The supporting cast features J. Carrol Naish, Richard Boone, Peter Graves, Jay Novello, Harry Carey Jr. and Jacques Aubuchon.

Mike (Gilbert Roland) and Tony Petrakis (Robert Wagner) are Greek American father and son sponge-diving entrepreneurs who find themselves in competition with the Rhys family, Conch fishermen who are prepared to resort to violence and murder to maintain their established fishing grounds off the Gulf Coast of Florida.

The film originally was called Twelve Mile Reef and was announced in September 1952, with the leads to be played by Robert Wagner and Kathleen Crowley.

[15] Bosley Crowther of The New York Times observed "Another and further extension of the range of CinemaScope ... is handsomely manifested in Beneath the 12-Mile Reef ...

For the scenes shot above the surface, while large and imposing, are routine, and the drama developed in the screen play is hackneyed and banal.

"[12] Variety wrote "[T]he squeeze-lensing gives punch in the display of underwater wonders, the seascapes and the brilliant, beautiful sunrises and sunsets of the Florida Gulf coast.