The Shark Film Office: Beyond Simply Treading Water...

It would be nice if we had a world where people would simply be happy in going to the movies to see beautiful sharks gliding smoothly and expertly through the water, content in seeing these glorious creatures interacting in their natural environment while spending their lives as a vital cog in the ecological cycle of our planet.

It would be nice, but it's not realistic. Sure, you can put out a documentary now and again, such as Disney's Oceans, and have some marvelous footage of sharks included in the mix, and you will get a certain audience. Or you can put out, on a much more limited level, a doc like Sharkwater to bring in more specialized crowds that, like me, believe in saving sharks for the good of the oceans, the world, and mankind in turn. But you will probably get even smaller audience for something like that, or you will have to tour with such a film to build those crowds. Or you can stick to television docs like Sir David Attenborough and give us BBC series after BBC series of pure scientific wonderment, with a more than generous sprinkling of sharky goodness in the mix. The audience is definitely out there for such productions, but the ease of access for such shows ensures that they will likely never end up on the big screen (except in rare instances like a premiere, or an IMAX film in a museum screening room). So, sharks, in their natural state, are rarely seen in real movie theatres.

The movie industry -- as in, the entertainment world at large -- is still pretty much resigned to having sharks fulfill one prime role in their works. And just as it has been since the advent of storytelling, it's the same role that much of the real world assigns to these creatures automatically as well: that of a toothy menace... a mindless eating machine... a killer. Worse, a killer intent with villainously plotting to devour as many people as possible. And no matter how much shark conversation groups, or their fellow enlightened citizens, try to turn the tide (so to speak), the fact is that shark movies -- ahem, shark movies where sharks are only evil and vicious and menacing -- get media attention. 

However, most shark movies don't even make it to the theatres nowadays nor are they even made with theatrical distribution as a primary goal. When you think about it for a second, beyond the Jaws series and a couple of smaller examples, sharks have never really taken off at the modern box office the way vampires, dinosaurs, zombies, monsters, and aliens have. But cinematic sharks thrive lurking, dangerous, and entirely lucrative elsewhere. Cable, online streaming, and retail home video (still swimming about out there) are now the primary target areas for makers of shark flicks, and they apparently pull in boffo ratings and sales. Ask Syfy Channel about their endless, ultra-cheap variations on shark films (their massively popular Sharknado series is the biggest, most outrageous, and well-marketed example, with a fourth installment, subtitled The 4th Awakens, on its way in July), or their other flicks where sharks are combined physically with other supposedly vicious creatures (Sharktopus), placed into mortal combat with other absurdly large, fanciful creatures (Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus) or a melding of each of these categories (Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf). 

The thankful part is that the further these films get from the actual, original shark form, the more grounded in pure fantasy nonsense the films get. It is harder to connect these film sharks to reality the more we are laughing at the resulting product. The other thankful part is that because the quality -- in nearly every other area but marketing -- is so cheap and shoddy, it is almost impossible to take a single example of Syfy shark promotion seriously. The downside is that the impetus for these films -- and it is a primal fear that the target audience seems never to shake -- is still the same: the shark is a murderous beast.

I have been at a crossroads with all shark films for a good while now. While I am a huge shark conservation nut, I cannot help but recognize that Jaws is one of the best adventure thrillers and horror films ever made in film history, as well as being a personal favorite, well lodged in my Top Ten films of all time. Ever since I first saw it as a teenager (I did not quite see it in theatres on its original run, but did see a rerelease a few years later, though I had seen it on HBO by that point), it has been hugely influential on both my film watching habits and my psyche. When Jaws broke big in the mid-'70s -- both Peter Benchley's original novel and Steven Spielberg's film adaptation -- its wild popularity did a massive amount of damage to the reputation of the shark -- especially the great white shark. Jaws is well documented as having significantly increased the wholesale slaughter on the part of sharks worldwide starting in the mid-1970s, as well as furthering the already existent role of the shark in the public consciousness as a villainous monster. But you could counter with an argument that Jaws also made a lot of people, myself included, become fascinated as kids and teenagers with sharks to the point of distraction, even to the point of committing to their welfare for the rest of our lives. If Jaws had not been so hugely regarded, would we have popular annual events like, for better or for worse (because there are drawbacks here as well) Shark Week, where sharks as a group at least get a general better trial before the public than normal?

Artistically, the plus side of Jaws being such a popular film is that it has proven objectively impossible to create a shark film that equals it. You can look at a science fiction film like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and say, "Oh, yeah... but there's also Star Wars." And Alien, and Aliens, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Blade Runner, and E.T., and many more science fiction films of rather equal merit, and so it goes in other genres and sub-genres. But where do you refer people who want a high quality, action-adventure shark movie after Jaws? Deep Blue Sea? Don't get me wrong... I love that film but not for reasons of quality. No, you usually have to switch the focus from sharks themselves over to animal attack films of relatively equal quality such as The Birds or jump straight to the pure horror genre to find another film. And even there, the quality is far overridden by the hack work (as it is in all genres, really). Jaws, while it did practically invent the summer blockbuster season, is still a rather singular film. Its popularity certainly ensured that it would have many, many imitators all trying to equal its success; its universally held measure of high quality also ensured that those imitators would never hit the same high water mark, either artistically or financially.

