Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 adventure film

Adventure film

Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....

 directed by Robert D. Webb

Robert D. Webb

Robert D. Webb was an American film director. He directed 16 films between 1945 and 1968.-Selected filmography:* Beneath the 12-Mile Reef * Seven Cities of Gold * White Feather...

. The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides

A. I. Bezzerides

A.I. " Buzz" Bezzerides, , was an American novelist and screenwriter, best known for writing Noir and Action motion pictures, especially several of Warners' "social conscience" films of the 1940s....

 was inspired by Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...

by William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...

. The film was the third motion picture made in Cinemascope

CinemaScope

CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

, coming after The Robe

The Robe (film)

The Robe is a 1953 American Biblical epic film that tells the story of a Roman military tribune who commands the unit that crucifies Jesus. The film was made by 20th Century Fox and is notable for being the first film released in the widescreen process CinemaScope.It was directed by Henry Koster...

and How to Marry a Millionaire

How to Marry a Millionaire

How to Marry a Millionaire is a 1953 romantic comedy film made by 20th Century Fox, directed by Jean Negulesco and produced and written by Nunnally Johnson. The screenplay was based on the plays The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. The music score...

.

Plot

Mike and Tony Petrakis are Greek American

Greek American

Greek Americans are Americans of Greek descent also described as Hellenic descent. According to the 2007 U.S. Census Bureau estimation, there were 1,380,088 people of Greek ancestry in the United States, while the State Department mentions that around 3,000,000 Americans claim to be of Greek descent...

 father and son sponge diving entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

s who find themselves in competition with the Rhys family, WASP

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant

White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is an informal term, often derogatory or disparaging, for a closed group of high-status Americans mostly of British Protestant ancestry. The group supposedly wields disproportionate financial and social power. When it appears in writing, it is usually used to...

 fishermen who are prepared to resort to violence and even murder to maintain their established fishing grounds off the Gulf Coast

Gulf Coast of the United States

The Gulf Coast of the United States, sometimes referred to as the Gulf South, South Coast, or 3rd Coast, comprises the coasts of American states that are on the Gulf of Mexico, which includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida and are known as the Gulf States...

 of Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. Run-ins between the two clans lead to an exchange of threats and all-out brawls. Further complications ensue when Tony Petrakis meets Gwyneth Rhys, and the two fall in love.

Cast

• Robert Wagner
  Robert Wagner
  Robert John Wagner is an American actor of stage, screen, and television.A veteran of many films in the 1950s and 1960s, Wagner gained prominence in three American television series that spanned three decades: It Takes a Thief , Switch , and Hart to Hart...
  
   ..... Tony Petrakis
• Terry Moore
  Terry Moore (actress)
  Helen Luella Koford , better known as Terry Moore, is an American actress. Terry Moore made her film debut at age 11 and grew up with all the icons of the Hollywood era that made Hollywood what it is today, also known as "The Golden Age of Hollywood". Moore is an Academy Award nominated actress...
  
   ..... Gwyneth Rhys
• Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland
  Gilbert Roland was a Mexican-born American film actor.He was born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and originally intended to become a bullfighter like his father. When the family moved to the United States, however, he became interested in acting when he was...
  
   ..... Mike Petrakis
• J. Carroll Naish ..... Socrates Houlis
• Richard Boone
  Richard Boone
  Richard Allen Boone was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns and for starring in the TV series Have Gun – Will Travel.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Thomas Rhys
• Angela Clarke ..... Mama Petrakis
• Peter Graves
  Peter Graves (actor)
  Peter Aurness , known professionally as Peter Graves, was an American film and television actor. He was best known for his starring role in the CBS television series Mission: Impossible from 1967 to 1973...
  
   ..... Arnold Dix
• Jay Novello
  Jay Novello
  Jay Novello was an American radio, film, and television character actor.Born in Chicago as Michael Romano, of Italian descent, Novello began his career as a radio actor, playing Jack Packard on the Hollywood version of I Love a Mystery for a brief period, circa 1944...
  
   ..... Sinan
• Jacques Aubuchon ..... Demetrios Sofotes
• Gloria Gordon ..... Penny Petrakis
• Harry Carey, Jr.
  Harry Carey, Jr.
  Harry Carey, Jr. is an American film actor. He appeared in over 90 films. He is mostly remembered for appearing in Western films — notably those by his friend John Ford — and in television programs.-Early life:...
  
   ..... Griff Rhys
• Rev. Theophilus Karaphillis.....Greek Priest at Epiphany

Critical reception

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther

Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...

 of the New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

observed, "Another and further extension of the range of CinemaScope

CinemaScope

CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

 . . . is handsomely manifested in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef . . . But that, when you come right down to it, is just about the only novelty provided by this third employment of the anamorphic lens

Anamorphic format

Anamorphic format is a term that can be used either for: the cinematography technique of capturing a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film, or other visual recording media, with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio; or a photographic projection format in which the original image requires an...

. For the scenes shot above the surface, while large and imposing, are routine, and the drama developed in the screen play is hackneyed and banal. And, unfortunately, most of the picture takes place above, not below, the reef . . . There is nothing at all fascinating or edifying here".

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

said, "[T]he squeeze-lensing gives punch in the display of underwater wonders, the seascapes and the brilliant, beautiful sunrises and sunsets of the Florida Gulf coast. In handling the young cast, Robert D. Webb's direction is less effective, particularly in the case of Robert Wagner and Terry Moore. Both are likable, so the shallowness of their performances is no serious handicap to the entertainment."

Awards and nominations

Edward Cronjager was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography

Academy Award for Best Cinematography

The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

, and Robert D. Webb was nominated for the Grand Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival

1954 Cannes Film Festival

-Jury:*Jean Cocteau *Jean Aurenche *André Bazin *Luis Buñuel*Henri Calef *Guy Desson *Philippe Erlanger *Michel Fourre-Cormeray *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais...

.

External links

• Beneath the 12-Mile Reef at the Internet Movie Database