utgard14 Watchable late Hammer flick with a so-so cast. First half deals with dramatics on board a cargo ship with various and sundry characters, leading up to the mutiny of the crew. This is all rather ho-hum and forgettable. Business picks up after the ship becomes lost in the Sargasso Sea and the passengers must deal with killer seaweed and giant mutant crabs & scorpions. Oh did I forget that there's also an island of conquistadors who don't realize the Spanish Inquisition is over? It's all pretty cheesy with poor special effects and no scares are to be had but it's fun to watch at times. Neil McCallum has his hair dyed Twinkie yellow for some reason. Ben Carruthers (who?) is supposed to be playing some kind of suave character but it's a poor fit. Suzanna Leigh and front-heavy Dana Gillespie provide the required amount of babe to fill Hammer's quota. Love the cheesy title song. I believe this movie also inspired an episode of DuckTales.

Eric The scariness of this movie doesn't jump off the scale when you first see it, but for me it lingered - and lingered - and lingered. Other reviewers have described it well so I'll just add a couple little fillips. First, Eric Porter played an excellent Moriarty in the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes, and there is an odd aptness to that which will bring back memories of this very original movie. Second, some of the reviewers refer to the "cult" aboard the galleon. Well, that's no cult - it's a pretty faithful rendition of the 16th century Catholic Church and the Inquisition. The debates between the loony Inquisitor and the British ships's mate are worth the price of admission. And I was surprised to learn from some of the other reviews that cigarette companies protested. If anybody should have protested, its the Catholic Church, which comes off looking every bit as bad as it deserves to in those debates, and the depiction of a microcosmic theocracy which is a "not even disguised" version of the church, or just about any church to some degree. A fun movie on many levels, and unforgettable.

chrismartonuk-1 Michael Carreras often attempted to broaden Hammer's repertoire during his terms there and most of the company's artistic triumphs, and interesting misfires, can be laid at his feet. THE TWO FACES OF DR JEKYLL was a serious attempt to move the Gothics beyond the traditional limits expected of Hammer that failed due to the gap between intention and execution. Having pioneered SHE and ONE MILLIONS YEARS BC and put Hammer into the Summer family crowd pleaser market - and anticipating the modern Hollywood blockbuster - Carreras took advantage of hammer's relationship with Dennis Wheatley not to churn out another Black magic Chiller but a curious mish-mash of soap-opera, disaster movie, nautical adventure and sci-fantasy.Eric Porter was hotter than a murder weapon at the time with his portrayal of the tormented, cuckolded Soames Forsyth on the BBC (and had become something of a sex symbol in the process - despite, or because of, his rough treatment of his capricious wife, Irene) so Hammer thought it worth taking a chance on him as leading man material - as they had Peter Cushing - instead of Christopher Lee or a fading American star. Porter was a top drawer classical actor - I had the good fortune to see his Malvolio in TWELFTH NIGHT at Stratford - and he has a convincingly craggy sea-faring face and a natural authority, and ain't half-bad as a man of action at the climax. His captain could give Cushing's Baron Frankenstein a few lessons in monomania - he fails to tell his crew (including, inevitably, Michael Ripper) about the dangerous cargo of Phophor B they carry. Having been beaten to the punch by Benito Carruther's sleazy character to sleep with Hildegard Knef, he cares very little when the man is carried off by an octopus. I doubt whether Porter lingered too long over the film on his CV but he's a first-rate lead and although he made an excellent Moriarity in the Granada series, might have been an intriguing Holmes. The women characters are unusually complex for Hammer. Hildegard Knef looked every inch a MILF and conveys the weary melancholy of a beaten-down woman who's had to compromise herself in the name of survival. Suzanne Leigh is one of Hammer's finest and most underrated bitches - look at the smirk she gives her hated father Nigel Stock when Porter berates him - and opens her thighs for anything with a pulse including the Sparks, Benito, and on-the-wagon Harry. Sadly, both fade from centre-stage at the climax - but there is compensation in the form of Dana Gillespie. We've suffered enough childish double-entendres with those gas balloons she wears for now, but she is a striking beauty and, as Hammer weren't overly concerned with the thespian ability of their ladies, it seems strange she never made another one for them - Christopher Lee could have sunk his fangs into her certainly. I suspect she's dubbed, but she certainly takes Harry's mind off the booze.The plot structure is oddly similar to FROM DUSK TIL DAWN with the plot starting off as one genre and taking an unexpected detour in fantasy-land. Nonetheless, it remains a curio in Hammer's output (and an indication of what ZEPPELINS VS PTEROCATYLS might have looked like had it been made) and remains the guiltiest of pleasures.

heywood2001 I thought this romp was somewhat in the vane or spirit of those Doug McClure movies where the U-Boat ends up in a pre-historic lost area of the globe and the crew has to deal with cave people, Dinosaurs etc.I certainly don't hold the feet of this film to any super critical standard since it dosen't seem to take itself seriously anyway. I agree with the one reviewer of the postings on this page that if you just suspend your disbelief somewhat that it's a quite entertaining film since it is quite imaginative in the visuals and the situation (albeit quite ridiculous) such as the Conquistadors stuck there for several centuries. The buxom balloon girl was most pleasant to look at and took to speaking English quite quickly (They have Berlitz books out there).I think a story like this would be a bit more easier to swallow if it had taken place in the 20's or 30's, but again, the movie does not seem to take itself seriously so who cares(Giant crabs are not to beyond the pale, but giant scorpians!).The cast plays it straight despite the absurdity, and that helps to suspend disbelief.The weird factor is very high which is the most appealing factor of this flick.I think there was a bit of 60's political angle of questioning of authority as the ship crew incited the lord kid to question his own blind obedience to the hooded inquisitor. There was a rapprochement between the crew of the ship and the conquistadors both standing in respect for the kid ruler in his burial at sea. So I suppose this could also be kind of a 60's version of 'can we all just get along' type decade influenced feature in this film.Yes! A beer and pizza film.