It now feels that filmmakers have just given up trying to make even a good shark-based film for the theatres (the recent news about Steve Alten's Meg finally getting made or the upcoming thriller, The Shallows, notwithstanding), and given my shredded psyche which builds fortresses on either side of this argument, this is both great and sad. Today, we hang out on video or tune into channels like Syfy and mostly get Sharktopus and his low-budget, poorly animated lot. (Again, another shark film that I think is entertaining on a purely juvenile level, and I think the drive behind creating such a film is hilarious). And suckers like me, because I am torn in my love to see sharks on film finally treated like the brilliant and diverse creatures that they are but also am addicted to monsters and horror films, tune in to these films time and again. I cannot stop. I am a lost cause, even when the addiction itself is, in the case of the bulk of films from Syfy and The Asylum, completely unworthy of my attention were I to approach them from a critical angle. I would prefer that someone put some genuine craft and attention into a shark film, but c'mon... stupid, crappy shark films are sheer fun. And everyone knows it.

But let's get to my reason for writing all of this today. About a decade ago, having already started The Cinema 4 Pylon (which would be my central site) and Cinema 4: Cel Bloc (where I could concentrate solely on animation), I was torn between which other film specialties I wanted to focus. The topic was certainly going to come out of the horror and science fiction genres, and for a while, I thought that in the fight between dinosaurs, robots, and sharks for my attention, that dinosaurs were certainly going to come out on top, there being far more films (and far more interesting films as well) available especially. But I veered toward the ocean instead and I started a blog called The Shark Film Office.

My first post on The Shark Film Office went up in February 2007 -- a review of a really bad Dedee Pfeiffer film called Blue Demon, featuring genetically enhanced great white sharks, that I nonetheless found fascinating for just how much it actually tried, in many scenes, to avoid the gore and violence one would normally associate with such a film. But I found out quickly, having no real guide as to how many shark films there were or what I should even consider to be a shark film, that it was hard to really pin down what I wanted from the subject. Was it more important to me to just review crappy shark films, one after the other, or to show just how deeply the image of the shark is embedded in the mind and history of man? Should I use the site to simply tee off on easy marks -- yes, fish in a barrel -- or should I take a broader approach to the subject, citing examples of films where sharks are used extensively in dialogue rather than in image, furthering the discussion by not just showing how mankind approaches members of their various species, but also how the creatures have colored our thoughts and our language throughout film history?

And so I went with the latter aspect. I could review Blue Demon and its low-rent ilk and thrill my teenage self to tears, but also write a piece about Michelangelo Antonioni's L'Avventura, an acknowledged cinematic masterpiece which quite surprisingly has a significant but unseen shark prescence at its core. Early on in the process through, I discovered that I didn't want to ignore the other creatures of the deep who play upon our idiotic fears as a species, and so I added a subtitle to The Shark Film Office that reads "Sharks, yes... but rays, squid, octopi and orcas, too..." This broke open enough extra ground for me that I was certain to never run out of films to tackle. But then something happened... I stopped trying to tackle those films altogether.

By the summer of 2008, I had only put up a handful of posts on The Shark Film Office. With my attention diverted in a major way by my actual job, my family, a general ennui, and a slowly boiling but steadily growing depressive spot in my soul and mind that would lead eventually to suicidal ideation, declaring myself 5150, and going through two years of meds and therapy, I stopped writing. I stopped writing on the Pylon, on the Cel Bloc, and especially on The Shark Film Office. Stopped cold in July of 2008. I never promoted The Shark Film Office,  and I never really figured out my focus (the style changed constantly in those early posts; I couldn't even commit to how the information would be presented). In the back of my mind, I thought constantly that I really wanted to restart the site again and give it the full attention that this self-pronounced, shark-loving maniac could apply to it, but I never did. While I continued to post sporadically on the Pylon through 2011, it was very half-hearted. By the time the depression kicked in full force in 2012, I had stopped writing completely, except at my real writing and editing job. 

Then last September happened. After a couple of years of my therapist telling me that I needed to start my personal writing again to get even close to being happy (he being a pretty sharp guy), I had made several attempts but they all fell far short of the goal for me. Finally, out of desperation (and already out of therapy), I decided to spend the day before my birthday writing for about nine hours straight. It was beyond therapeutic; it was redefining. I spent a similar amount of time on my birthday doing the same, this time hashing about ideas that I had always wanted to try when I was blogging full-time. I posted my first true regular post in ages on the Pylon on September 10th, and it became my new standard (same as the old standard) from there. Not only was the immediate reaction very pleasing -- it did help that my first post was a rant about a lack of decent gluten-free bread, a subject close to my heart... and stomach -- but its acceptance allowed me just enough push to keep going. 

