Color, 1975, 97 mins. 27 sec.
Directed by Cornel Wilde
Starring Cornel Wilde, Yaphet Kotto, John Nelson, Cliff Osmond, David Canary, David Gilliam
Scorpion Releasing (Blu-ray) (US RA HD) / WS (1.78:1) (16:9)
his days as a Hollywood leading man stalling out a bit in the early '50s, 
Hungarian-born Cornel Wilde managed to keep himself in the spotlight by setting up his own production company along with his wife, Jean, which led him to a long career as a writer, producer, and director of such gritty films as Storm Fear, The Naked Prey, Beach Red, and No Blade of Grass. His last film as a quadruple threat was Sharks' Treasure, a project he'd been trying to get off the ground for years and finally wrangled financing for when Peter Benchley's hit bestseller, Jaws, was greenlit for a summer release in 1975. Wilde's film managed to beat that Steven Spielberg classic into theaters by a couple of months, which in retrospect was probably a bad move as it ended up missing the entire wave of sharksploitation films that made big bucks well into the 1980s. Of course, Sharks' Treasure is a bit less shark-heavy than the title might imply (it's ultimately a lot closer to Benchley's later The Deep), though you do get some lengthy footage of the cast doing their own diving scenes and swimming among the aquatic predators (who are occasionally 
brutalized for real a la René Cardona Jr.). 
something that should've been on DVD multiple times right now, especially 
among adventure movie fans who can enjoy one of the stronger PG-rated films from the era with a fair amount of brutality on display. The film's reliance on practical on-location shooting without special effects or green screens is appreciated with the beautiful natural locations and extensive underwater footage giving it a fair amount of believability even when Wilde's plotting goes slack at times. In keeping with his more famous The Naked Prey, Wilde (who sports an amusing hambone Southern accent) is obviously still proud of his physique and spends most of the running time in a Speedo, even fishing for compliments from his fellow shipmates in one of the more amusing dialogue exchanges. The film also boasts an evocative score by Robert O. Ragland, who scored Wonder Women the same year and would go on to do a different kind of Jaws cash-in the following year with Grizzly. 
Though the packaging doesn't note it, this is actually the much, much longer theatrical version compared to what we've had on video and seen on TV before; the standard cut runs 87m40s, while 
this one clocks in nearly ten minutes longer at 97m27s with more squabbling and more sharking. The image quality here is great, much sharper and clearer than the fuzzy open matte version that was still turning on on broadcast TV even a couple of years ago. The DTS-HD MA English 2.0 mono track is in good shape without any significant issues, and optional English SDH subtitles are provided. A standard def trailer is included along with bonus ones for Trackdown, Who'll Stop the Rain, Tintorera, The Killer Elite, and Rollerball.