Plot: Burt Reynolds plays Kane, a smooth, fast talking gun-runner who loses his shipment of arms and becomes stranded in a small port city on the Mediterranean. Finding himself hard up for cash, he tries to scam his way into out of town, but to no avail. Kane's luck begins to change when he runs into the sexy Anna (Silvia Pinal), a seductive siren of the sea, who propositions Kane to work for her and her partner, the Professor (Arthur Kennedy), diving in the shark infested waters off of the coast, supposedly for scientific research.
Burt Reynolds, gives the most amazing performance of his young, pre-moustache career, in the role which launched him as the sex symbol he remains to this day. The combination of the brilliant direction by Samuel Fuller and the specialized and dangerous stunt diving work with real man-eating sharks - which claimed the life of one of the divers during the shoot - makes this film more frighteningly real and original than Steven Spielberg's box-office smash, JAWS.