Mutiny Ahead

Neil Hamilton has gone through all the money he inherited and then some; the guy who runs the gambling place he's deep in debt to gives him 36 hours to come up with a big chunk of it. His friends are not forthcoming, but coincidentally, a fence offers him the money he needs and more to takes some pearls off an old lady's neck. He's on his way to deliver them... or maybe not.... when a sailor steals them from him. Chasing him lands him on the yacht of Kathleen Burke, who's the niece of the old lady, as she sets sail to look for sunken treasure.

It's largely a decent States Rights B movie -- except for the part where Hamilton fights a giant octopus -- mostly due to the sort of good actors available to the cheapest of Gower Gulch producers at the time: down-on-their-heels actors (Hamilton), actors who hadn't risen out o the bottom ranks yet (Paul Fix, Leon Ames) and actors who never got the role that got them noticed by the public and major producers (Miss Burke). The writer was Stuart Anthony, who would wind up writing for Paramount and Republic. The director, Thomas Atkins, was mostly an uncredited Assistant Director for RKO and its Film Booking Office predecessor; he directed three three movies at this time, and then his credits vanish. He lived until 1968, a month shy of his 81st birthday. Given the large numbers of Tommy Atkins, in the British Army and elsewhere, it's hard to tell anything about his life. It seems unlikely he's also the actor who appeared in MANIAC COP in 1988.