User Reviews

Some films are set in very gritty surroundings such as docks or decayed warehouses, others have period settings, or need to support a sci-fi story-line. But when it is possible, most films will increase their appeal if they can provide attractive screen images to help tide viewers over occasional dull spots. Such eye candy may be land or marine scenery, architecture or people. Used at the right time, any of then can provide additional viewer enjoyment. Boy on a Dolphin, based on a novel by David Divine, is one of many films (among them Venus, Summer Lovers, and Aphrodite) which have used the magnificent scenery of the Greek Islands for this purpose. It was made by the Fox studios on location on Hydra Island in Greece, and is an adventure film about an impoverished Greek scuba diver, very vigorously played by a young Sophia Loren, who discovers a valuable classical statue she wants to see accepted as a national treasure rather than simply sold on the open market. It was filmed in colour and provides some delightful images of the scenery in this lovely part of the world; but, although there was an extremely vigorous and fiery performance by Sophia Loren, the acting of the North American cast members unfortunately left much to be desired and the overall impression after watching this film is somewhat patchy. This is sometimes blamed on the height disparity between the rather short Alan Ladd, who plays the curator of one of the museums of antiquity in Athens and the unusually tall Sophia Loren. It has been suggested that Robert Mitchum who was originally considered for the role of the museum curator, might have helped create a film which would wear better. I do not think this is fair to Director Jean Negulesco who, as I remember it, very adequately coped with any problems this difference created, and also did a wonderful job of exploiting the scenic attractions which did so much for this film. His main failure was in melding the contributions of the various cast members into a coherent story with enough sparkle and life for it to become a classic. However it was one of the top earning films at the time it was released, and was also nominated for an Oscar, so it seems probable that both Fox and those involved in making the film would have classed it as very successful.

I am a visual person, and perhaps appreciate the value of eye candy more than many film-goers, but I would not give this film an IMDb Users rating of more than seven today. I would however quickly buy myself a new DVD copy if it was available. The VHS tape is no longer listed and I do feel very strongly that as a re-mastered DVD, the delightful scenery, combined with the important theme about national treasures being preserved for the enjoyment of posterity and the great performance by Sophia Loren, would be enough to ensure better sales for it than for many of the other DVD revivals which are being created in great quantities today. This is my principal reason for adding these further User Comments now.

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.

Copyright 1957 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 19 April 1957. U.S. release: April 1957. U.K. release: 10 June 1957. Australian release: 4 July 1957. 10,000 feet. 111 minutes.

NOTES: Loren's first English-language film. Robert Mitchum was originally slated to play the lead, but bowed out "due to other commitments". Ladd was a frantic, last-minute replacement. Although he received an enormous fee, $275,000, Ladd did nothing but complain once he arrived in Athens and saw the actual set-up. Of course, he had reason. Sophia Loren was using the film to boost an international reputation as Italy's new sex symbol, her expansive physique advertised to be bigger and broader and more sumptuous than the considerable attributes of Gina Lollobrigida. Ladd, who stood only about 5 feet, 4 inches, was amazed when he first met Loren; no one had told him he would be acting with a giantess (albeit she stands only about 5 feet, 8 inches or so in her bare feet). She was almost a head taller and their love scenes together had to be framed as special two-shots. At one point, the two walk along a beach. So that Ladd would appear taller, a trench was dug for Loren to walk in, a scene that embarrassed Ladd and made him even more distant from cast and crew, especially from Loren. Director Negulesco played all the scenes to the Italian sexpot's advantage, particularly her diving sequences where she grabs the hem of her skirt, tucks it between her legs and pins it, then dives into the water and emerges dripping wet, her voluptuous heavy-breasted body clearly outlined, a shot that would be used in the film's promotion and make Loren the rage not only for this season but for many seasons to come.

Ladd refused to be anything but polite to Loren who later claimed he was her only leading man who refused to become her friend. When they posed for publicity shots, he was cold and indifferent. To Ladd, Loren was a talent-less opportunist who was using him as a prop to establish a career in American movies. By picture's end, Ladd felt that the film had been a mistake, at least for him, and he blamed the director for handing the film over to Loren. "Negulesco fell in love with her," he told a columnist, "so she got all the good closeups."

