Underwater! was Howard Hugh's first, and we think only, foray into the wonderful world of dive movies. A pair of divers discovers the wreck of a Spanish galleon and set off with their wives and lady friends to salvage millions in gold dubloons. The plot's pretty weak -- typical of what passed as family entertainment in the 1950s.

Don't let that stop you, though. There are long scenes of the divers swimming over beautiful virgin reefs. There's a plethora of old-time gear, from tiny tanks, to two-hose regs, to boat-towed dive sleds. There's even an underwater camera that uses disposable flashbulbs instead of a strobe -- now that's old school.

Naturally there are some major flaws in the for-entertainment-purposes-only diving. For instance, one of the divers gets hit with the strangest case of the bends we've ever seen: it hits him while he's working on the bottom, clears up within a minute or two while he's still there, and then shows no aftereffects when he ascends. The galleon they find is upright and intact after 400 years on the bottom -- there's even wooden furniture still floating around inside! The divers use some of the strangest salvage techniques this side of the Brady manual. And then there's Jane Russell diving in off the boat headfirst with all her gear on. Our guess is that she didn't do that again.

No matter, though. The underwater footage more than makes up for the flaws, making this one of our favorite dive movies of all time.