The Deep

Introduction

 
Hot on the heels of Peter Benchley's success on the silver screen with the Speilberg-helmed Jaws, Benchley's world-wide bestseller The Deep was adapted for the screen and directed by Peter Yates.  This film was famous for a while in having introduced the world to Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt and many a poster of this adorned the wall of adolescent males.
 
New Yorkers David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) are in Bermuda for a diving holiday.  On one of their dives they come across a couple of items that will change their lives; a small bottle and a medallion.  The bottle is an ampoule of morphine and was part of a cargo for sunken munitions ship Goliath which sank during a big storm in World War II, whilst the medallion hints at 17th Century Spanish treasure.
 
The morphine attracts the attention of local villain Cloche (Lou Gossett Jr), a man with a penchant for violence and voodoo, and he is soon trying to make life as difficult as he can for the young couple.  Luckily, David and Gail make the acquaintance of island celebrity Romer Treece (Robert Shaw) who has a reputation of a treasure hunter.  Treece decides to help the young couple and maybe get one over on the violent Cloche as well, but the terrors that they face are not only on land but underwater as well…
 

Picture/Sound

 
Despite some grain on a couple of the sky shots, the picture looks great for its age, with both land and underwater shots looking mightily impressive, especially when you compare to the shots included in the Making Of.
 
John Barry provides a fine melodic score that suits the location.
 

Extras

 
Making Of - a nice long featurette that focuses on the spectacular underwater shooting more than anything else and reveals that none of the principal actors or crew had any experience of diving when they started the film but made a total of 9882 dives by the time they'd finished.  This is how Making Of's are supposed to be, albeit a little too melodramatic in emphasis from narrator Robert Shaw.
 
Selected Scenes from 3 hour Version - about half a dozen scenes from the 3 hour version, some are merely extended whilst some were removed wholesale from the theatrical version.  Not sure actually why they didn't include the 3 hour version on this release, it's not like they couldn't have fit it on.
 
 

Overall

 
The Deep is completely unlike Jaws in that it's really an old-fashioned treasure romp, but a rather slow paced one at that.  For some bizarre reason I'd always had the idea that The Deep involved some aquarian monster such as a giant squid but a 12 foot moray eel that lives in the wreck of the Goliath is the closest we ever get to that.  Not that this matters as The Deep is a rather nice film to kick off your shoes and relax with, it's not too taxing despite some of the violence involved, and there it does earn it's 15 certificate.
 
The principal actors all earn their money, especially Robert Shaw who really makes this film as good as it is.  Nolte was really just coming out of TV for his first big film lead and Bisset is just sublime and simply gorgeous, even sans wet t-shirt.  The chemistry between these two is good, although the chemistry between Nolte and Shaw is better as the two bounce of each other as partners tend to.  Gossett Jr is rather menacing but isn't used as much as he could be.
 
Not as great a film as it thinks but not as bad as you might think it is.  Worth a watch, even if only for the spectacular underwater filming…