Movie Corner

By Ryan Vickers

 

Welcome to Ryan’s movie corner! Each month we will look at a dive movie, a dive television program – or maybe both!

 

I will aim to make a connection between each month’s selections, and for this month, we are starting with ORIGIN STORIES.

 

Le Monde du Silence (The Silent World). Documentary film, 1956.

 

How can we not have this one first out of the gate? The first of many Cousteau features is this 1956 documentary which, for many people, was one of their first exposures to the underwater world! A winner of both an Academy Award at the Oscars and a Palme D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it details the Cousteau ship, the Calypso, and its many voyages to explore what lies beneath the many bodies of water on our great earth.

 

Availability: You can stream Le Monde du Silence on YouTube; plus, you can stream it in many languages.

 

Sea Hunt. Fictional television program, 1958-1961.

 

If you wanted to know about scuba diving when it first started, you either watched Le Monde du Silence or chose what many chose, the adventures of Mike Nelson aboard his boat, The Argonaut, during his four seasons of the syndicated US television program Sea Hunt. You wanted to see something go wrong underwater? It likely would happen to Mike Nelson, but his Navy frogman training would pull him through no matter what the problem.

 

Availability: Most episodes are available on YouTube in relatively good quality. Just be thankful you weren’t a teenager years ago programming a VCR to tape what you hoped would be a Sea Hunt episode very early on Tuesday morning! (Not that I have any experience in this department…)

 

Fair warning: Please be advised that selections in the movie corner reflect dive practices that were accepted at the time and are not necessarily accepted in the current day. This may include but is not limited to interactions with animals, equipment use, and various training practices. Remember, we’ve only got one earth, so let’s take care of it!

 

See you next time in the movie corner!