Sea Devils is directed by Raoul Walsh and written by Borden Chase. It stars Rock Hudson, Yvonne De Carlo, Maxwell Reed, Denis O'Dea, Michael Goodlife and Bryan Forbes. Music is by Richard Addinsell and cinematography by Wilkie Cooper." Guernsey in the Channel Islands near the coast of France in the year 1800, where fishermen, prevented by war from following their usual livelihood, turned to other occupations..."That occupation is of course smuggling, which lends one to think that Sea Devils is about to buckle our swash with a tale of derring do on the high seas. Unfortunately it doesn't pan out that way, for the pic is essentially a spy adventure set partly at sea that involves Hudson and De Carlo going backwards and forwards between England and France. They bicker, they swoon, she looks sexy, he takes his shirt off, he makes dumb decisions (he's no dashing hero type here) and she does her bit for King and Country as she hopes to stop Napoleon in his watery tracks. It's nicely colourful, the costuming adequate and the cast are fun to watch. But Walsh lets the film meander at times and it never really amounts to being more than a dressed up time filler of a movie. 6/10

This is a wannabee swashbuckler set in the Napoleonic era with Rock Hudson as a bare chested dashing pirate evading the customs men and Bryan Forbes as his faithful mate. Maxwell Reid plays his rival who is a true bounder.The lovely Yvonne DeCarlo is mixed up in this as a British spy send over to France to obtain important information but Reid ends up in jail after getting involved in a fight with Hudson.DeCarlo has to use Hudson to get over to France but only for Hudson to be a hindrance as he thinks she might be a French spy and even worse he fell for her sob story to get her over there.The film has no swash or buckle. There are some decent sailing sequences and Hudson will keep his male fans happy with his bare chest. However the story is pants, with little chemistry between DeCarlo and Hudson, we neither care if DeCarlo is a double spy or not and the sequence where Reid and Hudson join up is stupid because they hate each other and we can guess betrayal in in the air.Director Raoul Walsh has made better films.

Swashbuckling movies in the best Douglas Fairbanks/Errol Flynn tradition enjoyed something of a revival in the fifties, probably because they provided the colour and spectacle which the cinema needed as a weapon in its battle with television, and Rock Hudson was one of several actors (others included Stewart Granger and Burt Lancaster) endeavouring to prove themselves the heir to Flynn. In "Sea Devils" Hudson plays Gilliatt (we never learn his Christian name), a Guernsey fisherman-cum-smuggler during the Napoleonic wars. The plot is nothing particularly original; it is essentially a basic Cold War or World War II espionage story sent back in time to an earlier period of British history. Gilliatt agrees to transport a beautiful woman to France in return for payment. She tells him that she is a refugee from the Revolution and that she needs to return to rescue her brother, who is being held captive in a dungeon, but he later comes to suspect that she may in fact be a spy for the French. Gilliatt may cheerfully disregard British law, at least as regards the evasion of import duties, but remains a patriot at heart, so is horrified that he may have played a part in assisting the enemy. Or is the lady in fact a double agent who has been working for the British all along? A sub-plot involves Gilliatt's rivalry with another smuggler, the villainous Rantaine, who has no qualms about helping the French provided he is paid enough.Hudson's leading lady here is Yvonne De Carlo who (like a number of his leading ladies from the fifties, Jennifer Jones in "A Farewell to Arms" being another example) was slightly older than him. Although the age difference in this case was not great (Rock was 28 in 1953, Yvonne 31), this perhaps made him unusual in a decade when Hollywood's leading male stars were often cast against much younger women. I certainly can't agree with the reviewer who found Yvonne too old for the part; in the early fifties she was one of Hollywood's loveliest female stars. "Sea Devils" is reasonably entertaining, but it has no great action set- pieces and it cannot compare to the really great swashbucklers like the Errol Flynn "Adventures of Robin Hood" or "The Sea Hawk". It does, however, remain watchable today, if only for the charisma of its two leads. 6/10Some goofs. Although the film is set in 1800, Napoleon is referred to as "Emperor" of France. He did not become Emperor until 1804; in 1800 his title would have been First Consul. The French name "Lethierry" is consistently mispronounced as "Letheery".

The early 1950s were a sort of Golden Age for those modest but entertaining costume adventures set within pirate ships, French Foreign Legion forts, lost cities in the jungle, medieval castles, Arabian courts, etc. These "costumers" were always in color, the better to lure viewers away from black-and-white TV sets, and they featured such names as John Payne, Maureen O'Hara, Alan Ladd, Jeff Chandler, John Derek, Arlene Dahl, Tony Curtis, and Burt Lancaster.This 1953 swashbuckler from RKO features a top-billed Yvonne de Carlo and an up-and-coming Rock Hudson under the competent but uninspired direction of veteran film-maker, Raoul Walsh. It's a minor effort, diverting enough to pass the time but lacking flair and style and unlikely to linger in the memory. A bit more action and a dash of humor would have been welcome additions.The movie's main fault, however, lies in the relationship between leading man and leading lady. They're supposed to be falling in love during the course of the story but there's no passion or feeling here, merely some dutiful lines of romantic dialog. De Carlo seems too old and matronly for Hudson who needs someone sprightlier to play off against.Hudson hadn't yet reached star status but it's pleasant to see him here before the "movie star" gloss hardened around him. His acting abilities are no more than average but he's attractive and likeable and the script finds several excuses for him to take off his shirt. At one point he's not only bare-chested but in bondage with his hands tied behind his back and a with a length of rope looped twice around his torso. This being the early '50s, his pants are worn high enough to mostly cover his navel, but those ropes passing just above and just below his nipples impart a fetishy quality which is probably sexier than many of today's nude scenes.