DIVE MOVIE UPDATES AND MERMAID MOVIE STORIES

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Fintastic Myth continues unchanged for 100 years 

in both film and real life

Mermaids then and now. Mermaids have long fired the imagination of people who love the sea. Books, movies, comic books and live aquarium performances continue to propagate the mythology of the half-woman / half-fish character.

Claire - Paris Mermaid

What is surprising is that the actual look of the mermaid hasn't changed much in 100 years. Below is a picture of actress / swimmer Annette Kellerman starred in the movie Neptune’s Daughter in 1914 as the mermaid. One hundred years later the look is the same!

Compare Kellerman's mermaid persona with that of "Claire the Mermaid" shown at right. Claire is the official mermaid of the L'Aquarium de Paris and performs in their huge salt water tank once a week as shown in the second picture below.

Claire's photo is courtesy of the Paris Aquarium. The Kellerman photograph was taken on Agar's Island in Bermuda when she was in her late 20s, and is from the archives of State Library of New South Wales.

Kellerman's 100+ year old mermaid picture

NO UNDERWATER DIVE SCENES (but I will see the move anyway!)

The water bred film monster Godzilla makes landfall in the U.S. and Canada this October with the theatrical release of "SHIN GODZILLA". The Sci-Fi flick will roar into theaters for a limited engagement on October 11 – 18. The movie will screen in more than 440 North American theaters. 
"SHIN GODZILLA" is the 29th Godzilla film produced by Toho Films and represents a brand new chapter in the 62-year history of this celebrated movie monster. The film stars Hiroki Hasegawa and Satomi Ishihara – from the "Attack on Titan" live action movies.
The movie is already a big hit in Japan attracting an audience of 564,332 during its first three days in movie theatres. To date in Japan 3,637,748 people have seen the movie.
Godzilla has always been an underwater monsters who comes up from the depths to whack civilization (usually Japan) whenever we do something wrong - like explode nuclear weapons or pollute the seasI) With that in mind I contacted the film's US PR company to ask about dive scenes in the new release. Bad news. "There are no underwater scenes. A few scenes with the monster in the water but not fully submerged," was their response.
Shingodzillaloqmillenium​

Jason is going to need a bigger boat - shark is 70ft long!

Steve Anton's book Meg is soon to be a movie. 

Filming underway in Australia

Facebook friend Steve Alten keeps fans of his book Meg up-to-date on the making of the movie Meg based on the book. It is starring Jason Statham. Australian papers, where the movie is being made, ran this picture and a short story from the movie set on Friday.

"GOING TO NEED A BIGGER BOAT Jason Statham slips into a wetsuit to battle a giant shark in scenes for terrifying new movie Meg. Hollywood hard man is set for a showdown on the sea in his latest blockbuster"
"The Snatch actor stars opposite Orange Is The New Black’s Ruby Rose in the new thriller. He plays a diving expert who is recruited to help hunt down a 70-foot white shark, the Carcharodon Megalodon, which is terrorising the seas."

... from the Australian Sun.

THE LIFE OF PIONEERING UNDERWATER EXPLORER JACQUES COUSTEAU

NEW BIOPIC FILM DROPS SPRING 2017

Next year marks 20 years since the death of the famous French inventor and underwater explorer, Jacques Cousteau. In celebration of this life lived to the full, spring 2017 sees the UK-release of L’Odyssée, a new biopic filmed in several worldwide locations where Cousteau dove including the Bahamas, South Africa and Antarctica.

"The biopic, starring Lambert Wilson as Cousteau, depicts not just Cousteau’s underwater adventures and explorations but also offers an insight into his irascible nature and turbulent relationship with his second son, Philippe," explains a recent film press release. "It took five months to shoot and, at a cost of €20million, was filmed on location rather than in a CGI studio."

Rare Photograph of the Australian Mermaid found on a dive through archives

Kellerman at the age of 19

Rare Blood N Bubbles Picture Found

Flickr, the social media service for photographers, is working with archives around the world to make their digital photo archives available to the world. Recently I took a dive through the New South Wales (AU)  library files and found this picture of 18-year old Annette Kellerman.
Kellerman, an Aussi by birth was a champion swimmer and starred in a number of dive/ mermaid films at the turn of the last century. In 1905 she invented the streamlined one-piece swimming costume for women, a liberating garment, which became her trademark. 
Known as the 'Diving Venus' and the 'Australian Mermaid', Annette Kellerman (1887–1975) was an athlete as well as a vaudeville and movie star, one of the most famous women of her day. She offered a powerful mix of innovative underwater performances, perfect physique, revealing costumes, skilful handling of publicity, and record breaking athletic feats.
Some of her movies that included underwater scenes included: A Daughter of the Gods (1916), Venus of the South Seas (1924) and Neptune's Daughter (1914).
According to the Australian Government's posted history of Kellerman, her best underwater scenes are to be seen in "Venus of the South Seas (1924), her final film, shot in beautiful locations in New Zealand. Venus of the South Seas is remarkable in a number of ways. It contained one full 20-minute reel filmed entirely underwater, and in colour. It was the last film made using the Prizma colour system. This system employed two colours, red and green, rather than the three-colour system introduced in the 1930s. Fortunately this film still exists in its entirety.:
Photograph Courtesy Hilton Cordell Productions and National Museum of Australia.