1957 - BOY ON A DOLPHIN, is yet another CinemaScope feature

Italian actor Sophia Loren in her American debut plays a Greek sponge diver named Phaedra.  She  discovers a golden statue of a boy on a dolphin while swimming around bra less in the Aegean Sea.

Loren is in full diva mode with lots of volatile yelling and shouting at just about everyone in the cast which includes Alan Ladd and Clifton Webb.  Ladd and Webb want the golden statue and Loren as well.  Clifton Webb was a closed actor who started his career pretending to lust after Gene Tierney in Laura and towards the end of it he pretended to lust after Loren in this film.

Boy on a Dolphin was directed by Jean Negulesco in 20th Century Fox's film process CinemaScope.  Negulesco was the first director who had to do battle with CinemaScope in How to Marry a Millionaire so he was somewhat of an expert with the process by the time he filmed Boy on a Dolphin.  Negulesco photographs lots of Greek scenery to fill up the scope frame and this film does look pretty spectacular.

Loren may be good to look at in this film but her constant over the top performance gets to be very grating after about 30 minutes.  Loren needed directors like Vittorio De Sica or George Cukor to keep her under control.

111 minutes.