Boy on a Dolphin (1957)

So much average

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Loved the film but have always wondered why the film used the name "dolphin" when they actually used a porpoise . A dolphin, or mahi mahi was a much small fish. Imho.

An average adventure film, it is easy to say what is good about BOY ON A DOLPHIN: the scenery of Greece is wonderful, the music and dance numbers interesting (the first Greek dances I suspect in a major production film prior to NEVER ON Sunday), and the pleasures of looking at the young, vibrant Sophia Loren. They are sufficient to make the film a "5" out of "10". Dragging it down a bit is casting Alan Ladd as the hero archaeologist - he speaks his lines okay, but he was beginning to look a little puffy in the face (it is not the Ladd of THIS GUN FOR HIRE or TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST or THE BLUE DAHLIA). But pushing it up to a "7" is Clifton Webb. More about that later.Sophia is a sponge diver, and has accidentally located the wreckage of a 2,000 year old wreck which entered myth because it had a the statue of a boy (made out of solid gold) on top of a bronze dolphin. Ladd is approached by Sophia about showing him the treasure for possible financial reward. But Ladd's resources are small (he works for various antiquities organizations and national governments, and worked after World War II returning antiquities looted by the Nazis). He arranges to have lunch with her, but she arrives first. She is told they cannot serve her alone, so she plops herself down next to the next available person. It's Webb, who turns out to find her more interesting than initially when she mentions knowing Ladd and awaiting him. Webb cleverly spirits her out of the restaurant onto his yacht. There (keeping her a well treated prisoner) he does a little research on his own, and catches up with Ladd in a Monastic Library. He returns to the yacht. He explains the situation - he will pay much more money for the statue of the boy on the dolphin than Ladd will. Loren agrees to help him.So the situation is set up, with Loren working to delay and defeat Ladd's urge to find the statue, and once he goes she'll lead Webb to it. But due to unforeseen side issues (Ladd becomes friendly with Loren's kid brother Piero Giagnoni) he learns that she visits the yacht, and soon is aware he cannot depend on her anymore. But Loren is also finding she is falling for Ladd, and this is beginning to worry not only Webb but Loren's old boyfriend Jorge Mistral. Switching to relying on Mistral, Webb prepares to snatch the prize while Ladd is preoccupied. And there I will leave the plot.After LAURA and THE DARK CORNER, with the possible exception of his ridiculous social snob Eliot Templeton in THE RAZOR'S EDGE, Clifton Webb played good guys. Usually they were acerbic, like his Lynn Belvedere, but usually had his heart in the right place. His Richard Sturgis in TITANIC is confronting his wife Barbara Stanwyck, but is in for a severe emotional drubbing from her regarding his son's parentage before he pulls himself together and shows he is heroic at the conclusion. Most of his films were comedies, though TITANIC and CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN end with his death. However, it is not until he made BOY ON A DOLPHIN that Webb returned to his special brand of sybaritic style villainy. His Mr. Victor Parmelee (as noted on this thread, Webb's real last name was Parmelee) is a wealthy aesthete who collects art objects, and doesn't care how he gets them. He would have been the sort who would have dealt with Mr. Cathcart in THE DARK CORNER, and read Waldo Lydecker's columns in the newspapers. Webb has the aesthete down pat, and in the end you admire his thorough planning and stick-to-it-ness in seeking to circumvent Ladd. But he has one thing going in this film not found in the earlier two melodramas. Nobody is killed in BOY ON A DOLPHIN, although one suspects that the jealous Mistral would love to do in Ladd. So at the end Mr. Parmalee shrugs his shoulders and orders his yacht to Monte Carlo...ho hum...an occasional failure is to be expected. But he was not arrested (they found nothing to arrest him for), and a trip to Monte Carlo is certainly a better fate at the end of a film than being blasted by police bullets in your female friend's apartment or being shot in the back by your infuriated wife in the basement of your antique shop.

This is an amazingly lifeless movie despite it being filmed in Greece and being Sophia Loren's first American movie. While the Greek scenery is lovely, it's obvious that the biggest reason they chose Ms. Loren for the film was because of her ample breasts. Throughout the film, but particularly in the first diving scene, they are featured very prominently and it's a very risqué piece of film work for the 1950s (sort of like the movie THE DEEP in the 1970s). And, unfortunately, she is given a role that is very inconsistent and not particularly likable. Much of the movie concerns her wanting to help steal a valuable ancient statue she accidentally discovered while sponge diving. She is, through much of the film, amoral and self-centered. And, not very convincingly, at the end, she falls for Ladd and does the right thing with the statue! Predictable but also a bit ridiculous.Now to make things worse, some boob had the bright idea of pairing Loren with Alan Ladd--one of the shortest leading men of all time and about four inches shorter than her. This meant they had to do some interesting camera-work so she wouldn't tower above him. In addition, their chemistry is, at best, tenuous despite this being a love story. There just doesn't seem to be any "spark" between them. As for Ladd, his role is pretty mellow and subdued. Apart from some scuba diving, he just doesn't do all that much in the film. The bottom line for Ladd, Loren and the rest of the characters is that the parts just weren't written all that well and the people (aside from her little brother in the film) weren't very interesting or compelling. A dull time-passer and certainly no indication of the acting ability of either of its stars.

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?