The Cinema 4 Pylon continued to rev back up throughout the month, and by October, it was back wholly to its original intent. Then came the biggest hurdle, restarting Cinema 4: Cel Bloc, with its more cohesive focus on a single subject and generally much longer articles. That one I hit really hard in November and got cruising along at a very pleasing pace for a few months. (Getting seriously ill in February and March did cause a setback on both sites, but now that I am better, we are starting to cruise again.) Somewhere in that flourish of writing and posting, I knocked out a couple of reviews for The Shark Film Office, one in November and one in mid-February, just as I was getting ill. All along, The Shark Film Office had been nagging at me: "Why don't you start me again? You love sharks; why aren't you writing about us?"

To be fair, I still didn't know how much I wanted to really commit to the project, but I had been doing something on the sidelines that was going to help me immeasurably. A while back, I had started keeping a database of films featuring, not just sharks, but every type of large aquatic sea creature (even some smaller ones) that are often called upon by the movie studios to do villainous work in film. This even included sea monsters of every fanciful variety, not just what we consider to be "natural" monsters. Putting this database together started the gears turning again, and helped me begin to figure out exactly what I wanted from The Shark Film Office (and even other angles for new features on The Cinema 4 Pylon, one of which -- The Monster's on the Loose!!! -- has already seen its first edition).

So I have decided to recommit to The Shark Film Office. I plan to feature regular reviews of films featuring sharks (and some of those other sea creatures I mentioned) over the rest of the year. I will be tackling narrative features for the most part, but I plan on including reviews of documentaries and television specials as much as possible too. I hope in time that the site will become a decent resource for anyone interested in the history of shark film (and television). For the time being, all new articles for The Shark Film Office will premiere here on The Cinema 4 Pylon initially, and will be archived at The Shark Film Office site as well, until I can start promoting that site on its own.

For the record, I am still torn on just how I can appease my two differing sides: the one that wants to show sharks for themselves, and the one that loves really stupid shark horror movies. Is there a happy medium? Can I cater to both sides of my sharky soul and not come out as split apart as a giant two-headed great white from a Syfy Channel movie? I figure that is part of the journey. If you are writing and don't seek to discover something new about yourself, then you are not really writing. I am hoping that you will dive into that deep end of the pool with me.

RTJ

The Shark Film Office: Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy (2005)

Director: Michael Oblowitz
Nu Image/First Look, 1:32, color
Cast Notables: Jeffrey Combs; William Forsythe; Hunter Tylo
Cinema 4 Rating: 3
Appearance: Mutant. As described in the film, a Giant Hammerhead crossed with a human being that, incidentally, used to bang Hunter Tylo's character (but before the whole shark business, because that could prove weird and messy.)

I kept hoping a bucket would appear out of nowhere in Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy.

Not to catch the vomit that any discerning viewer would spew without pause upon attempting to watch this execrable exercise in shark terror. And not to catch any of the massive doses of arterial spray that douse the screen frequently within the film’s labored attempt to update The Most Dangerous Game by making the hunter a screamingly mad scientist whose weapon of choice is a mutant giant hammerhead shark-human being hybrid.

No, the bucket is not for either of those reasons. The bucket is only for water.

I wanted a bucket with water to appear to see if the characters would react to it with the same fear that they apply to any body of water within the film: with the constant fear, reasoned or not, that somewhere inside that liquid there would be some form of shark ready to attack them. Inland, ocean, laboratory tank… it doesn’t matter. The thought of water seems to drive certain characters in this film into screeching fits.

Due to this, I wanted the ragtag group of victims to turn a corner of a shed at some point… and there they discover a seemingly normal, unthreatening bucket of water, sitting beside the shed in exactly the way that a seemingly normal, unthreatening bucket of water would. Doughy leading man William Forsythe, still able to wrangle action parts despite his span, would slip on a wet leaf, and his gun would fall into the bucket. “My God!,” leading lady Hunter Tylo would blubber through the mass of her wasp-stung lips. “Our only weapon! We have to retrieve it!” Then, much bickering would ensue, and it would finally be decided somehow through the machinations of ill-logic that the most expendable character (perhaps a she… it's usually a she in these things, probably the bimbo still running through the jungle on her four-inch spike heels, tripping every three feet) would be best suited to grab the gun out of the bucket. She would slowly work her hand towards the rim of the bucket, and the eerie, squealing music would slowly build, and she would get her hand even closer, and there would be a close-up of her face as she grimaces and starts to cry in fear, her hand shaking ever more as she starts to dip her fingers into the water…

…and, of course, she would get eaten by the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing roaming about the island and infesting every single drop of water around the place. Without any explanation for how the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing managed to cram itself into the relatively tiny bucket, he would leap from its bottom and devour the entire top half of her body, leaving her detached groin and legs to flail about for a split-second before collapsing to the ground. Forsythe, however, would recover the gun from the bucket during the attack, keeping his wits about him as usual, fire off a couple of useless shots, and then manage to corral the rest of his party while the giant hammerhead shark-human hybrid thing zipped off to leap out of another body of water. Perhaps a drinking glass this time…

The characters’ constant fear is completely justified. There is a hardly a scene in this film where the water, in any form, doesn’t have some threat from sharky menace attached to it. On an island that seems about as huge as all of Hawaii put together, no matter where the characters are, and no matter how split up they get throughout the film, that hybrid thing always seems to be around. And even in the early scenes where two playful swimmers decide to stupidly jump into waters filled with a seeming score of real hammerheads, they get eaten by the hybrid thing instead. A girl slips on a slope beside some water, and the recognizable triple-fin back of the hybrid thing breaks the surface. One villainous lackey lays their hand beside a lab tank, and the hybrid thing takes off a finger. It just goes on and on like this for what seems like days on end.

