Boy on a Dolphin

Boy On A Dolphin concerns a statue that is just that which is found by lovely sponge diver Sophia Loren in the Aegean Sea. She's got two people interested in it, archaeologist Alan Ladd working for the Greek government and antiquity collector Clifton Webb.

Sophia likes Ladd, but Webb's got the big drachmas. I'll leave it to the experienced movie goer to figure out who she winds up with.

The film was shot in the Grecian Isles it really was her first big exposure (literally) to American audiences in an American film. Originally this was to star Robert Mitchum with her, but he backed out and Ladd was substituted.

Ladd had a miserable time during this film because of the rough humor of the Greek crew regarding his height. Sophia towered over him and 20th Century Fox did the usual compensating that Paramount and Warner Brothers did with him that involved Sophia in a trench or Ladd on a box. Alan Ladd was one of the nicest of Hollywood stars, but a sensitive soul and the barbs wounded him deeply.

The color cinematography in Greece is first rate, you can't photograph a bad color film in that location. Sophia Loren looks real good wet or dry. Reason enough to see Boy On A Dolphin.

I saw this movie in the theater when it first came out and then again, years later on t.v. I had the good fortune to tape it onto video as I don't think it can be found in any video stores. I really enjoy this movie as the story is engaging and the location shots are beautiful. Sophia Loren does a fantastic job of portraying a vibrant, headstrong, passionate woman on a mission. I've always liked Clifton Webb and thought he did a typically tight, professional turn as an arrogant, proud art dealer immersed in his own inflated sense of superiority and worldliness. Alan Ladd as Dr. Caulder of the museum in Athens is the low point for me as I never found him to be a particularly good actor. He does okay in this movie but doesn't really fill the screen with great charisma. The soundtrack and the title song are fabulous - at times lilting, haunting, and fun. I find myself humming the title theme for hours after watching the movie. How I often know whether I like a movie or not is if I want to jump into the story and "be there". I definitely would want to "be there".

This film was one of 1957's top grossers mainly due to the fact that in those years the public wanted exotic European location shooting and the film certainly does a good job of showing Greece and Sophia Loren who is ravishing.The story is a thriller.Alan Ladd plays a archaeologist ,Sophia a poor sponge diver and Clifton Webb an unscrupulous collector of art.The plot is not really that important.What counts is the scenery and Sophia.Alan Ladd whom I have always considered as a very good actor, but underrated by critics does a good job,like always(he always tried his best), all the more so that his partner was really very much taller than him and he suffered from that.I don't understand why everybody made so much fuss about Alan Ladd's size.He was just as short or tall as Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney or even George Raft.The film is very enjoyable.

One of those movies from childhood you remember as an adult, if for nothing else then for the brilliant colors and underwater scenes. Although this may not be available on DVD as yet, it's a good candidate because of the Technocolor beauty of it all.

Certainly script writers Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor have done the best they could to arrange a fairly equal balance of nature and Sophia...

The Greek Isle of Hydra is one of the most cosmopolitan points in the Mediterranean, a dream world with a unique beauty... It appears like a huge dry rock rising out the sea with its tiled houses and buildings scaling the precipitous terrain, one on top of the other, starting from the quay and reaching up to the tops of the hill, while the victorious color scheme is Aegean (white green and bright blue), and the weather is Adriatic... The pretty port looks extremely picturesque, dramatically beautiful...

Director Jean Negulesco has thrown all the grandeur and loveliness of these features upon the eye-filling CinemaScope screen... But Alan Ladd's and the audience's attention is directed to Sophia who explodes beautifully into warmth, glamor, beauty and sex, through frequent and liberal posing of her in full and significant views... Her statuesque beauty reminds us what the Mediterranean can offer in grace and richness...

Diving in the Aegean Sea for sponges off Hydra, peasant girl Phaedra (Sophia Loren) discovers a golden statue of a boy riding a bronze dolphin, chained to the body framework of a wrecked ship... Together with Rhif (Jorge Mistral) her lazy fisherman lover, Niko (Piero Giagnoni) her little brother and an English doctor Hawkins (Laurence Naismith), she tries to look for a rich American sponsor for the raising of the sunken statue...

She had two alternatives: Dr. Jim Calder (Alan Ladd), a U.S archaeologist, devoted to return lost artifacts of great value to their home countries, and Victor Parmalee (Clifton Webb), an ambitious art collector, prepared to pay highly price to cool his insatiable desire for ancient treasures...

With striking photography of the Greek island, the sparkling sea, and the Parthenon, this entertaining film, with nice music by Takes Morakes, is another example of cinema ingenuity...