The team of John Ashley and Eddie Romero were known for their early 70 exploitation films. They tried to broaden their appeal with this one, which was made PG, in part to attract Patrick Wayne in the lead (was he box office at the time?).
On one level I can guess why - the film is an adventure tale about three men who go on a treasure hunt (Ashley, Wayne and Sid Haig). They eventually turn on each other a la Treasure of Sierra Madre - well, Ashley gets paranoid and goes a bit Humphrey Bogart. To complicate things is scientist Lenore Stevens and a troupe of natives where the pearls are. Stephanie Rothman wrote the original story - she was heavily involved with Dimension Pictures, the production company, at the time.
The thing is the plots involving the (very Anglo Saxon) natives involves chief George Nader (he of 1950s Universal fame) wanting daughter Leigh Christian to mate with one of the group. That feels like something inherent R rated. Also you get the sense the filmmakers want to do something more exploitative - the camera constantly lingers on Christian's body (lots of swims) and also Stevens' outfit.
Ashley also thought the film was hurt commercially by all the underwater photography - there is a lot of swimming. It looks nice but isn't particularly exciting - which is true. It can be sexy - again, if the film had been R rated, they could've had topless swimming and it probably would have been more effective.
There's some nice island locations. I had trouble telling Wayne and Ashley apart at times - I wish one of them had dyed their hair or cut their hair short or grown a beard or something. Ashley gets the chance to do a bit of character acting, going paranoid.
The climax feels undercooked: really Ashley or at least one of the main group should have died. From memory Nader doesn't die either. The ending feels dumb with Ashley yelling at the others to go diving for pearls with everyone laughing - why is that funny? Aren't the pearls worth a lot? Didn't Victor Diaz try to rip them off? (Why doesn't he die?)
So it's a flawed movie despite trying to be PG when in it's heart it wants to be R.
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