I am not going to deride the scientific thought behind the creation of this creature nor its justification for existence. Mad scientists are, by definition, mad, and they don’t really need reasons why. They just provide the monster, and usually that is good enough. This film does have a terrific mad thrashing about in it, though the portrayal is a tad bit lower, though still just as relentlessly hammy, than Jeffrey Combs’ brilliant initial cinematic success as the committed Herbert West in Re-Animator. I kept thinking that Hammerhead would have actually worked far better in black-and-white, with Combs’ look and performance being almost perfect for an old Universal-style (or at least, Monogram) horror flick. Scratch the gore, of course, and make the hybrid thing a little more sympathetic – there is little or no attempt here to do so, and that is a major failing in the film, especially given that the human part of the hybrid thing is Combs’ character’s son.

Combs does have one great speech in the film, and if more of the dialogue were this hotly spat, it could have been a lowbrow classic. When questioned as to why he doesn't just use sharks that lay eggs, he replies without hesitation, in an almost staccato delivery, "Easier? Maybe. The giant Hammerhead isn't like other sharks. It's the pinnacle of shark evolution. Nurtures its young in placenta. What's a Great White? It's a machine - swims and eats. Doesn't think, like the Sphyrna mokarran. The Sphyrna is far more advanced. Much more capable of being genetically integrated with the human race." Sure... of course. You have to buy these things if you are going to get anywhere in a film like this.

If there is anything to like, outside of Combs and the usual reasons one watches these films -- monsters on a rampage, itself almost a reflexive action; you like them almost in spite of themselves, and if you don't, you don't -- the leads are fairly committed. Forsythe remains focused on the task at hand -- ignoring the fact that he is in Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy -- and continues to move at an action-movie pace despite his closer physical resemblance to the island itself. He is an underused actor, usually far better than the material he has been primarily trapped in since the early '90s, but I suppose he fills his niche. As for Hunter Tylo, longtime actress on The Bold and the Beautiful, her amazing body -- though not of work -- makes her at least one of the more comely specimens of the modern duck-billed woman. Lisa Rinna, your reign may be in doubt.

The shark himself, much like the giant-ass lips of Tylo and Rinna, is a preposterous mess, as hybrids tend to be, and he would be scary in a dream-like fashion if he weren't so damn funny. I think that Combs' scientist character was incorrect though in describing him as a cross between a giant hammerhead and a human (outside of the fact that the largest of the hammerhead shark species, Sphyrna mokarran, is actually named the Great Hammerhead). No, after watching attack after attack, filled with ridiculous close-ups of the supposedly frightening creature's visage (which somewhat reminds me of Sloth from The Goonies), I am now led to believe there is some Muppet DNA in the mix as well. It could very well lead to a very bloody day on Sesame Street. Elmo, watch your ass.

Of course, Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy the film crawled out of the Boaz Davidson cesspool, he of the Shark Attack films and numerous side attempts at bad shark-filled menace ad nauseum. To qualify that, I must state that I don't believe he has actually made any attempts at good shark-filled menace. He has now made the leap, however, after stocking Sci-Fi Channel for the next six decades with cheap "nature run amok" epics, to the big leagues. It is a telling thing, though, that one of those films sporting his name as executive producer -- 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino -- is almost universally being derided as one of the worst films of the decade, if not Pacino's career. I have not seen the film, so I cannot judge (except to say that Al's hair is crazy hilarious...)

But it is interesting to note, that after a career built on dozens of horrible but cheap, mostly straight-to-video flicks, Boaz Davidson only attracts the true ire of the critics when he ventures into theatrical release territory. Most of them are haughty enough, and too busy, to allow themselves the luxury of soaking in the hot, stinking bath that is his oeuvre. Now, with his name on other mostly savaged films like the remake of The Wicker Man and De Palma's The Black Dahlia, not to mention the upcoming Conan the Barbarian series restart, those critics can now wallow along with the rest of us in the product that emanates from his highly undemanding pigsty. You can defend him and say "Aw, he's just a producer! You can't put all of the blame on him..." Well, yes I can, because after all, on Hammerhead: Shark Frenzy, he can't use that escape clause. He co-wrote the damnable thing.

And now I want to drown him in that bucket full of water. I knew it had to be sitting out there for a reason.

