Out of the water a hard hat dive suit is a hot and uncomfortable outfit to be wearing. In this 1948 film, John Wayne doesn't seem to care: he keeps talking and talking and talking while his assistant patiently waits in the background holding the heavy brass helmet. The Duke is chatting up Gail Russell while his rival, Gig Young watches on. The three star in a movie about a South Pacific shipwreck, millions in lost gold and a nasty man-eating octopus. Can you name the movie?

The movie was the Wake of the Red Witch, and it was one of those hell-raisers that John Wayne loved to star in. In Wake of the Red Witch the Duke plays a pirate, womanizer, pearl hunter and hard hat diver who competes with Gig Young for the hand of Gail Russell and for the $5 million in gold that lie inside the sunken Red Witch, the ship that he scuttled. Set in the Philippines in the 1860s this is macho hard hatting at its best.

The film was directed by Edward Ludwig and starred John Wayne, Gail Russell, Gig Young, Adele Mara and Luther Adler. Released in 1948 by Republic Films, this 106 minute epic movie helped define Wayne as a man's man. He free dives to the bottom of the ocean to fight an octopus that has been killing native pearl divers. In the movie's climax he enters the sunken Red Witch even though she is precariously resting on the edge of a huge underwater cliff!

In real life, when Wayne finished high school in Glendale California, he applied to the US Naval Academy and was quickly turned down. If the Navy could have seen the seafaring movies he starred in over the next 50 years, they might have changed their minds!

Rating - 21/2 bubbles