Boy on a Dolphin
Encyclopedia
Boy on a Dolphin is a 1957 20th Century Fox
romantic film set in Greece
and made in CinemaScope
. It was directed by Jean Negulesco
and produced by Samuel G. Engel
from a screenplay
by Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor, based on the novel by David Divine.
The film stars Alan Ladd
, Clifton Webb
and Sophia Loren
with Alexis Minotis
and Laurence Naismith
. Hugo Friedhofer
was nominated for the 1958 Academy Award in Best Music, Scoring category for his work. The cinematography was by Milton R. Krasner
.
. Alan Ladd
portrays the honest academic archaeologist, Dr. James Calder, whose aim is to see to it that the statue is handed over to the rightful Greek authorities. Clifton Webb
on the other hand, plays a rich and unscrupulous grave-robber, Victor Parmalee, who wants to find the statue and keep it in his own private collection. Sophia Loren
plays a Greek sponge diver, Phaedra, who accidentally found the statue and is trying to make money by assisting Webb's character, but gets romantically involved with Ladd's character.
The film was shot at Cinecittà
, Rome
and on location on the island of Hydra
one of the Saronic Islands
in the Saronic Gulf
. Establishing shots of Athens
, Rhodes
and Delos
are used as well. One scene utilizes the Orthodox
monastery
complex at Meteora
that later would be used as a location in the James Bond
film For Your Eyes Only
.
Because of the disparity in the heights of Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd, their love scenes presented something of a problem for director Jean Negulesco and his crew. Ladd was 5' 6" (1.625m) and Loren was 5' 8" (1.73m), requiring him to stand on a box for two shots; for a scene where the two walked together along the beach, a trench had to be dug for Loren to walk in, so Ladd would appear taller. This was later parodied on Monty Python's Flying Circus
in the episode and sketch "Scott of the Antarctic," wherein two actors appeared in a film and one of them stood atop three crates and the other in a three-foot trench, creating a ludicrous disparity in height between the two.
The title song was performed by torch song/blues singer Julie London
, done in her famous sparse style of singing intimately close to the microphone accompanied only by a guitar, and can be heard in the opening credits. The lyrics are as follows:
There's a tale that they tell of a dolphin and a boy made of gold/
With the shells and the pearls in the deep, he has lain many years fast asleep/
What they tell of the boy on a dolphin, who can say if it's true?/
Should he rise from the depths of the ocean, any wish that you wish may come true/
You say he's only a statue and what can a statue achieve?/
And yet, while I'm gazing at you, my heart tells my head to believe/
If the boy whom the gods have enchanted should arise from the sea/
And the wish of my heart could be granted, I would wish that you loved only me/
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
romantic film set in Greece
Kingdom of Greece
The Kingdom of Greece was a state established in 1832 in the Convention of London by the Great Powers...
and 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...
. It was directed by Jean Negulesco
Jean Negulesco
Jean Negulesco was a Romanian-born American film director and screenwriter....
and produced by Samuel G. Engel
Samuel G. Engel
Samuel G. Engel was a screenwriter and film producer from the 1930s through the 1960s. He wrote and produced such films as My Darling Clementine , Sitting Pretty , The Frogmen , Night and the City , and Daddy Long Legs .Born in Woodridge, New York , Engel earned a degree in...
from a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Ivan Moffat and Dwight Taylor, based on the novel by David Divine.
The film stars Alan Ladd
Alan Ladd
-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
, Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...
and Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
with Alexis Minotis
Alexis Minotis
Alexis Minotakis, known as Alexis Minotis , was born 8 August 1898 or 1899 in Deliana , Chania, Crete and died on 11 November 1990 in Athens, Greece....
and Laurence Naismith
Laurence Naismith
Laurence Naismith was an English actor.Naismith appeared in films such as Carrington VC , Richard III , Sink the Bismarck! , Jason and the Argonauts , and Diamonds Are Forever . He also starred in a children's ghost film The Amazing Mr Blunden...
. Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Friedhofer
Hugo Wilhelm Friedhofer was an American film music composer born in San Francisco. His father was a cellist trained in Dresden, Germany; his mother, Eva König, was born in Germany.Friedhofer began playing cello at the age of 13...
was nominated for the 1958 Academy Award in Best Music, Scoring category for his work. The cinematography was by Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner
Milton R. Krasner, A.S.C. was a film cinematographer. He won an Academy Award for Three Coins in the Fountain .-Career:...
.
Plot
The plot revolves around the attempts by two competing individuals - an archaeologist and a wealthy art collector - to retrieve an ancient Greek statue of a boy riding a dolphin from the bottom of the Aegean SeaAegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
. Alan Ladd
Alan Ladd
-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
portrays the honest academic archaeologist, Dr. James Calder, whose aim is to see to it that the statue is handed over to the rightful Greek authorities. Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb
Clifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...
on the other hand, plays a rich and unscrupulous grave-robber, Victor Parmalee, who wants to find the statue and keep it in his own private collection. Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
plays a Greek sponge diver, Phaedra, who accidentally found the statue and is trying to make money by assisting Webb's character, but gets romantically involved with Ladd's character.