The Shark Film Office - Octopus Arm: Below the Sea (1933)

Director: Albert S. Rogell / Columbia, 1:18, b/w
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
Appearance: Giant Octopus (of a species which doesn't occur naturally where this film takes place)

We get so used to modern special effects and believing in their effectiveness in filmmaking -- when it really could not be further from the truth in most cases -- that we tend to dismiss everything that came before. Modern audiences also like to scoff at what they consider “primitive” techniques, where I would argue that those “primitive” techniques, however moldy they may seem to us, were often far more efficient at helping the director tell his story than many of the slicker, more recent attempts where the effects overtake the story itself and make the films nothing more than empty spectacle, sapping any true feeling away from the proceedings. In an age where any action can be slickly rendered, filmmakers have to be careful to blend those effects in with the remainder of the film's assets properly to make us truly believe in them, i.e. those monsters are really in the same room and taking an emotional and physical toll on their victims.

Part of the charm in searching out old films that one has never seen before is discovering moments that not only look incredible to the immediate eye, even today, but also cause one to be amazed that such a moment or story was even attempted, especially in the earlier days of the cinema. Even if the moment doesn’t really work or looks kind of jerky or static, it still can seem amazing through the sheer chutzpah it must have taken to try it in those less technologically advanced days. Most often, these moments are in films already considered to be part of the canon: the films we are told are great, and it just waits for us to discover them ourselves. Early on in my youth, I felt this with Keaton and Chaplin, and then Fairbanks’ The Thief of Baghdad (Fairbanks films in general, really…). Murnau’s Sunrise, which, as a teen, I was taking at first to be a boring drama, slowly revealed its epic intensity to me through some still amazing 1927 camera effects. Welles took me to another planet – not literally, but his films… well, you should know the score there yourself. And need I mention how Strangers On A Train became my favorite Hitchcock film via its carousel-gone-wild sequence, which I was not anticipating at all, and which then burrowed itself into my mind the way only the most thrilling scenes can? To top all of this was that moment when I met the Mighty Kong – it wasn’t just special effects to me, even then, but my mind still reels over the balls it took to make that film, let alone pull it off.

These films loom far, far above the film subject of this particular post, but that vague sense – that “Eureka!” moment of personal discovery – is precisely the same. Smaller, quieter, less ambitious films can have those moments too, and silent films and the films of the 1930s are top-loaded with these moments. You just have to know where to look. TCM makes it easier to find them than it used to be. Their Forbidden Hollywood series focusing on pre-Code delights contains scads of these types of scenes, and not all of them are hot girls in lingerie. (Those scenes certainly count, though, towards the same effect…)

Also on a special night on TCM, where Robert Osborne was concentrating in tongue-in-cheek fashion on films with octopi in them, came this tiny, extremely flawed but somehow entertaining sideshow: Below the Sea, a Columbia “B” from 1933, featuring Ralph Bellamy in the hero’s role getting all gooey – understandably – over that living doll, Fay Wray. The mechanics of the plot are so ridiculous its not even worth going over it, but in a nutshell: a German U-boat laden with a chest of gold bars worth $3 million goes down in the sea during WWI, sunk by a Norwegian ship, but the German captain and his first mate survive. Crawling to shore, they make a map of the gold's whereabouts on the ocean floor, but in a stunningly done murder scene almost worthy of Hitch himself, the captain pushes the unsuspecting crewman off a cliff, which he bounces down satisfactorily.

Years later, the captain teams up with the top deep-sea diver in the game, played by Bellamy, and through the auspices of a third party, a lusty wharf madam with a cache of coin, they make attempts to retrieve the gold. Only, the captain will not reveal the whereabouts nor even show the map to anyone else, but through a series of double-crosses, Bellamy eventually forces the captain into a pact by stealing one-half of the map (why he doesn’t take the whole thing and do away with the obviously crazy German I don’t know, except that it would cause Bellamy to no longer perform effectively as the eventual hero of the piece, given the standards of the day).

Another attempt to retrieve the gold, this time on a ship owned by the family of a high society flibbertigibbet portrayed by Ms. Wray. Naturally, she falls for Bellamy, but only after making use of his diving equipment for her own photo shoots, and also making him jealous by openly kissing her photographer inside the diving bell. Scenes of Wray scrambling to fit her tiny little self into his giant diving suit are also a delight. After the darker drama of the treasure hunters, this romantic interplay is, for once, a good deal of fun, especially as a build-up where the film is ultimately leading. Wray matches Bellamy jibe for jibe, and even dive for dive, with a very buoyant spirit unfettered by thoughts of inequality between the sexes. She simply is who she is and never apologizes for it.

