Dead Calm

Dead Calm (1989)

Timing: 1:36 (96 min)

6.549/10
702

7.025/10
11191

6.8/10
48000

All about film

Video 0

Photo 22

Actors and characters

Release date

1989-04-07

Country

Australia

Production

Warner Bros. Pictures, Kennedy Miller Productions

Genre

Thriller, Horror

Budget

$10 400 000

Revenue

$7 825 009

Website

Director

Phillip Noyce

Actors

Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, Billy Zane, George Shevtsov, Rod Mullinar, Joshua Tilden, Michael Long, Lisa Collins, Paula Hudson-Brinkley, Sharon Cook
All actors and roles (10)

Scenario

Terry Hayes

Producer

Terry Hayes, George Miller, Doug Mitchell

Operator

Dean Semler

Composer

Graeme Revell

Artist

Audition

Wallis Nicita, Liz Mullinar

Editing

Richard Francis-Bruce
All team (22)

• The novel of the same name by Charles Williams (1909-1975), upon which Philip Noyes based this film, was to a certain extent based on a real murder that occurred near the coast of Florida in 1961. The Dupper family hired a man named Julian Harvey, a decorated veteran of World War II, to take them from Fort Lauderdale to the Bahamas on a small yacht. Harvey's wife also accompanied them at sea. While at sea, on November 12, 1961, Harvey killed his own wife (for the insurance money) and four members of the Dupper family (the head of the family, Arthur, his wife Jean, their fourteen-year-old son Brian, and their seven-year-old daughter Rene). Eleven-year-old Terry Jo was also on board, but she was asleep at the time, and when she woke up from the screams, it was too late to save anyone. Harvey remained below deck hoping the yacht would sink. He himself got into a lifeboat, leaving Terry Jo on the deck. However, she managed to use a cork board to stay afloat. The girl drifted across the Atlantic for four days without food or water until she was rescued by a Greek freighter. And Harvey was assisted by the Coast Guard, he returned to Florida and told how the yacht sank during a storm, and he was the only survivor. He was later told that Terry Jo had been found alive and was being brought to Florida. Harvey committed suicide.
• Before filming began, Nicole Kidman learned to operate a yacht in open water. The actress herself steered the yacht in the storm scenes near the end of the film.