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Stock footage of waves,
with the credits and a song. The print isn't terribly great here.
Floyd Crosby was the cameraman, and he has a good reputation.
Directed by Roger Corman, but no Charles Griffith in the writing
crew. The “Territory of Hawaii” is thanked, so I'm
guessing this was made before Hawaii became a state.
Next,
we see some fish in an aquarium. No, you can't see the aquarium, but
it's pretty obvious. Finally, we see a couple of guys surface
beneath a wharf. One of them has a knife in his teeth, and we watch
them approach the shore.
On the shore, there's one guy
guarding a bunch of rusted corrogated shacks. It's a living, I
guess. Under the wharf, the two guys look at each other while they
listen to the guard stomp slowly back and forth. I have this feeling
that no-good is going to be gotten up to here, probably
shortly.
Sure enough, the guard stops stomping and looks away
from the water, allowing the two guys all the time they need to
quietly get to shore. The guy without the knife nods to the guy
with, and he begins sneaking up on the guard.
Oh wait—it
turns out there are two guards. And the guy without a knife
is sneaking up on the second, who appears to be on a docked boat.
Luckily, the guy without a knife finds a convenient length of cord
just hanging there, and he sneaks up behind the boat guard. He
strangles him, and knife guy runs up and stabs him. Now, they run
over to the shacks, and...wait a minute, were there two guards
or not? Where's stomping guard? He was just there (on the
soundtrack, anyway) and now he's not (on the soundtrack). Maybe
there was only one guard, and not two?
If there were two
guards, these other two guys don't seem overly concerned with
stomping guard. But I could have sworn there was a shot of boat
guard leaning, followed by a shot of stomping guard on the wharf,
then back to boat guard.
Hell, I don't know. I'll let you
know if another guard appears. In the meantime, the two guys run
into one of the storage areas among the shacks and quickly find the
box they want. Inside are a bunch of rifles.
And sure
enough, stomping guard comes back. Whew! I'm glad that's solved. I
was worried for my very sanity, there! Glad to
see it's still gone. Anyway, stomping guard pokes his head into the
storage area but sees nothing, but finds boat guard dead. Guy with a
knife jumps into the water and swims away, while Strangling Guy sort
of looks lost. Guard spots knife guy and blows his whistle, but then
Strangling Guy jumps him and they struggle for a bit. Strangling Guy
wins and jumps into the water, and stomping guard shoots after him.
Since both he and knife guy were swimming pretty unencumbered, I'm
guessing the rifles are still where they were. Commission of a
crime, and therefore evidence of a crime, is nil.
Fade to a
map, and a guy (I'm assuming Strangling Guy) starts narrating how he
made his way to the other side of the island (a hand helpfully enters
the frame and points out the spot) where his brother has a boat. He
says he and his brother slipped away and made for the island of Rara
Tu, where he has friends (the finger traces the route for us). But
300 miles from Rara Tu, a hurrican struck them, and they foundered on
a reef. (The finger taps at this tragic spot.)
Stock footage
of the boat in a storm, then two guys underwater in a kelp forest,
seemingly unconcerned about being underwater and all (to judge by
their lack of haste). Long boats on top of the water, followed by
footage of women in print dresses (what was it Dorothy Lamour was
famous for wearing?) swimming underwater. Oh, I guess the men were
tangled in the kelp, we now see the women rescuing them. And hey, a
stock footage shark. More boat footage. More underwater women.
Another shark. And it looks like the woman killed the shark. More
rescue footage, and the same aquarium footage we saw earlier. A
dogfish, more rescuing, more boats.
A troupe of women
assemble on shore to see the two men the boating party has dragged
up. One of the boaters says something that sounds like “These
men don't work!” (I rewound several times) but it's probably
something more like “These men are hurt!”
A
leader-type of the women asks, “What happened, are you all
right?”
The blonde guy (who has a US Navy tattoo—that's
all it says, U.S. NAVY—which probably means something)
explains that they ran aground on the reef, their radio and compass
went out, etc.
The leader explains how the Gods are angry,
“We have had great winds for a month! You were foolish to put
out in so small a boat. Much was destroyed here, last night,
too.”
Blonde guy looks around and says “Jim!”
There's a shot of the reef, and lead Rescue Gal indicates that Jim is
dead. The other guy, who apparently isn't Jim, starts to come
around. I think this is Strangling Guy, but it's hard to tell. The
strangling stuff was shot fairly dark, and the print used for this
DVD is kind of muddy. Still, 60 cents and all, what do you want? I
mean, that you're expecting you're going to get, I mean.
Anyway,
Strangling Guy coughs and asks, “Where are we?”
“You
are on the island of Annakae [spelling this phonetically],”
Leader responds. “It is property of the Island Company,
visitors are not allowed.”
“We don't want to be
here any more than you want us here,” says Blonde. He asks how
they can get outta here, and Leader responds that a Company launch
will land in ten days, and Strangling Guy says they can't wait that
long. Leader says that time passes quickly in Annakae. With that,
they all leave and return to the village, which is made up of modern
A-frames (they even have glass windows). Leader tells the men this
is where they will stay, and there's no need to pay as the Company
provides everything.
Inside, it looks more like Pier One
Imports. They set Strangling Guy down on a bed, and Leader examines
his head, telling him that his case is not too serious. They have
things like this happen when divers go down too often--
“--or
stay down too long,” interrupts Blonde.
“There is
that, of course,” Leader says rather curtly, like
Oh-so-you-know-everything-huh. She sends some of the women to
salvage what they can from the boat, and to bring the guys some
clothes. “Lava, lava” is the order she gives, though
which order that is remains uncertain, like so much in this world of
ours.
