hydra. While diving, she discovers an ancient brass and gold statue of a boy riding a dolphin, which is said to have the magical power to grant wishes. Once she finds a treasure is torn between two men: one who wants to sell it, and one who wants to donate it to Greece. Her shiftless boyfriend (the spanish Jorge Mistral that shortly after committed suicide) wants to sell it to an ambitious art collector, Parmalee (Clifton Webb, for once the bad guy) but Phaedra wishes to give it to anthropologist Jim Calder (Alan Ladd), who would return it to the Greek government and with whom shortly after she falls in love.

This is an adventurous and sensitive love story that will live 'til the seas run dry. It contains emotion, adventure, romance, thrills, and a lot of Greek sightseeing, as well as Greece dances. That's why Greece and its Greek isles are backdrop to this passable sunken-treasure yarn. The contours of the beautiful Sophia Loren and gorgeous outdoors are the perfect excuses for a travelogue around Greece. Stars Sophia Loren, in US film debut cast as skindiver helping Alan Ladd. The latter is an unlikely archeologist with good purports, Loren was apparently required to walk in a trench in order to give audiences the impression that her diminutive co-star, Alan Ladd, was taller than she. While Clifton Webb put across his lines with his customary astringency. He plays an unscrupulous role called Mr Parmalee , a little, in-joke and as trivia: Parmalee was Webb's middle name. In ¨Boy on a Dolphin¨(1957) stands out the colorful an brilliant cinematography in CinemaScope by great cameraman Milton R. Krasner, including the impressive diving scenes that are very picturesque. Being filmed in a multitude of Greek locations, such as: Acropolis, Parthenon, Acropolis,Athens, Monastery of Meteora, Corinth, Corinthia, Saronic Gulf, Hydra, Delphi, Rhodes, Mykonos, Santorini, Poros, and studio: interiors photographed at Cinecitta Studios Rome, Italy.

Furthermore, displaying a stirring and memorable musical score by classic composer Hugo Friedhofer. This agreeable and sentimental fiilm was averagely but professionally directed by Jean Negulesco . After working as a technical advisor, production assistant and assistant producer for nearly a decade, Negulesco was finally offered a chance at directing. Jack L. Warner wanted his newest series of moderately budgeted films to be directed by his newest crop of directors. Negulesco's friend, director Anatole Litvak suggested a book by Eric Ambler, "The Coffin of Dimitrios" and pitched the story to producer Henry Blanke, retitled as ¨The mask de Dimitrios¨ (1944), it remains one of the best films ever made by a novice director. This classy Hollywood director Jean Negulesco was an elegant and brilliant filmmaker who made notorious films with penchant for Musical, Comedy and Drama, such as :¨ The invincible six¨, ¨The best everything¨, ¨Daddy long legs¨, ¨Three coins in the fountain¨, ¨How to marry a millionaire¨, ¨Titanic¨, ¨Phone call from a stranger¨, ¨A woman's world¨, ¨Three came home¨ , ¨Road house¨, ¨Humoresque¨, among others. And, of course, his successful ¨Belinda¨ with the Oscarized Jane Wyman. This was a superior soap opera that became known as The Wyman Weepie and it won various Oscars and Golden Globes as best actress, drama and film. ¨Boy on a Dolphin¨(1957) rating : 6/10. Acceptable and passable adventure/romance picture. The flick will appeal to Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd fans.

An American romantic adventure film; A story about a Greek sponge diver who finds a priceless ancient statue while diving in the Aegean and an American archaeologist who comes between her and her boyfriend. This lightweight story is based on David Divine's novel of the same name and its forward momentum is in the melodrama of the chase plot which involves two schemers. Sophia Loren is arresting as the earthy, fiery, athletic young woman who won't be pushed around. Alan Ladd, by contrast, is miscast as her love interest. He looks ill at ease which is at odds with the voluptuous charm of Loren. As a result there is no real chemistry between the two. All in all, the film's story doesn't capture the imagination to the full but its exotic scenery, pretty pictures of statuesque Loren and the allure of the coastline of the island of Hydra does.

Certainly script writers Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor have done the best they could to arrange a fairly equal balance of nature and Sophia...

The Greek Isle of Hydra is one of the most cosmopolitan points in the Mediterranean, a dream world with a unique beauty... It appears like a huge dry rock rising out the sea with its tiled houses and buildings scaling the precipitous terrain, one on top of the other, starting from the quay and reaching up to the tops of the hill, while the victorious color scheme is Aegean (white green and bright blue), and the weather is Adriatic... The pretty port looks extremely picturesque, dramatically beautiful...

Director Jean Negulesco has thrown all the grandeur and loveliness of these features upon the eye-filling CinemaScope screen... But Alan Ladd's and the audience's attention is directed to Sophia who explodes beautifully into warmth, glamor, beauty and sex, through frequent and liberal posing of her in full and significant views... Her statuesque beauty reminds us what the Mediterranean can offer in grace and richness...