I must be honest and say that, even though they were showing it on a night devoted to octopi, I was watching this film to hopefully catch an early film glimpse of a shark on screen. Sadly, there is none, but while I was expecting an octopus to show up at some point, I didn’t realize to what extent it would. Especially, in 1933 (even though though there are earlier films with octopus attacks). While Ms. Wray was also in that year’s King Kong, that film was made by Cooper over at RKO, a man with serious attitude, and I didn’t think that Columbia Pictures had it in them to try their own monstrous attack film in that era. While the octopus is not insanely huge, it is big enough to drape itself fully about the diving bell in which Ms. Wray and the photographer are trapped. The octopus wraps its arms about the instrument, and eventually causes the capsule to disengage from the air tubes that give continued life to its mortal occupants. I would judge that each of the creature’s arms, taking the size of the bell into consideration and the size of Bellamy fighting the creature in his suit, were anywhere from 12 to 18 feet in length. And while it is not a real octopus for the most part on screen, the methods used are still most effective in creating a bumbling sort of almost accidental though spooky menace.

But even menace brought solely about by the natural curiosity of a large cephalopod checking out an object which has dropped into its territory is automatically an outright attack by human terms. Especially terms as identified by human movie characters, who are often even more ridiculous than the real thing (but not always). South Park’s “It’s coming right for us!” hunting attitude regarding monsters and animals of all types is perfectly apt for this film, where the dive-suited Bellamy uses the only weapon at his disposal – an underwater welding torch – to do away with the massive creature. Honestly, it’s an approach I never would have considered – a knife or spear seemed most reasonable – but its spark-spitting underwater flashiness is certainly a far more visually intriguing sight than someone simply plunging a rubber knife into a rubber costume. After a couple minutes of struggle, there is finally an explosion of – what? Ink? Blood? A combination of the two? Whatever causes the dark cloud to erupt around both diver and attacker, it is remarkable to see. The octopus collapses to the ocean floor, the tubes are reconnected to the bell, and the future of Bellamy and Wray is assured. At least, for a happy ending to the film. Just not the octopus.

And for me, regarding Below the Sea, this fight is one of those moments of which I spoke. Going into the film, I did not know that a movie combining these various elements even existed --- and here it was. Did I need a film in which a giant octopus molests a diving bell containing Fay Wray which ends in a breathless fight between giant sea monster and a welding torch? Not necessarily, but I don't blame the octopus for trying. After all, it's Fay Wray.

And I am glad that my own stumble-footed octopus ways led me to accidentally wrap my tentacles around the film.

The Shark Film Office/Cinema 4 Cel Bloc: Goggle Fishing Bear (1949)

Directors: Preston Blair and Michael Lah
MGM, 0:07 animated short, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 5
Shark appearance: cartoon shark (undefinable species), able to roar and growl, no sense of humor.

So, who has it worse? Sharks in the movies -- where they are employed mainly to threaten the lives of the (usually) human characters in the film, or at the very least, imply that said characters are in mortal danger -- or sharks in cartoons?

Certainly, the answers is "in the movies," since sharks almost always end up dying onscreen for their sins, and in some films (in the dark, olden days of the industry), really dying for our entertainment. Their menace is perceived as far more real, naturally, and the potential harm to the reputation of sharks in the real world is that much more immense.

Cartoon sharks, on the other hand, not being flesh and blood, have a cakewalk. (Or is that "cake-swim"?) Sure, they show up, flash their pearlies, frighten the protagonist(s) and generally have a fine, evil time of it as the contracted villain of the piece. They do what is sadly expected of any shark in a film: be evil, get your comeuppance, end of story. Except cartoon sharks, given that they are in a piece where death is an exceedingly rare occurrence, don't get blown to smithereens (as a final blow, that is) or get a bullet through the head or get harpooned or electrocuted or spear-gunned or any of the myriad ways sharks are shown to perish in films. Cartoon sharks, though actually one of the rarer species on earth, most often survive their appearances in their films. The twist is that they often face a different sort of living death...

In Goggle-Fishing Bear, an MGM short from 1949, the shark in question literally and ultimately becomes the butt of the joke. Accompanied by the usual compliment of lush backgrounds, detailed closeups and sharp character work that was a hallmark at MGM in the '40s, ursine dope Barney Bear takes to his rowboat for a spot of fishing relaxation. Of course, anyone even remotely familiar with poor ol' Barney, or cartoons in general, knows that relaxation is definitely not in the cards. Even if he had opted to stay home and actually play cards instead, relaxation would not be ready to be paired with the misbegotten Barney. In much the same manner that sharks have their place to play in cartoons, so is Barney burdened with the yoke of playing the eternal lummox.

The opening third of the short concerns Barney's attempts at enjoying a day trident-fishing off his outboard motor boat as being initially thwarted by the intrusion of a typically cute sea lion pup (not a seal, though people will immediately see him and shout, like a small child would in delight, "seal!). The pup gives Barney the sort of hard time that one expects, but these frustrations immediately cease once the third character of the film is introduced: the shark.

