September Storm

For a 3D movie with a giant shark on the poster, it's amazing how much time's wasted at a Spanish (i.e. Spain-set) nightclub, which includes an extremely drawn-out Flamenco dance. All viewed by the four main characters that consist of two important pairs...

The first begins the picture: An extremely perfect-looking young Spanish guy who pretends to own the yacht of a vacationing millionaire (his boss), and a pretty yet slightly aged American model who he's making up the lie for: They go diving when the other two check out the vessel...

Actor Mark Stevens usually preferred directing adventurous b-pictures. This one a treasure hunt with only one shark... made of what looks like Styrofoam. His partner is a joke-around rummy familiar in sea-set Neo Noirs, and it's goofy Robert Strauss playing this very goofy character, and an extremely creepy one too...

That only Anne, played by red-head in a red bikini Joanne Dru... once they're all board the yacht and set out after a cache of buried gold coins... is partially aware/suspicious of...

Meanwhile, she's shying away from gigolo Asher Dann (from New York but looking genuinely Spanish) and it takes Stevens' maverick Joe Balfour to get badly injured for her to fall in love... or at least like...

Stevens the Humphrey Bogart from AFRICAN QUEEN type of sweaty-chested scoundrel, but his character's pretty dull, leaving Strauss as sidekick Archie to keep refilling the comic relief, even through the titular storm that mostly occurs at night, and is hardly visible to the audience...

Then there are the usual treasure seeking double-crosses and 11th hour greed-driven mad-impulse. But SEPTEMBER STORM, while a pretty dull cinematic tempest, is pretty fantastic to look at... and feels, for better or worse, like hanging out under the early 1960's Technicolor sunshine.

September Storm is obviously one of those kind of movies they just don't make anymore. In the 1950s and early 60s, the ingredients for an adventure movie were an exotic locale, a handsome hero, a sassy and pretty girl and a couple of bad guys. This movie has all these ingredients and they are mostly put to good use. The story itself is simple: two shady characters convince a Majorcan sailor to use his boss's yacht to recover sunken gold. A lovely American model is thrown in to keep things interesting. The voyage leads to cross and double-cross as the men quarrel over the money and the "dame". Underwater scenes are actually filmed very well considering the period, although the use of a rubber shark is unconvincing. There are several cringey moments of sexism in the dialog that are reflective of the period. Perhaps the most outstanding is when the bad guy says something to the effect of "Why do I gotta cook? - we gotta woman".

There is some glaring unevenness in the characters. One moment they are literally trying to kill one another and in the following scene they're all one big happy crew. The ending is kind of open-ended and a tad unsatisfying but at least nobody got killed.

Why, oh why do I waste my time watching 3rd run crap like this? I believed that this film was something worth watching at 6:00 a.m. on American Movie Classics, but boy, was I wrong! I'd have done better watching old reruns of "Let's Make a Deal." This film looks as if it were shot with a Brownie camera, the quality is so bad. It also resembles one of those old Italian sword and sandal jobs, with scenes switching back and forth for no reason. The film editor must've completed a correspondence course from the Rinky-Dink School of Film Editing. At least they could have asked Ivan Tors for a real shark during the underwater shark attack scene.

Mark Stevens looks sickly, Joanne Dru is OK, Robert Strauss is at his comic best, although he tries to play it straight, and Asher Dunn - he's cute. That's all.

MST3K - go for it. Everyone else - skip it. Especially at 6:00 a.m.

but my family and I watched part of it being filmed in Mallorca. I was in love with Joanne Dru and blown away by the huge lights and a camera about a hundred times the size of our Bell and Howell, all mounted on a barge, as they filmed the principal actors on a diving board. Many takes, each time with the assistant director screaming "Silencio Po favor" to all the tourists on the beach. The funny thing was that we all did fall silent.

One of the actors had to spin a coin in the air and catch it. He kept dropping it in the water, the director would shout "Cut" and a boy would be dispatched into the water to retrieve what was supposed to be a gold coin. Such a waste of a large crew's time must make producers crazy and directors nervous, let alone the poor actors.

Surprisingly good adventure film featuring Joanne Dru, as captivating as ever. Actually she's even better than usual.

An old-fashioned treasure hunt in a Mediterranean setting. Perhaps I have a soft spot for this largely forgotten film because it takes me back to vague childhood recollections of vacations spent in and around the Ballearic islands. Watching it now is like taking a holiday back to those simpler days.

A few twists and turns in the plot keep things interesting; some are variations on familiar themes and story lines, but ultimately September Storm takes on a life of its own. Let down somewhat by a few of the special effects, but if you can suspend your disbelief somewhat, you'll find a film that could have used some extra finesse, but is essentially well put together.

Gorgeous settings and underwater photography have been poorly cropped by pan and scan and as a result the action doesn't read as well as it should. Much better than expected overall. A very pleasant piece of escapism.

You have to see it to believe it!