Negative cost: $3½ million. Worldwide rental gross: approx. $6 million.

VIEWER'S GUIDE: Despite all the sexpot publicity, the contemporary British censor ruled that the film was suitable for "Universal Exhibition".

COMMENT: Scenery — that's what BOAD is all about, principally the scenery provided by Miss Sophia Loren, but also the scenery of Greece and the Aegean Isles captured in the on-location CinemaScope camera. The story and the other players take a distinct 3rd and 4th place to these two prime requisites, now one, now the other vying for our attention — Miss Loren wins, rarely was an American film debut for a European star so auspicious and never did it completely swamp — aside from the locale — all other aspects of the production.

The other players were doubtless after Negulesco's head for at times even the music score seems to get much more attention than the cast (of course in the TV print matters are even worse, instead of just being on the sidelines, now they're often not in the picture at all! The cropped print relentlessly focuses on Miss Loren whom it must be admitted looks terrific and smolders most attractively). Clifton Webb has a few mild moments in what should have been a tailor-made part; and while Alex Minotis and Laurence Naismith and the little boy get a bit of an innings, poor old Alan Ladd is allowed to come off 2nd, 3rd or 4th best depending on how many other players are with him in a particular scene. The CinemaScope camera doesn't treat his age too kindly either, whereas it seems to be positively in love with Miss Loren.

Aside from his obvious love for the landscape and Loren, Negulesco's direction is rather loose and light-handed, and, whilst unobtrusive, also dramatically ineffective. Of course the script does not present much in the way of conflict and there is very little action or dramatic tension. The initial premise of the plot has promise, but it just ambles its way from one half-hearted and/or perfunctory situation to another and then reaches a predictable but dramatically unsatisfying conclusion.

OTHER VIEWS: Ladd makes a late entrance and in the meantime we are treated to some of the most wearisome dialogue and hammiest acting. Loren screeches away like a fishwife and her supporting players do little to help. Ladd doesn't improve things much either and his fans are going to be disappointed by the signal lack of action in the movie. Even the promised knife fight doesn't materialize. All Mr. Ladd tackles is Miss Loren — right at the fade-out. Only Clifton Webb (who is given some of his usual sardonic dialogue) and the Greek locations emerge with any honor from what is otherwise a most pedestrianly directed and boringly devised piece of old rubbish. The music score deserves a better film. Even Athens looks unattractive. As for Miss Loren... well even her fans will surely cringe once she opens her mouth! — JHR writing as George Addison.

While this scores for its setting, mood, music and atmosphere, it's not necessarily a big challenge for its three stars, Sophia Loren, Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb. They are just fine, but they are just playing fictional versions of their already established image, although it's an early experience on film to hear Loren speaking English. To take her away from Italian typecasting, she's cast as a Greek woman, scuba diving in the Mediterranean on the Aegean Sea one day and discovering the statue of the boy on a dolphin. Ladd and Webb are interested buyers, so the story focuses on whom she will sell it to.

The best acting comes from Jorge Mistral as Loren's demanding boyfriend, using Loren basically as a lure for both men, her dancing a seduction without procreation yet definitely a way of getting large "tips". Loren is alluring of course, free of the spitfire image of later films, but finding herself along the way as she finds herself drawn to Ladd. Another memorable performance comes from Laurence Naismith from a heavy drinking doctor, while Piero Giagnoni is adorable as Loren's much younger brother.

Underwater scenes are beautifully filmed, looking realistic with the warm sea waters home to the most colorful of fish. It's hard to judge the spark between Ladd and Loren as he supposedly had no interest in her at all, and seems to be just reading his lines. Webb seems to be tired of playing the same old spouter of acid lines, and plays perhaps his only non-eccentric character even though he's made to appear dapper. This is enjoyable yet unremarkable, and lacking the romance it needed to really pack a punch. Definitely search for the wide-screen version and pass on pan and scan.