His entrance is grand, far grander than the film itself deserves. As Barney and the sea lion pup go through their cutesy struggles with one another, at the point where the pup has been so fully shunned by the bear that he mopes away sadly on his own, a huge, looming shadow falls over him. The pup glances off to see what is causing the circling shadow, and as he does, a huge green and yellow shark turns about and makes a beeline for the pup. Panic ensues, but the pup retains just enough of his senses to try and warn his would-be playmate, Barney, of the impending doom. He zips between the bear's legs, sending the ursine spinning about and accidentally releasing the fish Barney has just caught. The pup barks madly in desperation. Barney is so annoyed by the pup by now that he ignores its warnings, and continues back to his trident-fishing. As the shark continues drifting forwards, closer and closer, the pup has no choice but to give up on his friend, scream frantically and head for the hills. Or the boat. Whatever the case may be.

So, now I ask, which is of more murderous intent? The natural hunger that continues the great Chain of Life, wherein a shark might instinctually seek out his prey, or a bear seeking to vent a few holes in a wholly innocent sea lion pup's head with a trident? When the shark pulls up and bumps Barney Bear in the bottom twice, the bear, believing it to be more goading from the pup, doesn't hesitate to stab his trident several times over into the snout of the shark. It slowly dawns on Barney what he has just done, and he steps away from the giant shark and acts sheepishly. The shark, angered, pulls forward and roars tremendously, its jaws fully open to allow its breath and sound waves to crash over Barney. The bear stands calmly and smartly shows the trident to the shark as if to display that it couldn't possibly do any harm, and then jabs himself in the chest as an example. Of course, it hurts Barney, and as a last desperate measure, Barney thrusts the trident over the shark's snout, pins it to the ocean floor, and makes a break for the boat, where the sea lion is already waiting to escape.

Being more than a match for a mere trident, the shark dispenses with the tool and snaps sharply onto the tips of Barney's flippers. The flippers stretch out to ridiculous lengths as Barney frantically swims for the surface. He reaches the boat, and the seal grabs his hands to pull him aboard. The boat tips upward with the weight of the bear, and when Barney grabs the slats serving as seats in the tiny craft, the boards are ripped out, and Barney zips back underwater and towards the waiting jaws of the massive shark. The fish takes a huge snap at Barney's backside, and scrapes off the poor bear's swimsuit and fur in the process, leaving Barney either bare-bottomed or bear-bottomed -- take your pick. Barney hides amongst some underwater weeds, and uses his trident to pull off a hastily improvised impersonation of King Neptune. He halts the shark with one steady hand, and then points away from him. The shark departs, but as Barney runs off in the opposite direction, the shark immediately turns about. There follows a series of snaps as Barney's person, but each snap is thwarted by the fact that Barney is running on a series of underwater moguls, and so he goes up and down with each attempted bite.

The shark swims far ahead, rests on the bottom, and opens his jaws wide like a cave. Naturally, Barney runs right in with his momentum, and the shark closes his mouth in triumph. Barney continues to run, and the shape of his body is seen walking to the end of the shark's tail. Barney realizes his mistake and turns around to run the other way. He smashes right through the teeth of the shark, leaving a silhouette of his body in the remainder of the shark's surprised grin. Barney finds a small rock and somehow manages to hide his own massive body underneath it. The rock sprouts eyes all of a sudden, but they aren't Barney's. As the shark pulls up to investigate, we find that the rock is actually an octopus, which screams at the sight of the monstrous fish and stretches up on its six legs (yes, this octopus only has six legs, not eight) in fright. It zips away, leaving an unaware Barney at the mercy of the shark.

Luckily, the sea lion pup comes to the rescue. As the shark closes its jaws in on the bear, the pup zooms into the shark's mouth and holds the jaws agape. As part of the struggle between pinniped and shark, the fish's teeth are shown to prod Barney in the rear, and the bear turns his head, presumably in anticipation of his own demise. Instead, he espies the brave little pup, straining mightily to keep the shark's jaws from snapping his would-be pal to pieces. Barney turns tail and exits the scene, only to return -- in a reminder of precisely why one indulges their mind with cartoon logic in the first place -- with a highly convenient car jack. He jams the jack in the shark's mouth and cranks it upward. The pup is no where to be seen, until it peeks out from underneath the huge tongue of the shark. The bear grabs the pup just as the shark breaks through the jack's resistance and slams its jaws shut.

Barney and the sea lion make their escape, the bear literally running upward through the water to the surface, with the shark close behind. Perhaps a bit too close for the pup's comfort, as once he sees the shark breathing hot on their necks, jumps out of Barney's grip and carries the bear himself all the way to the boat, finishing the effort with a massive leap far beyond what one expects from a tiny little sea lion pup encumbered by the weight of a portly ursine. They start the outboard engine and take off, but the shark soon catches up and uses his dorsal fin to saw the boat in twain. Barney pulls the halved pieces back together, but they sink immediately. The pup starts to bail water out, which is truly an impossible task if one is already completely underwater. But -- via that sweet cartoon logic again -- he manages to succeed. The boat pops back on the surface, somehow completely intact. The shark, not to be outdone, spins his tail section into a propeller and launches himself towards the boat like a torpedo. He strikes the boat full on, and a massive explosion ensues. Barney, the pup, the anchor and the myriad pieces of the wrecked boat fly upward, and then start to fall back to the surface of the water. The shark pops out and strikes his best pre-Jaws, mouth-agape, waiting-for-his-prey pose, a hungry smile formed on his cartoonishly cruel face.

