The Deep **** (1977, Jacqueline Bisset, Nick Nolte, Robert Shaw, Louis Gossett Jr, Eli Wallach, Dick Anthony Williams) – Classic Movie Review 8739

The 1977 adventure The Deep may be tremendously shallow, but that’s good, right?

Peter (Jaws) Benchley’s deep sea adventure hokum novel about the discovery of a sunken drugs cache off Bermuda makes for a great fun movie, thanks to larky performances (by Jacqueline Bisset and Nick Nolte as hunky heroes Gail Berke and David Sanders, and Robert Shaw as Jaws-style sea-dog Romer Treece) and the sparkling underwater filming.

Gail Berke and David Sanders are young vacationing amateur treasure-hunting divers who find the secret cargo of a World War Two shipwreck in in Bermuda waters and clash with local treasure-hunting criminals.

Director Peter Yates keeps the silly story swimming along and relishes the extended underwater sequences, and when the going gets choppy diverts attention to the giant moray eel or Bisset’s wet T-shirt. Bisset and Nolte prove good company, and there are entertainingly eccentric support turns from Louis Gossett Jr as bad guy Henri Cloche and Eli Wallach as beach bum Adam Coffin.

It runs 123 minutes but there are 53 minutes of extra footage in the US TV version of 176 minutes (special edition).

Also in the cast are Robert Tessier, Earl Maynard, Dick Anthony Williams, Bob Minor, Teddy Tucker, Peter Wallach, Lee McClain and Peter Benchley.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8739

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