Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef is a 1953 American adventure film directed by Robert D. Webb. The screenplay by A. I. Bezzerides was inspired by Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. The film was the third motion picture made in Cinemascope, coming after The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire. Mike and Tony Petrakis are Greek American father and son sponge diving entrepreneurs who find themselves in competition with the Rhys family, WASP fishermen who are prepared to resort to violence and even murder to maintain their established fishing grounds off the Gulf Coast of Florida. Run-ins between... the two clans lead to an exchange of threats and all-out brawls. Further complications ensue when Tony Petrakis meets Gwyneth Rhys, and the two fall in love. The film was shot on location in Key West and Tarpon Springs, Florida. Bosley Crowther of the New York Times observed, "Another and further extension of the range of CinemaScope . . . is handsomely manifested in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef . . . But that, when you come right down to it, is just about the only novelty provided by this third employment of the anamorphic lens.
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