A question for the makers of this film: Why would you kick things off with virtually unintelligible voice-over narration from an uninteresting minor character who can barely speak English? That sort of throws things out of whack right off the bat. Well, that and opening credits that flash by so fast the viewer has no time to read them. And let&#39;s not forget muddy-looking stock footage and horrendous sound. To be fair, the abysmal production values are actually a perfect complement to the atrocious script and &quot;characterizations&quot;. One truly pities the film&#39;s clumsy attempts to create conflict and generate suspense.<br/><br/>Not what you would call a terribly deep film, we learn early on that Joanne Dru&#39;s fetching woman on the beach character is really, get this, a model, who&#39;s worked in New York and Paris (but tragically hasn&#39;t yet been to Milan). Later we learn that if this mysterious, fascinating woman ever did come across a fortune in gold, she would &quot;spend it&quot;. One also has to admire her very mature refusal to hold silly things like rape attempts against the men who perpetrate them. Very big of her.<br/><br/>The best thing about the film is unquestionably the name of the character played by newcomer Asher Dann - Manuel del Rio Montoya. In fact, those are the highlights of the show, those scenes where he gets to introduce himself and proudly recites his name. It&#39;s certainly much better than lines like &quot;Manuel hit his head&quot;, when the shipmates are being tossed about in a sudden storm (hence the title - I guess APRIL STORM just didn&#39;t have quite the same ring to it). And I thought poor Manuel&#39;s staggering and wobbling was just a routine case of sea-sickness.<br/><br/>Towards the end, it becomes sadly apparent that the producers were trying for something along the lines of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, where greed and suspicion among a small, hastily put together band of fortune hunters spoils their chance. Evidently, Manuel wasn&#39;t the only person who hit his head. Lastly, Robert Strauss should never be permitted to appear shirtless in any motion picture, major or minor. Where is a uniform production code when you need one?

This awful mess is one of the worst films I have ever viewed. It is hard to imagine a film that could make Mallorca look drab and uninteresting, but this one succeeds. The acting, for the most part, is non-existent. The dialog is utterly inane. The fact that this was originally made in 3-D is no excuse for the cheap, cheap, CHEAP look of this film. There is really nothing about this film to recommend. Can this turkey and throw it away!

Tonight at the Museum of Modern Art, the people who supervised its 3-D restoration explained that Leonard Maltin gave this a Bomb rating and speculated that it was because he had seen it in a flat pan-and-scan version on TV; if one lsaw it as the film makers intended, in a theater, in 3-D, it was pretty good.<br/><br/>Yes and no. Anything with a screenplay by W.R. Burnett will have my respectful attention, and I have long liked Joanne Dru, well more than her career calls for; her appearance in two John Ford westerns and RED RIVER is more than enough in the way of credentials for me. Also, Byron Haskins uses the 3-D cameras to record underwater Technicolor like nobody&#39;s business. As the first half of the story progressed, I was uncomfortable with Asher Dann&#39;s monotonic performance as Majorcan eye candy for the girls, but could see the way that Burnett&#39;s script was leading the cast into a sordid tale of cross and double cross, with a fight over sunken gold and Joanne Dru. true, Robert Strauss as the dumb wisecracker he had played in STALAG 17 couldn&#39;t manage a decent line reading either, but at least Miss Dru and Mark Stevens could... and some of the lines were stinkers.<br/><br/>Still, it was going along well enough. Until the intermission, and when we returned, three sailors couldn&#39;t figure out how to get sea weed out of the propellers. Nor do Portuguese man-of-wars act like that. So long as the plot dealt with human greed and weakness, it was fine. Apparently Burnett has no interest in the sea, its flora nor its fauna, even though that&#39;s about half the movie.<br/><br/>As a result, my opinion of this movie went from &quot;Very good. Maybe excellent&quot; to &quot;Watchable&quot;. It stayed that way for the rest of the picture, even as I noted the sharks made of rubber and the plot holes; the camera-work remained great.<br/><br/>Which means that the fellows were right. It didn&#39;t deserve the Bomb rating that Maltin gave it. But neither should you watch it except in 3-D.