Diving in the Aegean Sea for sponges off Hydra, peasant girl Phaedra (Sophia Loren) discovers a golden statue of a boy riding a bronze dolphin, chained to the body framework of a wrecked ship... Together with Rhif (Jorge Mistral) her lazy fisherman lover, Niko (Piero Giagnoni) her little brother and an English doctor Hawkins (Laurence Naismith), she tries to look for a rich American sponsor for the raising of the sunken statue...

She had two alternatives: Dr. Jim Calder (Alan Ladd), a U.S archaeologist, devoted to return lost artifacts of great value to their home countries, and Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), an ambitious art collector, prepared to pay highly price to cool his insatiable desire for ancient treasures...

With striking photography of the Greek island, the sparkling sea, and the Parthenon, this entertaining film, with nice music by Takes Morakes, is another example of cinema ingenuity...

Miscast, misfired adventure has Sophia Loren playing a Greek skin-diver (!) who comes across the title-named sunken treasure just off the Greek Islands. Soon, two Americans--an archaeologist and a wealthy art collector--are vying for the prize, and Loren finds herself playing both sides: one man for the money, the other man for love. Rarely have I seen a picture so full of pretty ambiance and yet so dead at its core. The music and locations--as well as Sophia's figure--are all gorgeous, but this story is lost at sea. Alan Ladd, looking bloated with gimlet eyes, never connects with mercurial Sophia, who initially is in a constant rage (she snaps at everybody, even the doctor taking a nail out of her leg). It's a shame this film doesn't work, the beauty of the Aegean Sea is worth beholding. The dim script, from David Divine's novel, needed more bite, and the lazy direction needed more zest. Perhaps Sophia should have directed? ** from ****

Ah, yes! Who can forget that image of Sophia, climbing aboard a small fishing vessel, her peasant blouse opulently revealing why she first became a movie star? 20th-Century Fox wisely featured a snippet of that scene in "Previews of Coming Attractions" for this film when it was first being distributed. The production itself benefits hugely from the gorgeous locations of its story and the Hollywood professionalism of everyone assigned to it. All that, plus Julie London lending her breathy vocalizing to the lovely title song.

One of the things I recall about it was Sophia's retort when asked how much would be sufficient compensation for the ancient treasure she'd found under the Aegean. "For me, plenty of money is enough!" How convincingly she delivered that line and how lucky we've been ever since that her stardom led to many better displays of her talents.

Where, oh! where is the DVD (CinemaScope ratio preserved, s'il vous plait!) of this sunken treasure?

... but I can't tell if it is or not because it isn't captioned. Please someone, caption this movie. I do appreciate that someone listened to my plea regarding another movie and 6 months later it was captioned.

We hearing impaired people love movies, too. I especially admire Sophia Loren. She is so beautiful and sophisticated. I even read her beauty book years ago.

If you want to know what it's like for us, watch the movie with the sound off. Even hearing people have grown to enjoy Closed Captioning for times when someone is making noise and they can't hear the TV.

Thanks for reading this. Now I pray next time I see it on TCM it will be captioned.

-Youseineko-

Rarely has there been a film with such uneven casting -- and BOY ON A DOLPHIN was America's introduction to Italian bombshell Sophia Loren, here a tough, feisty and far superior diver/fisherman's girlfriend -- alone discovering the titular artifact beneath her Greek hometown's connected shoreline...

After which she attempts convincing the comparably dull, glib, idealistic and aloof, utterly disconnected museum curator Alan Ladd of her discovery -- and with bizarre dyed-yellow hair above feminine, peeled-back/plastic-surgery eyes, he seems twenty-years too old playing the delightfully boisterous Sophia Loren's love-interest...

Although they're hardly interested in anything other than the treasure -- that he wants for the Greek people and she... and especially macho boyfriend/partner Jorge Mistral... seeks for a potential life-changing payoff...

Yet not nearly as much as the always-sophisticated/usually-nefarious Clifton Webb, who, like he did to Gene Tierney in his breakthrough LAURA, ignores the lovely lady until realizing - as a yacht-dwelling/treasure-hunting con artist himself -- what she's discovered that no one but Ladd is aware of...

So after twenty entertaining minutes of cat-and-mouse tricks by Clifton to Sophia, DOLPHIN reaches a tediously overlong, one-note ruse, convincing her to feign an active undersea-diving search for the treasure - misleading Ladd while Webb surreptitiously sneaks in through the proverbial back door himself, now aided by Loren's muggy, double-crossing, simple-minded significant-other...

At which point the ensemble-driven adventure (including Loren's quirky doctor father-figure and a resilient little brother)... using the Greek Isle locations as a splendid travelogue backdrop... becomes a sluggishly contrived attempt at romantic comedy - and had the shortlist Cary Grant or Robert Mitchum taken the role as originally intended, this BOY would be far better for both Sophia and the audience alike.

