Dick Sand (Gabriel Jimenez as Gaby Jimenez) is assigned by his godfather Captain Hull (Gerad Tichy) to control the whaler "Pilgrim" as second-in-command , but his travel aboard is plenty of problems. The Pilgrim is a whale-ship captained by Captain Hull , with a motley crew , as a suspicious cook (Aldo Sambrell) , harpoonists , and on board is the ship owner's wife (Patty Shepard) and her daughter (Flavia Zarzo) , among others . After a while , they find a shipwrecked drifting boat with a group of teens , as six adolescents (Ian Sera , Jimmy Johnson...) of various nationalities are on their way to Australia when their ship was taken by evil pirates led by Van Hassel (Frank Braña) , a slave hunter who attacked the ship on sea . Shortly after , things go wrong when the brave seamen and the captain die attacking a Cachalote , following dramatic events, the ship becomes without a captain , then the fifteen Year Old Boy shall command the ship with the teens brought on board . As the young captain will attempt to keep all sailors in peace , and arrive in their destination . But along the way , they are shipwrecked and then disembark on a dangerous island inhabited by furious tribes and nasty slavers who chase them .
Adventure movie by Juán Piquer Simón, full of action , thrills , made in medium budget and filled with familiar faces from the 60s and 70s . The movie is narrated by means of a continuous pursuit in the jungle and we are seeing several African animals and use of stock-shots .Following dramatic and adventurous happenings , as the captain is attacked by a whale as the ship becomes without a captain and the second-in-command results to be a fifteen-year-captain , while Pilgrim crew find a boat shipwrecked adrift and a group of teens are picked and they are put on board , ultimately , they're taken prisoners and tied to be devoured by Killer Ants but they succeed in escaping. The picture starred by several unknown teenagers and various notorious secondaries in the ordinary co-productions as Western , terror , and Euro-spy, from the Sixties and Seventies , such as : Patty Shepard , Frank Braña , Aldo Sambrell , Gerard Tichy and Luis Barboo . Freely based on Jules Verne novel , and the movies have been adapted to Verne's best known films are the following ones : George Melies immortalized ¨From the Earth to the Moon¨ in an early silent film . Walt Disney did films on ¨Twenty Thousand Leagues under the sea¨ and ¨The Children of Captain Grant¨ (the latter entitled ¨In search of the Castaways¨) . Ray Harryhausen's special effects are one of the treats of ¨Mysterious Island¨ directed by Cy Enfield . Mike Todd produced Around the world in 80 days with Cantinflas and David Niven . And James Mason did make that ¨Journey to the Centre of the Earth¨. What is usually not realized is the lesser known titles that have gotten onto the screen - for Jules Verne wrote nearly 80 novels . ¨Miguel Strogoff¨ was made into a film in Great Britain in the 1930s with Anton Walbrook . ¨Five weeks in balloom¨ was made into a comedy adventure with Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Red Buttons in the 1960s . A Mexican version of the long forgotten ¨Eight Hundred Leagues over the Amazon¨ was made in the 1950s . A French version title Matia Sandorff was made starring Louis Jordan in the 1960s and ¨Fifteen Year Old Captain¨ 1973 by Jesus Franco with William Berger , Edmund Purdom, among others.
This average and humdrum Los diablos del mar (1982) turns out to be a special version of the Jules Verne adventure yarn titled : Fifteen Year Old Captain . There's rip-roaring action , spirit of adventure , derring-do , humor, emotion , including copying some scenes from ¨Blue Lagoon¨ and resulting to be briefly entertaining but mediocre . Among the most attractive of its visuals there are the semi-spectacular scenes in which the tough fishers chase a whale , and the colorful backgrounds of the lost African places . It's a slight fun with primitive special effects by Emilio Ruiz , passable set decoration , and functional art direction . The fable is silly and laughable , and the effects and action are regularly made . Being clumsily made but the movie has some good moments here and there . Some illogical parts in the plot are more than compensated for the excitement provided by the scenes about the whale hunting , shootouts and moving pursuits . Shot on location by cameraman Juan Mariné in Islands Azores, Portugal , Africa Ecuatorial and interiors in Madrid, Spain . Being regular but professionally directed by craftsman Juán Piquer Simón.
