Raiders from Beneath the Sea

If you love scuba heist movies with a grating inappropriate travelogue score, this is your meat and potatoes. Ken Scott, 6 feet five of unrelenting blandness plays an apartment manager married to Merry Anders, loyal and supportive to this lunk, which is the only mystery here. Her brother-in-law lives with them too swilling beer and peeping on his brother's sister when she changes to "go out on the terrace for some sun." Somehow they make all this extremely unseedy. She even goes to church. But hubby has thought up a preposterous plan to rob a bank on Catalina Island with his old pal and mentor, "Tuck," in full diving gear and spear guns, then escape underwater before the cops come. To see them come up out of the water and stroll nonchalantly across the street to rob the bank is the highlight of our film. They don't even leave any wet footprints. Naturally, they run into a cop who tells them wearing scuba suits and masks and fins and carrying spear guns inside the city limits is unlawful. I'm not making this up. They did. Had a good giggle.

Raiders from beneath the Sea is a low budget crime movie from the 1960's. Four men plan to rob a bank and then escape via scuba diving.

It's an easy to follow plot and although the actors aren't great I found their performances strangely fascinating. There was a good chemistry between Ken Scott and Merry Anders as well as over a foot difference in height!.

It all gets strangely surreal towards the end and it must feature the first and only bank robbery with full scuba gear.

This is not a great film by any means but it is something different and kept me watching for it's full duration. I loved the ending.

Although I appear to be in a small minority, I really enjoyed it.

With the possible exception of Merry Anders who did some films with known players and who had a television series based on How To Marry A Millionaire, I doubt you will know anybody else in the cast. That's good because I'm sure they wanted to stay anonymous.

Although this sounds like a science fiction title Raiders From Beneath The Sea is really a caper film about two guys, Ken Scott and Russ Bender, who decide to use their scuba diving skills to rob a bank in Catalina. Scott is married to Anders and went bankrupt in a bad business venture. Now he just basically lives off his wife's charity managing her apartment building.

His brother Garth Benton lives off the both of them and he horns in on the deal. So does small time crook Booth Colman complete with one lousy cornpone accent.

Not much to recommend it. The acting is terrible, the direction non-existent, the photography looks like it was shot with my father's old Belle&Howell home movie camera. The music soundtrack in which someone decided to blend bongo drums with an organ is off the wall.

What else is there to say?

The only thing that keeps this from being 1 out of 10 stars is Merry Anders looking fairly decent in a 1960s style bikini. Terrible,terrible movie... The pseudo-jazz score offends all the senses. It is almost a blessing when there is no dialogue. But then the viewer is tortured by some kind of jazz recital with a Hammond organ and a set of bongos. Do not miss the scene in the bank. Bad writing/acting/music all meshed together in one short scene. It is no wonder that Merry Anders retired from acting a few years later. She is a pretty girl and has talent, but she deserved better than this.

Amazingly bad movie.

No. 1: A nice tour of Santa Catalina Island as it was 50 years ago. It is no doubt a bit more crowded now. No. 2: An unbilled guest appearance by the S.S. Catalina, aka The Great White Steamer. Great shots of the lady in her fortieth year, still looking young. At age 50 she retired to Mexico and was allowed to rot away, another seminal icon lost to neglect. So many Southern Californians, maybe as many as 25 million, rode her to Avalon By the Bay and I was one of them. And we saw the flying fishes play! No. 3: A good chance to see Miss Merry Anders at her best. Not too long after this she gave up on Hollywood and began working at Litton Industries in Van Nuys, CA. I also worked there (27 years) and saw her for many a year as she was the receptionist at the main entrance. She was very elegant in her business suits and became even more beautiful in middle age. An extremely nice lady.