Cast
- Alan LaddAlan Ladd-Early life:Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was the only child of Ina Raleigh Ladd and Alan Ladd, Sr. He was of English ancestry. His father died when he was four, and his mother relocated to Oklahoma City where she married Jim Beavers, a housepainter...
as Dr. James Calder - Clifton WebbClifton WebbClifton Webb was an American actor, dancer, and singer known for his Oscar-nominated roles in such films as Laura, The Razor's Edge, and Sitting Pretty...
as Victor Parmalee - Sophia LorenSophia LorenSophia Loren, OMRI is an Italian actress.In 1962, Loren won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Two Women, along with 21 awards, becoming the first actress to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance...
as Phaedra - Alex Minotis as Milidias Nadapoulos
- Jorge MistralJorge MistralJorge Mistral born Modesto Llosas Rosell was a Spanish film actor. His father was from Puerto Rico and his mother from Catalonia. During the 40s, he became a star in films produced by CIFESA. In the 50s, he lived and worked in México and appeared in Luis Buñuel's Abismos de pasión...
as Rhif - Laurence NaismithLaurence NaismithLaurence Naismith was an English actor.Naismith appeared in films such as Carrington VC , Richard III , Sink the Bismarck! , Jason and the Argonauts , and Diamonds Are Forever . He also starred in a children's ghost film The Amazing Mr Blunden...
as Dr. Hawkins - Piero Giagnoni as Niko
- Gertrude FlynnGertrude FlynnGertrude Flynn was an American stage, film and television actress. She was married to Asa Bordages, a feature writer for the New York World-Telegram and playwright known for the 1941 play Brooklyn USA.-Theater:Flynn performed on Broadway beginning in the late 1920s...
as Miss Dill
Production notes
This film is Sophia Loren's American film debut.The film was shot at Cinecittà
Cinecittà
Cinecittà is a large film studio in Rome that is considered the hub of Italian cinema.-History:The studios were founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini and his head of cinema Luigi Freddi for propaganda purposes, under the slogan "Il cinema è l'arma più forte"...
, Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
and on location on the island of Hydra
Hydra, Saronic Islands
Hydra is one of the Saronic Islands of Greece, located in the Aegean Sea between the Saronic Gulf and the Argolic Gulf. It is separated from the Peloponnese by narrow strip of water...
one of the Saronic Islands
Saronic Islands
The Saronic Islands or Argo-Saronic Islands is an archipelago in Greece, named after the Saronic Gulf in which they are located, just off the Greek mainland. The main inhabited islands of this group are Salamis , Aegina, Angistri, and Poros...
in the Saronic Gulf
Saronic Gulf
The Saronic Gulf or Gulf of Aegina in Greece forms part of the Aegean Sea and defines the eastern side of the isthmus of Corinth. It is the eastern terminus of the Corinth Canal, which cuts across the isthmus.-Geography:The gulf includes the islands of; Aegina, Salamis, and Poros along with...
. Establishing shots of Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
and Delos
Delos
The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...
are used as well. One scene utilizes the Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
monastery
Monastery
Monastery denotes the building, or complex of buildings, that houses a room reserved for prayer as well as the domestic quarters and workplace of monastics, whether monks or nuns, and whether living in community or alone .Monasteries may vary greatly in size – a small dwelling accommodating only...
complex at Meteora
Meteora
The Metéora is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Pineios river and Pindus Mountains, in...
that later would be used as a location in the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
film For Your Eyes Only
For Your Eyes Only (film)
For Your Eyes Only is the twelfth spy film in the James Bond series and the fifth to star Roger Moore as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It marked the directorial debut of John Glen, who had worked as editor and second unit director in three other Bond films. The screenplay by Richard Maibaum...
.
Because of the disparity in the heights of Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd, their love scenes presented something of a problem for director Jean Negulesco and his crew. Ladd was 5' 6" (1.625m) and Loren was 5' 8" (1.73m), requiring him to stand on a box for two shots; for a scene where the two walked together along the beach, a trench had to be dug for Loren to walk in, so Ladd would appear taller. This was later parodied on Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
in the episode and sketch "Scott of the Antarctic," wherein two actors appeared in a film and one of them stood atop three crates and the other in a three-foot trench, creating a ludicrous disparity in height between the two.
The title song was performed by torch song/blues singer Julie London
Julie London
Julie London was an American singer and actress. She was best known for her smoky, sensual voice. London was at her singing career's peak in the 1950s. Her acting career lasted more than 35 years...
, done in her famous sparse style of singing intimately close to the microphone accompanied only by a guitar, and can be heard in the opening credits. The lyrics are as follows:
There's a tale that they tell of a dolphin and a boy made of gold/
With the shells and the pearls in the deep, he has lain many years fast asleep/
What they tell of the boy on a dolphin, who can say if it's true?/
Should he rise from the depths of the ocean, any wish that you wish may come true/
You say he's only a statue and what can a statue achieve?/
And yet, while I'm gazing at you, my heart tells my head to believe/
If the boy whom the gods have enchanted should arise from the sea/
And the wish of my heart could be granted, I would wish that you loved only me/