Les Grands Fonds

This film didn't quite make the splash that "Jaws" did two years earlier but remains a fine picture with tense moments and fine underwater photography. The stars, Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset, a vacationing couple, find a different kind of treasure in a wreck off the Bermuda shore and soon have the island thugs around to pay them a visit. Seems as though a cache of morphine could be profitable in the drug market, which a Haitian dealer desires to exploit. The latter uses intimidation and voodoo to get his point across to the couple, who later get help from a seaman and treasure expert to keep the villains at bay. Bisset is nice to look at in her wet t-shirts and shorts but Robert Shaw and Lou Gossett supply the key moments of drama in the film more than do Nolte or Bisset. The picture does drift off course in spots but Shaw and Gossett stay on a collision course that results in an exciting undersea climax. The film never received its due as an adventure worthy of critical acclaim.

Suspenseful , thrilling and well-paced underwater adventure about divers who locate a a shipwrecked treasure and morphine . This is an intense and engrossing movie with agreeable performances and good rendering of maritime action . The hit smash of ¨ Jaws ¨ by Steven Spielberg prompted this screen rendition of another Peter Benchley book . It concerns about an innocent couple ( Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset ) get involved in an underwater search for treasures in the island Bermuda . They descend deep into the big blue without the aid of any kind of breathing apparatus, though sometimes use scubas . The frogmen get excited when they accidentally discover what they believe is a vast sunken treasure. They find a shipwrecked galleon and a crashed WWII vessel plenty of dope . They find a historic wreck, but nearby is a wrecked ship with a large quantity of morphine . Romer and Gail want the treasure; their diving partners also want the drugs . Dangerous criminals realize the ship and dope are submerged somewhere in the area . When the bad guys learn that the couple has located the drugs, Romer and Gail find themselves in mortal peril . Exciting and well-paced underwater adventure about a marriage that in the process they are threatened and then must thwart the enemies. The team of divers faces danger when they attempt to retrieve goods from a Spanish ship , as they spend time in shark-infested water and are helped by a treasure-seeker ( Robert Shaw ) and his underling ( Robert Tessier ) and confront nasty drug-lord ( Louis Gossett Jr ). The four divers set off on a perilous expedition in search of legendary treasure of a mysterious galleon resting in ocean floor and take back drug into the ship .

The pace moves along nicely and production values are on the high scale . This is an amusing seagoing adventure in which the ocean deep figure prominently , though this time guarding sunken treasure . The action is plentiful with undersea excitement with terrifying underwater sequences. The film is spirited, lively and at times rather frightening light amusing . Made mainly as vehicle for Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset , they show particularly in the technical excellence of the underwater scenes . They show off their considerable screen presence, both attractive and slender . Lightweight entertainment notable for sunny outdoors and underwater photography as well as Bisset in a bathing suit, a glamorous bikini and of course her famous wet T-shirt. Jacqueline Bisset fans will ask no more than the sight of their star in a swimsuit involved in this fast-moving sunken treasure yarn.

This waterlogged story is packed with gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Challis who manage to keep this afloat with fab footage maritime as expert cameraman ; furthermore pulsating musical score by the classic John Barry . The movie was spectacularly shot in Bermuda , Australia and British Virgin Islands . The motion picture is professionally directed by Peter Yates ( Bullit ) though drags in some places and is overlong . In the 2000s was realized a special remake of this story with Paul Walker and Jessica Alba in similar roles to Nolte and Bisset titled ¨ Into the blue ¨.

In spite of its many shortcomings (lazy direction, over-the-top acting, gratuitous violence, to name a few), you really HAVE to love this movie! Two years removed from the sensational release of JAWS, THE DEEP in many ways had some very big shoes to fill. For me, THE DEEP is JAWS-lite -- a kind of melodramatic, soap-opery version of JAWS. For all its flaws, allow me to wax poetic about the many virtues of this sublime cinematic guilty pleasure:

1) That amazing opening aerial montage of Bermuda - maybe the greatest opening establishing shot in the history of cinema. All the Bermuda based location work in this movie is top notch, adding a rich and handsome texture to the otherwise middling narrative.

2) Robert Shaw. While his performance is slightly overbaked (while also channeling and lazily riffing on Quint), his performance still manages to be larger than life - the delightful glue that keeps this movie together. What an amazing run he had over the last five years of his life, highlighted by THE STING in '73, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3 in '74, JAWS in '75, BLACK Sunday in '76 and THE DEEP in '77. Amazing.

3) A 32 year old Jacqueline Bisset. As a 13 year old boy, I can assure you that she made a pretty indelible impression on me.

4) The great supporting turns from Eli Wallach and Lou Gossett, Jr.

I could go on but suffice it to say that watching this movie from time to time is sorta like taking a warm bath in the dead of winter. It's one of those movies that somehow never gets stale and always manages to entertain despite its shortcomings.

In Bermudas, while diving for pleasure, David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) find a submerged vessel, and they bring a couple of objects withdrawn from the ship. They look for the advice of Romer Treece (Robert Shaw), an expert in treasures and old ships, and they realize that indeed there were two vessels in the same location: a French one, from the Eighteenth Century, with a treasure in jewels, and another one, from the war, with a load of morphine. David and Gail associate to Treece, trying to recover part of the underwater wealth. Meanwhile, the powerful Haitian drug dealer Henri Cloche (as Louis Gossett Jr.) menaces the group, trying to get the drugs. "The Deep" is a very linear adventure, without any plot point or surprises. The wonderful locations, the magnificent photography, the good cast and the amazing beauty of Jacqueline Bisset support this movie, which is recommended for killing time only. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Fundo do Mar" ("The Bottom of the Sea")

I remember seeing this film on cable long ago, and it is largely as I recall it. Pretty good action-adventure film in exotic location. (Bermuda) It seems like this was Nick Nolte's first big leading role, and he was fine. Jacqueline Bissett was rather more established at the time, and was wonderful (and beautiful) But the supporting cast really made this film. Eli Wallach didn't have a lot of screen time, but nailed the role of the old, alcoholic sailor. Louis Gossett, Jr., who was mostly in TV back then (I remember him from "The Rockford Files") was excellent as the creepy and malicious Haitian gangster. Best of all was Robert Shaw, who will be mostly remembered for "Jaws" but probably did his best work in "The Sting". I also remember his turn as a Nazi officer in "The Battle of the Bulge".

I understand that there was a longer version of this film which provided a lot more character exposition. That would have been cool to see, but you have to make choices for time when making a movie from a novel. Peter Benchley's novels were good middle-brow writing.

Anyway, this is a film worth seeing, with lots of underwater scenes