But, did you really think that Barney Bear and an innocent and playful sea lion pup would really get devoured in a cartoon from 1949? In the days of the Code, would what is recognizable as evil by the bulk of the public at that time go unpunished? Of course not, and the shark receives his due according to this absurdly moral center: a faceful of anchor, a wrapping by the anchor line, and a newly outfitted yacht body courtesy of the remaining pieces of the boat, mysteriously nailed and perfectly aligned along the shark's back. The pup comes out wearing Barney's diving set and sporting the trident, which he pokes into the shark's rear, causing the fish to emit an anguished "Ooh!" Barney decides it would be fun to pantomime driving their new craft while the pup tortures the shark with a series of jabs to the rear. As they float off into the islanded sunset, the sharks cries are heard over and over again: "Oh!" "Ooh!" "Oh!"

As I said, our toothy boy has suddenly become nothing more than the butt of the joke. Maybe it would be better to get spear-gunned...

The Shark Film Office: Shark! (1969)

Director: Samuel Fuller
Excelsior, 1:32, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 4

Just before the opening credits end on this early Burt Reynolds starring feature, the following dedication appears:

"This film is dedicated to the fearless stuntmen who repeatedly risked their lives against attacks in shark infested waters during the filming of this picture."

The film then gives us Samuel Fuller's name as the director, but within about half an hour, the viewer will come under the realization that Shark! (also sometimes known as Caine, the name of Reynolds' character) is perhaps in that small but not so intimate circle of the worst releases ever to be lensed by a renowned international filmmaker. That it is available enough for low-budget schlock house Troma to gain the rights and release it as part of their DVD line might be testament enough as to its haggard status in film history. Fuller, the creator of cult classics such as Shock Corridor, The Naked Kiss, Pickup on South Street and The Steel Helmet (this is an unreserved call for any and all to check them out... he was truly an amazing and original director), famously quit the production after the studio decided to use the death of a stunt diver to promote the film.

Why? Naturally, this stunt diver was killed by a shark, and as we know by now, if there are two things that go well together, it is the media and a shark attack. Even years before Jaws, this was a solid rule. Fuller was apparently upset with a great deal during the production, but this was the final straw. When the film was released, Fuller saw a drastically reedited version from the one he had envisioned, and though he asked for his name to be removed from the print, he was refused this courtesy. (The film was, no surprise, re-edited and released once Jaws-hysteria struck the world.)

This is not to say that the film holds a full lack of interest outside of the fact that someone is shown actually being killed in Shark!, which is a natural, sick draw. Reynolds, before his stardom hit, is already fully practicing his "what the hell... I'm a handsome guy" off-kilter humor, and he radiates the charm that would serve him well over the coming decade as a leading man. Arthur Kennedy, an old favorite of mine, is far too over the top as a drunk doctor, but he does have a couple of nice moments. And the fight scenes are engaging and sharp, with Burt going crazy with the full leaps into his opponents, and often into the food and trinket stalls lining the streets of whatever Sudanese port in which this film (shot in Mexico) is supposed to take place. There is also a mildly kinky vibe to his "romance" with legendary Mexican actress Silvia Pinal, as they both intend to seduce one another for, ultimately, the same purpose. All in all, there is a definite rough edge to every character within the film, which squarely is a sure sign of Fuller's involvement; even with his eventual denial of the film on whole, its toughness certainly conveys the feeling that it is one of his making.

But, it is shoddily printed, most of the key scenes are far too dark to even know what is going on, and the sound quality is inferior as well (it's loud enough, but much of the dialogue is garbled). All of this serves as a serious detriment to the key reason both you and I are here on this page, which is the shark scenes. If you are watching this movie for the death scene with the stuntman, it is hard to tell which underwater scene it is. There is a shark attack scene in the prelude to the credits, and there is one at the tail end of the film. At first, I thought it was the same shots shown twice. Checking back on it, there are differences in each scene. There is, however, a shark attacking a stuntman and a resulting stream of blood spewing forth in each shot. It is possible that these shots are both from the same attack, but from different angles, but without any further knowledge to back this up, it is hard for me to say.

But, the death scene is not the only time that the editors have their way with continuity or cohesion. Not just switching back and forth throughout the movie amongst a series of reused shots, the menacing shark also switches species on more than one occasion. If they were trying to give the impression that there were multiple sharks surrounding the actors, then they have failed as they never show a single shot where there is more than one shark at a time. I know there is some compulsion to live up to the phrase "shark infested waters," but... an infestation of one? If this is the way you must portray it, apparently the waters where they were diving were equally "ray infested," as the same shot of a single bottom-drifting ray is used more than once as well. By the same token, you could argue the film is "Silvia Pinal or Burt Reynolds infested."

The only thing with which Shark! is not infested is Samuel Fuller. He swam away from its creepy, voyeuristic legacy long ago.