By John M. Whalen
In the early Fifties movie studios were worried because fewer
people were going to see movies in the theater. They’d rather stay home and
watch that new-fangled gadget—television. To lure audiences out of their homes
and away from their TV sets, Twentieth Century Fox’s Spyros P. Skouras
developed the anamorphic widescreen filming process known as Cinemascope. “The
Robe†(1953) was the first film shot in this format and was an instant hit. More
movies in widescreen with stereophonic sound soon flooded into neighborhood
theaters.
To take advantage of the widescreen, Twentieth Century
Fox’s early Cinemascope movies were often filmed in beautiful, far off locations.
These films were part travelogue, part-adventure, and romance, with lush music
soundtracks. Jean Negulesco, the Romanian-born director who made dozens of
films in the 1940s including “Nobody Lives Forever†(1946), “Humoresqueâ€
(1946), and “Johnny Belinda†(1948) became a specialist at making these kinds
of movies. His Cinemascope work includes “Three Coins in the Fountain†(1954),
which he shot in Rome, “The Pleasure Seekers†(1964), filmed in Madrid, and
“Boy on a Dolphin†(1957), filmed in the Greek Islands.
“Boy on a Dolphin†(1957) starred Alan Ladd and is notable for
being the film that introduced Sophia Loren to American audiences. She plays
Phaedra, an earthy Greek sponge diver who finds a rare, and valuable, centuries-old
statue of a golden boy riding a dolphin down in the water off the coast of one
of the islands. Ladd plays Dr. James Calder an American archeologist whom
Phaedra first asks for help in recovering the statue so she can become rich.
Their relationship starts well but takes a bad turn when scoundrel Clifton Webb
shows up as the nefarious Victor Parmalee, an unscrupulous art collector who wants
the statue for himself. He convinces Phaedra to double cross Calder, who wants
to put the golden boy and his fish in a museum. Parmalee convinces her that
he’ll make her rich if she helps him get the statue.
There isn’t a whole lot of plot in this film, which was directed by Jean Negulesco. Mostly it’s
Phaedra leading Calder on and telling him to dive in all the wrong places so he
won’t find the statue, and helping Parmalee locate it and hide it. There’s a
ne’er-do-well boyfriend named Rhif (Jorge Mistral), who is jealous of Calder, double
crosses Phaedra, and makes his own deal with Parmalee.
The plot may be overly simplistic but it doesn’t matter
much. “Boy on a Dolphin†is one of those films that you don’t think about or
analyze. You just sit back and let all that scenery and soundtrack music wash
over you. Milton Krasner’s beautiful color photography of the Greek Isles fills
almost every frame with dazzling sunlight, azure seas and sky, and the
magnificent architectural scenery that took three thousand years to create.
It’s a treat for the eyes. Hugo Friedhofer’s score is beautifully lush and very
Debussey. The Kino Lorber Blu-ray presents the film in a magnificent 4k
restoration with gorgeous color and glorious stereophonic sound. I’ve always admired the sound of these
fifties Fox films. The sound recording is in some more impressive than what we
hear in today’s films. For this writer, these “golden oldies†often offer more
spatial dynamics between the actors’ voices that give it a more true-to-life
sound- and it isn’t so loud it blows your ear drums out. Modern sound engineers
should go back and study these films to learn how to record realistic
soundtracks.
While “Boy on a Dolphin†was Loren’s big screen debut in
the US., sadly, it also marked the beginning of the decline of one of
Hollywood’s most charismatic stars. In a real-life “A Star is Born†kind of way,
the young Loren fills the screen with life and radiance and comes out of the
sea like Venus on the half-shell. Ladd, on the other hand, though he still had
that deeply resonant voice that carried so well, seemed tired, disinterested,
and diminished. There was no chemistry at all between him and Loren in the
stiffly acted love scenes. It was only four years after the magnificent “Shaneâ€
(1953), but somehow the ruins of ancient Greece seemed a cruel reflection of
the star himself, whose days of glory were already beginning to fade. He died only
seven years later, going on to make ten more films of varying quality, finally
rallying with his last great performance in “The Carpetbaggers†(1964).
Kino Lorber has done a terrific job presenting this film under
its KL Studio Classics banner in a brand new 4k 1080p Restoration. Picture and
sound are excellent. The extras include trailers for other Loren films,
including “Marriage Italian Style†and “Sunflowerâ€. Recommended.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "Hunting Monsters is My Business: The Mordecai Slate Stories" . Click here to order the book from Amazon)