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Powerful

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

I would definitely agree with the majority of reviewers here, a buckler without much swash. :o Really wasn't feeling it between Rock Hudson and Yvonne DeCarlo and he just seemed much too young for her, IMO. The dialogue between them just seem forced and stunted. I did appreciate the scenes with his shirt off though, no one can deny Rock Hudson was a handsome, well built man.However, as a nautical fiction/ history fan, this movie hit on 7 out of 8 cylinders and I DVR'd it just to be able to see it again on that note.First of all, it is loosely(very) based on Victor Hugo's 1866 classic "The Toilers of the Sea". (He wrote Les Miserables, 1862)Some of the main characters have the same names from the story, Gilliatt(the Cunning!),Rantaine, Lethierry, and Deruchette, the Yvonne DeCarlo role. Secondly, it was filmed in the same locale as The Toilers of the Sea was based on, Guernsey of the The Channel Islands off of France. This location is also where Victor Hugo lived(while writing) and of which he writes of extensively in the book. (Still used today as the most detailed account of that coastal/island geography).As I have yet to visit those islands, it was wonderful to see in the movie the intermingling huge blocks of boulders/rocks, unique grasses and surrounding sea so beautifully depicted. The rocky points, towering cliffs and walls of an old harbor are all shown, in color no less although some scenes are at dusk and dark on purpose. My next viewing will be to solidly identify which of the castles or low built fortifications they actually filmed on. What fun for a nautical fan! :>This is why I gave it a 5 out of 10. (obviously not on the merits of the movie itself, but it's quasi story origin and filming location!) Enjoy! :D

This is a wannabee swashbuckler set in the Napoleonic era with Rock Hudson as a bare chested dashing pirate evading the customs men and Bryan Forbes as his faithful mate. Maxwell Reid plays his rival who is a true bounder.The lovely Yvonne DeCarlo is mixed up in this as a British spy send over to France to obtain important information but Reid ends up in jail after getting involved in a fight with Hudson.DeCarlo has to use Hudson to get over to France but only for Hudson to be a hindrance as he thinks she might be a French spy and even worse he fell for her sob story to get her over there.The film has no swash or buckle. There are some decent sailing sequences and Hudson will keep his male fans happy with his bare chest. However the story is pants, with little chemistry between DeCarlo and Hudson, we neither care if DeCarlo is a double spy or not and the sequence where Reid and Hudson join up is stupid because they hate each other and we can guess betrayal in in the air.Director Raoul Walsh has made better films.

This is a disappointing minor swashbuckler considering it was written by a fairly competent screenwriter (Borden Chase) and directed by the usually dependent Raoul Walsh. Rock Hudson plays a fisherman turned smuggler during the Napoleonic wars who becomes embroiled in some routine espionage shenanigans after falling for Yvonne De Carlo. Hudson has a sidekick in the bizarre diminutive form of Bryan Forbes, who looks faintly ridiculous in the role of a spirited, hard-drinking smuggler. Their relationship put me in mind of the great Errol Flynn and Alan Hale flicks of the 30s and 40s, which was a bad thing for this film because Hudson and Forbes are no Flynn and Hale.Hudson's character is as dislikeable as it's possible for a movie hero to be. he has the moody, impetuous temperament of a lovesick schoolboy for much of the film, and it's no coincidence that the film livens up only when he is off-screen. He spends much of his time on-screen dramatically baring his nipples and striking manly poses which should, when you think about it, lend this effort a fairly high camp quotient, but strangely the film stubbornly refuses to develop any kind of character. The ending, when it finally, belatedly arrives, is as rushed and anti-climactic as you are likely to find...

After a bit of trial-and-error, I managed to acquire a workable copy (unlike another Rock Hudson vehicle in the same vein, CAPTAIN LIGHTFOOT [1955]!) of this swashbuckler set in the Napoleonic era – with the Emperor himself played by Frenchman Gerard Oury; incidentally, I had intended to close off 2008 by revisiting the latter's most popular directorial effort i.e. the WWII farce DON'T LOOK NOW – WE'RE BEING SHOT AT! (1966), but had to forego it due to time constraints! While I can't say that SEA DEVILS is very well-regarded within the genre (Leonard Maltin dismisses it with a :star::star: rating), in spite of the revered Walsh's involvement, I have to admit that I rather enjoyed it. Hudson is an impetuous rum-shipper, flanked by an amusingly grumpy Bryan Forbes, who's constantly clashing with rival Maxwell Reed; their quarrel comes to a head when they involve a woman (Yvonne De Carlo) whose activities as a spy, however, are jeopardized when Hudson misconstrues the situation! De Carlo's contribution here is far more engaging than when she played the BUCCANEER'S GIRL (1950), which I watched earlier in the month; for the record, she and Hudson had already been teamed for SCARLET ANGEL (1952), yet another costumer but which I'm not familiar with.By the way, despite American leads, director and studio (RKO), this is a British-made effort – with typically reliable supporting cast (including Dennis O'Dea as De Carlo's superior and Michael Goodliffe as her contact in France) and production values (ensuring stunning color photography throughout and a suitably rousing score). As expected, then, we get plenty of action and intrigue – spiced with equally obligatory bouts of romance and comedy relief; the result hardly makes for a classic film but, in this agreeable company, it's perhaps more satisfying than such hokum has a right to be!