Forgotten Films: Boy on a Dolphin

I'm not widely traveled, and it's too late nowfor me to see in person some of the great places of the world, but that's okay. I've seen them in the movies. One of those places is the Greek island of Hydra, which I saw in Boy on a Dolphin when I was a teenager. It's a beautiful place, and this movie would be worth watching just for that reason alone. I don't think the movie is easily available, which is okay, I guess. It's certainly not a great movie, and the scenery really deserves a theater that can show Cinemascope and has a really wide screen.

And speaking of scenery, there's Sophia Loren. I was about 16 when I saw this movie. Was I impressed. Oh, yes, indeed. Wow. What does the plot matter when you have Sophia playing a sponge diver and walking around in wet clothes?

If you're interested in the plot, Sophia finds a statue of a boy on a dolphin. I suppose the boy is Arion, another reason I remember the movie, but that's another story. Anyway, Clifton Webb is the unscrupulous collector who wants the dolphin for his own, and Alan Ladd is the scholarly archaeologist who thinks it belongs in a museum. Why he'd care about the statue when Sophia is around is a mystery to me.

I remember reading about this movie when it was being filmed. I can't remember where the articles appeared, but there was a problem with Ladd and Loren because of the disparity in their heights. Ladd was a good bit shorter. He had to stand on a box for the kissing scenes, I think, and for the scene of the two of them walking on the beach, they had to dig a trench for Loren to walk in so they would appear to be of about the same height. That didn't bother me. I knew I was taller than Ladd and that Loren would notice that about me if we ever met. Which unfortunately we never have.