Sharks' Treasure (1975)

It looks like an amateur film and has an intense hatred for sharks, as it shows numerous of them getting killed by charges or spears, only to fill up space in the run time. The story is so blatantly absurd that you can guess most of it.It's hard to get through, since seeing Cornel Wilde and Yaphet Kotto in racing bathing suits, doing a "fake" row, is too hard to bear.It has a few character actors from the 1960's like David Canary (he gets hit by Paul Newman in "Hombre" (1967), and Cliff Osmond (He was in the original Twilight Zone in "The Gift", 1962)) as Lobo.Similar themes found later in The Deep (1977).

The story of SHARKS' TREASURE is simple enough: four guys look for sunken treasure in the Caribbean sea. They have fun and the occasional quarrels while looking for the treasure. Midway into the movie, a bunch of escape cons (or pirates) hijack the boat and its crew and forces the foursome to continue on with the search while they eat their food and hide on the boat. Eventually, the original crew makes a pack with one of the ex-cons and they escape and a cat & mouse chase occurs on a nearby island.SHARKS' TREASURE is not a great film by any means. But it's not a bad film too. It's hopelessly average. The direction, by Cornel Wilde, is competent, with some nice camera-work here and there but it's really uninspired and looks like a TV movie of sorts for most of the film, until the climax at the beach which was well made: we see the men trying to escape the gang of ex-cons with just the sound and image of the roaring waves crashing on the beach. No music. Nice.The big problem with the film is the limited space of the boat and the really corny acting by Cornel Wilde. The acting by everyone else was good, with Yaphet being the stand-out here but Cornel's acting belongs in the 1950s, not a film made in the gritty 1970s. He stood out more often than not as a sore thumb. To make things more annoying, Cornel (the director/actor) filmed himself prominently, really wanting to impress god knows who that he was still in great shape at his then old age. Fortunately, the film never becomes a total vanity project for Cornel but it sure comes close to it. And the other annoying thing about the film was the song. It's probably the worst song I've ever heard in any film. Extremely corny. The ending is also corny: after everything they went through, you'd think they wouldn't go back looking for the treasure. Aside for those weak points, the film was OK.I watched SHARKS' TREASURE on a specialty satellite channel from beginning to end without changing channels, which should tell you that it held my attention for 90 minutes, which is more than I can say with majority of movies I watch.

Sheesh! What a dreadful movie. Dodgy camera work, a script with more corn than Kellogg's, and acting so hammy you could open a pig farm with it. To cap it all, it doesn't know which audience to aim at - we have Cornel Wilde - or is that Corny Wilde? - getting on his soap box about the hazards of smoking any time someone lights a cigarette, dear oh dear, and in another awkward scene we have the baddie, Lobo, forcing his, ahem, if you will, 'male friend' to do a striptease dressed in a bikini. Try explaining that one to the kids...Throw in an overly contrived Treasure Island-cum-Jaws type storyline, and the result is a film so unintentionally funny, it's enjoyable - I shouldn't expect a Special Edition DVD any time soon, though.

Sharks' Treasure is an excellent sea adventure. The film centers around four men hunting for lost treasure. The men are plagued with problems from bandits, greed, and dangerous sharks. The underwater photography is superb. Cornel Wilde produced, wrote, directed, and stared in this film; which he states was a "team effort". I give this film a 9/10.