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Beneath the 12-Mile ReefRating:
Release Date: 12 October, 1999 Retail Price: $14.99 Sorry, this product is not currently available. Cast: Complete Cast (16 total) |
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Reviews
What lurks beneath the Twelve Mile Reef -the untold story
This is a great movie and it tells so much about history too. There are few things besides natural sponges that are harvested at one-fifth of their pre-World War II level. In the 1930's, sponging was the number one industry in the Bahamas, and probably in Key West, Florida. Machinery improvements and better farming techniques result in higher productions of most commodities, but not natural sponges. "Public" (state) ownership of submerged lands has long defeated sponge aquaculture and other undersea farming along with its abundant ecology.
For example, when a hook is used to tear a sponge from the bottom, some material is left attached to the bottom to grow back. This occurs about one-third of the time. If a sponge is cut from the bottom instead of torn, it has been discovered that a sponge will grow back two-thirds of the time. The lack of ownership in sponge beds means spongers have reduced opportunities to make such discoveries, and equally slight incentive to exert effort implementing them. Public officials and other experts have even less incentive. Under soggy socialism, success is measured by how quickly a sponger can find and raid dwindling sponge beds, not by one's success at increasing sponge size or reproduction.
Socialism is as environmentally disastrous underwater as it has been on land. Florida waters, like those everywhere, lack private property rights and thereby suffer great damage. According to Dr. Rex Curry, overharvesting, which results from soggy socialism's "tragedy of the commons" is particularly pronounced in sponging.
As is often the case, capitalism has provided an answer to the environmental destruction caused by central planning. Socialism's ruiness effect on natural sponges was the catalyst for market substitutes: artificial sponges. Due to collectivism, natural sponges are now oddities, and artificial sponges are better, commonplace, cheap and come in greater varieties and sizes than Mother Nature can produce. Thanks to capitalism, the demand for natural sponges is now slight where socialism caused, and still causes, overharvesting.
Imagine if defenders of "common ownership" of water and natural sponges applied their logic consistently to achieve common ownership of artificial sponges. The same disaster would result. Everyone would grab as many of the publicly owned artificial sponges as possible. Owners of artificial sponge material and equipment would stop making sponges and find other work, while jobs in the industry would end just as jobs in natural sponging disappeared. Actual violence would break out in efforts to control the artificial sponge market, just as violence ruled the "commonly owned" natural sponge beds of Key West and Tarpon Springs, as dramatized in the movie "The Twelve Mile Reef."
As shortages of artificial sponges grew, public officials would pass more and more regulations and controls such as they have in banning sponge diving in the Florida keys and phasing out harvesting in Biscayne Bay.
Of course, officials would never comprehend that they bankrupted the artificial sponge industry, just as no socialist government has ever conceded causing shortages of natural sponges, nor food, clothing, housing or anything. Proponents of such policies will not publicly debate them with advocates of free market economics and private property rights.
Professor Curry argues that the environment will be made safer by reducing government until undersea socialism ends. As Libertarians and Objectivists say, there is no reason why free enterprise and private property rights should stop at the water's edge. The color of a healthy environment and the color of money are the same. Capitalists are the true "greens" of the environmental movement, and only private property rights can give natural sponging a chance to survive and thrive.
Enjoy the movie and enjoy the untold story of what lurks beneath the Twelve Mile Reef.
Memorable Cinematography, Score Enliven Melodrama
Directed by Robert D. Webb and released in 1953, this saga of competing sea sponge divers was noted for its drop-dead gorgeous cinematography and a brilliant score by composer Bernard Herrmann--and these remain the great assets of the film to this day.
The story is pure melodrama given an exotic twist. The Petrakis and Rhys families earn their livings by diving for sea sponges, but when the Rhys family, led by father Thomas (Richard Boone) resort to dirty tricks the Petrakis family, led by father Mike (Gilbert Roland) are forced to resort to risky dives at the dangerous 'Twelve Mile' reef; at the same time a love affair between son Tony Petrakis (Robert Wagner) and daughter Gwyneth Rhys (Terry Moore) further complicate the rivalry. Needless to say, tragedy results.
Both Wagner and Moore were considered rising stars when the film was made, and although Wagner makes for an unconvincing Greek both give enjoyable performances as the star-crossed lovers caught Romeo and Juliet fashion between battling families. Even so, the acting honors here go to Gilbert Roland and Richard Boone as the warring fathers with a special nod to Peter Graves as Arnold, an overly aggressive Rhys diver. Several notable character actors, including J. Carroll Nash, Jay Novello, and Harry Carey Jr. round out the cast.
Although the cast is solid, the plot is more than a little predictable--but the chief thing is the photography and the score. REEF was among the earliest productions made in Cinemascope, and everyone concerned was determined to make it as visually attractive as possible. The result is some truly beautiful cinematography, particularly in reference to the film's many underwater scenes. The score by Bernard Herrmann, who would later be best known for his work on such Hitchcock films as VERTIGO, also captures the beauty of the sea to remarkable effect.
Unfortunately, REEF seems to have fallen into public domain, and there are numerous DVD and VHS releases on the market. In most cases they are abominable things: the cinemascope has been reduced to pan and scan, the colors are muddy, and the sound is poor. There are, however, at least a few available that give you some idea of what all the 1953 fuss was about. Although they are hardly renowned for the quality of their product, the Digiview Productions release is actually quite good; the Digital Gold release is also more than respectable.
GFT, Amazon Reviewer
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