"King of the Coral Sea" (1954)Rod Taylor plays Jack Janiero in this Australian production, which was a box-office success and Taylor's first appearance in a full-length feature film. He is among the supporting cast that's largely made up of Australian stage and radio celebrities. "King of the Coral Sea," was directed by Lee Robinson, the most prolific Australian director of the 1950s, and starred ever-popular Aussie Chips Rafferty. Rafferty plays Ted King, a pearler who lives on Thursday Island, the center of Australia's pearling industry. When King discovers a body floating in the Torres Strait, the clues lead him to a gang of crooks who are smuggling migrant workers onto the island. Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, he is joined by his first mate, Janiero; his daughter, Rusty (Ilma Adey); and Peter Merriman, the heroic owner of the pearling company. Merriman is played by Charles "Bud" Tingwell, who worked with Rod during his radio days. ScreenSound Australia calls the movie "a dashing and romantic thriller shot in the beauty of the Barrier Reef Islands." The film is indeed notable for its spectacular sequences of underwater camera shooting, including one scene -- a fight between Taylor's character and the suspected villain -- that occurs in about three feet of water just off the shore. Exploiting the scenery was perhaps director Robinson's main goal. According to "Australian Cinema: The First Eighty Years," Robinson recognized the limited local exposure for Australian features and aimed his work at the overseas B-movie market. His films stressed the exotic nature of Australia:
Taylor's film debut, however, came at about the time the Australian feature film industry was withering away. The growth of television in the United States was cutting down on the demand for the kind of movies Robinson and his brethren were making. Meanwhile "visiting" productions -- films made by overseas companies -- were on the rise. One of these was a co-production by Twentieth Century-Fox and Treasure Island Pictures -- "Long John Silver," the film that sent Taylor on his way to Hollywood. |
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