Phaedra (Sophia Loren) is a poor hard-working sponge diver on the Greek island of Hydra. She finds a statue of a boy riding a dolphin under the sea. Her lazy boyfriend wants to sell it to rich collector Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb). She wants to sell it to a museum, but anthropologist Dr. James Calder (Alan Ladd) initially doesn't believe her.

I love the locations. Sophia Loren is always wonderful. I do wish that the underwater scenes aren't filmed in a tank. That may be asking too much. I don't really care about these men. The chemistry with Alan Ladd is limited and Clifton Webb is too self-superior. She is better off going into the future alone. None of these guys are worthy.

Recently saw this on cable, and was surprised to learn that it was released in 1957. I don't believe there's another mainstream film from the '50s that shows a major actress wearing nothing but a Wet-T? Sophia's bare bosom could clearly be seen through her clothing. This film also appears to have been the forerunner for "The Deep." While a tad slow-moving, the scenery and eye-candy more than makes up for it. -D, NYC "Thousands & thousands of details go into the making of a film. It is the sum total of all these things that either makes a great picture or destroys it" - David O. SELZNICK (one of the founding Jewih fathers of Hollywood - Paramount/RKO/MGM/Selznick International)

I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out and then again, years later on t.v. I had the good fortune to tape it onto video as I don't think it can be found in any video stores. I really enjoy this movie as the story is engaging and the location shots are beautiful. Sophia Loren does a fantastic job of portraying a vibrant, headstrong, passionate woman on a mission. I've always liked Clifton Webb and thought he did a typically tight, professional turn as an arrogant, proud art dealer immersed in his own inflated sense of superiority and worldliness. Alan Ladd as Dr. Caulder of the museum in Athens is the low point for me as I never found him to be a particularly good actor. He does okay in this movie but doesn't really fill the screen with great charisma. The soundtrack and the title song are fabulous - at times lilting, haunting, and fun. I find myself humming the title theme for hours after watching the movie. How I often know whether I like a movie or not is if I want to jump into the story and "be there". I definitely would want to "be there".

I remember when I was a kid, the mother of a friend of mine was taking us out for the day, it was school holidays and she gave us the choice of going to the circus and going to see a movie called "Boy On A Dolphin". We looked at each other and telepathic thought passed between us, "Boy On A Dolphin" that sounds lame, take us to the circus... And ever since then I have always had the same thought, until about a month ago, when I read a review that made the film sound rather more interesting. And besides it does have Alan Ladd, a favourite of mine ever since I saw "Shane" and Sophia Loren, a favourite of mine ever since I first layed eyes her. So I decided to embark on a little 'Sophia Loren season' and where better to start than her English language debut

The movie is pleasant enough travelogue / treasure hunt, but what lifts it above the ordinary is the exceptional location footage and the magnetic presence of Loren. The film features wonderful shots from around various Greek islands and some stunning footage from around the Meteora monastery (which Bond fans will remember from FYEO). Clifton Webb gives a superb performance as the smooth villain and Alan Ladd is solid as the hero, but it's Loren who lights up the screen with an electric performance. The production seems clearly designed as a vehicle to showcase her... talents, as she gets to sing a song and dance several times during the course of the film. Loren is the first figure we see in the film, diving for sponges, however under the water the visibility is limited, we can only get an impression of her. It is only when she returns to the surface and rises from the water that we are first able to fully appreciate Sophia and her two companions in all their wet shirted glory (cue Richard Strauss' "Thus Spake Zarathustra"). Not only that but she is playing a character who is a stroppy child of nature, who wears her every emotion on her sleeve. Her large eyes frequently flash with anger and contrast beautifully with her olive skin, those cheek bones, those lips, that long neck, those broad shoulders, etc... As a article I once read commented, so many of her individual features seem out of proportion and yet somehow when taken together... more is more! I doubt she will be able to top the impact of this performance in any of the other movies I will be watching, here she is the distilled essence of youthful vigour no wonder Ladd chases her down the street and rugby tackles her around the legs in the final scene!

PS Peter Sellers five-year-old daughter Sarah remembers asking her father if he still loved them. Sellers replied: 'Of course I do, darling, just not as much as Sophia Loren'.

Sophia Loren vibrates and pouts through this film in a manner I'm sure was intended to be sexy, but isn't. She tries to convey earthy sensuality but can't carry it off. It's an embarrassing and tacky performance with a lot of shouting, odd body postures, and ridiculous extremes of emotional response. Alan Ladd, on the other hand, could use a little of Loren's extremism. He is even more wooden than usual, and that's saying a lot. He also appears bloated and heavily made up, especially around the eyes. Clifton Webb gives the only good performance in Boy On a Dolphin, but unfortunately Webb doesn't have enough screen time to save the film. The copy I saw was not of sufficient quality for me to really appreciate the much-vaunted scenery and color photography, so I can't comment on them. Clifton Webb always is worth watching, but otherwise Boy on a Dolphin is a pretty weak effort.