(AKA Dangerous Cargo) A Greek film which would be totally forgotten were it not for the oft-naked Deborah Shelton in her first role. A cargo ship is hijacked - the captain is killed and his wife is put through a torturous ordeal.
CHARACTERS
- Captain (Nikos Verlekis)
- Avgeri (Giorgos Hristodoulou) First Mate.
- Zafiris (Kostas Karagiorgis)
RATING: ☆☆☆☆☆☆ 6/10
REVIEW: Man, I knew this film was notable for Deborah Shelton's nudity, but I didn't realize she was naked throughout the film. Wow. Deborah Shelton was everywhere on TV in the eighties. She appeared on The Fall Guy, The Love Boat, TJ Hooker, The A-Team, Fantasy Island and the like - then the role she's known for on Dallas. Deborah Shelton was crowned Miss USA 1970. She appeared on the cover of Playboy Magazine [United States] (March 1974) but no pictorials inside. That same year she starred in the film Blood Tide alongside José Ferrer and James Earl Jones. If I had known this film existed in the mid-eighties when Shelton was on every channel on TV, I think I would have checked this out from the video store every week.
The question is, would the film still have been good without Shelton? Not as good obviously, but put another actress in the role, and it's still a damn fine heist action film. The obvious follow-up question to that is - would the film still have been good without the nudity? Well, I think you know the answer to that. Would Smokey & the Bandit would still be good without the car chases, or Enter the Dragon without all that fighting?
SYNOPSIS
Before setting sail, a detective speaks with the Captain (Nikos Verlekis) of a cargo ship and Avgeri (Giorgos Hristodoulou) his First Mate. Their boatswain was murdered last night, and the inspector has a few questions. We meet the captain's wife (Deborah Shelton). (They must say her name at some point in this movie, but I didn't catch it.) Things are a bit awkward since Avgeri and the wife used to be lovers. The last minute replacement for the boatswain is Zafiris (Kostas Karagiorgis). Of course, the original boatswain's murder was no accident. It was so Zafiris could get onboard. Zafiris wants to take over the ship because it is carrying guns and nitroglycerin. The captain and his wife have sex. The captain leaves and the wife takes a shower. Avgeri is looking for the captain and stumbles upon the wife in the shower. He remembers when they were a happy couple. The wife is shocked to find Avgeri staring at her. She's relieved when the captain returns to kick Avgeri out.
Zafiris informs crew members of the smuggled cargo, and sows the seeds of mutiny. He then straight up murders Avgeri. Right after the captain reads his funeral rites (they presume it was a suicide), the mutiny commences. The captain is taken prisoner. The wife is also locked in a room - and Zafiris pays her a visit. Zafiris tries to rape her. Zafiris is called away at the sound of "Land Ho". The crew celebrates. The wife is brought to see the captain. She sees he's tied up in a cell. Zafiris makes the captain watch as he rips her clothes off. It gets worse. The wife is now a widow. She's shown the captain is dead.
With both Avgeri and the captain dead, she has no one left to save her. So, she takes matters into her own hands. She replaces the rum with diluted coffee and pretends to be drunk. She puts on something sexy and runs to the deck. Putting on an act that she's intoxicated, she tells Zafiris to join her in the bedroom. And so he does. But he's called away on another emergency. Zafiris learns the water supply has been poisoned. There's a traitor among them. The wife tries again to be alone with Zafiris. She sees that Zafiris has a installed a long fuse which begins in her cabin and extends to a massive amount of explosives. Yet again, Zafiris is called away for an emergency.
The emergency is that the ship they were intending to rendezvous with is twenty hours away. Certain members of the crew would prefer to leave on lifeboats while others intend to stay. The wife watches the situation, presuming she can leave on the lifeboat. She packs her bags and prepares to leave. Zafiris tells her she ain't goin' anywhere. (This will prove to be a big mistake giving her a cigarette.) While he isn't looking, the wife ignites the fuse. Zafiris carries her to the bedroom for another round of sex. As they screw, the fuse burns. The crew in the lifeboat watch the whole cargo ship explode. THE END
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