User Reviews

All good things must come to an end and so it was with probably the best anthology series ever, Brian Clemen's "Thriller". The standard was consistently high with only a few low points ("Kiss Me and Die", "K is For Killing" etc). "Death in Deep Water" while not among the best did finish the series on a respectable note and for once the "token" American star blended in and furthered the narrative. Bradford Dillman plays Gary, a former hit-man, hiding out in a remote fishing village - obviously he is pretty edgy but older fisherman, Doonan (Ian Bannen, looking like he has just wandered in from his other Thriller appearance "Won't Write Home Mom, I'm Dead") soon puts him at his ease.

Maybe too much at his ease because when mystery woman Gilly (Suzan Farmer) seeks shelter during a storm he falls for her hook, line and sinker!! Probably because she spends most of the episode running around in a microscopic blue bikini so it's not amazing that he spends the time capering around like a lovesick school boy. And even when she pulls a gun on him, saying she knows everything about him he is still taken in by her, even though he never learns her name!! He is supposed to be hiding out in fear of his life but he still falls for her story that she is married to a very elderly, wealthy man who she longs to be free of so she can be young again and couldn't Gary .....

Meanwhile "Mr Big" has followed him to the island but is checking out of the hotel, giving up the search when he sees Gary across the road. Finally Gary is starting to put two and two together and comes out of hiding for the rich old man's funeral - he sees Gilly in the car of mourners but wait!! - he has already found her body on the beach!! What's going on???

Excellent final episode for the anthology series, that echoes many of the themes and plot points of classic film noir from the 1940s, transferred to an English setting (Dorsetshire?) and a TV-level budget. The protagonist (Bradford Dillman -- his second Thriller; he's OK here, but not as good as he was as the blind pianist in "The Next Voice You See" from season 5) is trying to escape his dishonorable past, and a pursuing gangster, by hiding out in an out of the way place (like Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past), and by chance meets a beautiful and mysterious woman (Suzann Farmer, who is great (and great-looking) in the role). They hit it off, but she says she can't get involved because she's married to a wealthy 60 year old man, but of course they do get involved, even though he doesn't know her name (he calls her "Blondie"). She is soon revealed to be the classic noir femme fatale, ensnaring our not-too-bright hero in a plot to kill her husband to get his money and then run off together (see Double Indemnity). Things go well at first, but the plans gradually unravel in a delicious fashion. If it sounds like I'm saying the plot is derivative, it really doesn't come off that way, with some surprises when you think you have it figured out. The plot never strains credibility, the pace is quick, no dull moments, and there's more outdoors scenes than usual for Thriller (although continuing the show's practice, common in British TV in the 70s, of video for interiors and film for exteriors); also, as other reviewers have noted, Ms. Farmer spends most of the episode running around in a miniscule bikini, which will appeal to the male viewer, although the role is much more complex than serving as mere decoration.

I rented a videocassette of this movie on a whim since I'd never seen or heard of it before, and the title and video box made it seem like it was an underwater adventure of some sort, which would have been interesting to me. The colorful illustrations on the box show a lady swimming underwater with a diving mask on, a seaplane on fire, and both the front and rear covers show sharks underwater. The reality is there isn't a single underwater scene in the entire movie, no sharks whatsoever (not even a single fin), no seaplanes (on fire or otherwise), and no diving masks. Therefore both the title and box artwork are extremely misleading.

Not only were the plot and theme not what I was led to believe, but I found the entire movie to be disappointing. The style of the photography, the sound quality, the swelling horn music at transitions, the limited sets, the unconvincing props, the hasty romance, and the unrealistic acting all scream "made for television." The only thing this movie really has going for it, other than some marginal swimsuit scenes, is a quick series of twists at the end, which I won't fully disclose here.

The movie starts with a man at a dock being pursued by other men for an undisclosed reason, and he retreats via a boat to a sparsely populated island, intending for his pursuers to lose interest and to lose track of him over a period of time. While wasting his time away drinking and playing chess against himself in a cozy seaside home on the island, a woman clad in a bikini knocks at his door in a rain storm, seeking shelter. She claims to frequently swim to the island to sunbathe in the nude, and that the sudden storm caught her by surprise. They have an affair (very discrete scenes there) and soon they supposedly fall in love with each other after she visits him a few times. Via a newspaper article she sees his photo as implicated in a murder, but she isn't particularly bothered by it. She asks him about it, finds out he's a hit-man, but rather than be frightened off, she suggests he kill her rich husband who lives on the island so that she can gain a huge inheritance. He agrees to go through with it, then the twists start hitting. Along the way he suffers some (unrealistically depicted) hallucinations, submits to (unprofessional) panic, that panic exacerbates his problems, then a series of unexpected incidents occur rapidly, and the ending comes just as unexpectedly.

For the most part I thought the film lacked excitement, interest, scenery, realism, and most anything else that might have saved it from TV-style mediocrity. And that's not even considering the misleading promotion of the film via its title and box cover. In summary, I found this film to be very mediocre and disappointing in every way, made worse by its misleading promotion.