Leader asks the guys for their names, and Blonde says he
is Christy Johnson, and Strangling Guy is his brother, Lee. The
story is that they're freelancers, out collecting specimens of marine
life and shipping them to museums and such. This pays enough to keep
them going, Blonde says.
The girls show up with some clothes
for the guys, and it turns out there aren't any trousers anywhere on
the island, so they'll have to wear skirts. Much giggling ensues,
until Leader orders the women out, and on to their tasks. Blonde
wants to pay the girl who rescued them, but Leader says, no need,
that the Company (“a world-famous concern”) supplies
everything they need or want.
“Canneries?” asks
Blonde, and Rescue Gal opens a small bag and drops a small, milky
sphere into his hand.
“Pearls,” says Leader.
Cut
to one of the women walking through some tall grasses. I'm going to
point out here, that the entire population of the island is female.
That's why they didn't have any available trousers, you see.
Anyway,
it turns out that this woman is the Leader (I told you the print was
muddy) and she goes to a tree and raises a flag, all the while
glancing around. This is probably a flag that means “Help,
there are men here, and we're suspicious” though I admit my
knowledge of flags and semaphores is very, very weak.
Anyway,
Blonde and Strangling Guy see this, and think Leader is sending up a
flag talking about them (points for me!). Strangling Guy says he
can't wait ten days, every island around will know he's a wanted man,
blah blah blah. Blonde basically there's not much to be done. He
also mentions how Strangling Guy is always getting into trouble, and
Strangling Guy says “Don't give me any of your lectures!”
and such, and we're fairly certain we have the Good Brother, Trying
to Get his Errant Sibling Back on the Straight and Narrow, and the
Bad Brother, who is Deep In Debt and Needs Resources to Escape His
Inevitable Fate.
Fine, fine, fine. So, where are the
she-gods? Yeah, I know the title of a Roger Corman film means
nothing, but still, I hold on to hope. She-gods, hello?
Strangling
Guy retires to the house. Blonde meets Leader, asks if the message
she was sending (via flag) was about them, she says yes, there's more
obvious talking. Nothing we haven't figured out.
Then, Blonde
says that, as they were drowning, he thought he saw something, and we
see an underwater shot of a metallic, coffin-shaped object. “That's
Kangaroa, our shark god,” says Leader. She mentions some other
stuff, and then says that the shark-god has been angry for a long
time, now. “Bring many bad storms, much bad fortune,”
she says, and Blonde agrees about he and his brother's fate being
part of that whole “bad fortune” bit.
“Anything
we can do to get him in a better humor?” asks
Blonde.
“Kangaroa—hungry,” says Leader.
Cut
to women on the beach, as a boating party returns. Blonde and
Strangling Guy are on a raft, diving for something, helping out the
villagers. They argue a bit about how Strangling Guy thinks Blonde
thinks this is all his (Strangling Guy's) fault. Blonde just wants
to help. Then, back to the village. There's gonna be a ritual with
music and all, the recorder music tells us what we need to know. As
Blonde and Strangling Guy approach the village, Rescue Gal looks up
at them and smiles, then, aware of Leader's disapproving glower,
blushes and looks away.
Leader meets the guys as they enter
their hut, asks them about their day, they say it was cool, no, cool,
man, where's the, like, food, man? Leader says you go “there”
when you want food (and she points, you dirty-minded guys.
Honestly!). Anyway, she mentions some forbidden places, and calls
for some of the women to feed the guys. They go off to eat.
Later, Blonde and Strangling Guy are standing around outside
looking at the women, who are occupied doing island women stuff (I
guess, they're just sitting around, but all together, and being very
quiet and industrious...as much as this bad print is letting me see,
I mean). Anyway, Strangling Guy tells Blonde to go talk to Rescue
Gal, as she knows the place and can help them get away. Blonde does
as he's told.
They exchange names, and he invites her to
brunch or lunch or something. “Say, looks like good chow,”
observes Strangling Guy when they sit down. Rescue Gal is going to
eat a fruit or something, but wouldn't you just know it, Leader
chooses just that moment to walk by and scowl or something, and
Rescue Gal sees this, and so she offers the fruit to Blonde while
looking all Oh,-I'm-in-trouble-now.
Fade, and we get choir
practice. Some Hawaiian dancing. Cos there's no reason to make a
movie in the Territory of Hawaii and not feature some Hawaiian stuff.
It'd be like going to some fantastic foreign place famous for its
yawing vistas and frowning statues, and just shooting scenes with
your actors in a big cardboard box or something.
Rescue Gal
interprets the song, it seems to be all about Blonde and Strangling
Guy's ill-fated run-in with that old reef. They seem flattered, and
everyone applauds at the end.
Of course, even though this
movie has your basic island populated only by young women and a
disapproving Leader, you still have to have the fat, unattractive
woman come out and do her dance, and that's just what happens. She's
not a bad dancer at all but I think it's mean to make fun of fat
people. Eveyone smiles broadly. And then there's another dance, a
sort of hula-fan dance number with another young beautiful lady.
This one lasts about 20 seconds.
Now, Rescue Gal and Blonde
get up to dance to the ukelele. I heard on the radio once that
“ukelele” is Hawaiian for “jumping up and down all
happy” or something like that. That's pretty cool for an
instrument to be so yclept. (No “banjo” jokes
please.)
Anyway, Rescue Gal and Blonde are dancing along, and
she puts a lei on him, and being a kind of awkward klutz he puts his
hands through it and busts it. Just busts it. And there's a huge
gasp from everyone, including Leader and Rescue Gal and everything
comes to a grinding halt. Everyone runs away from Blonde in a giant
panic like he's radioactive or something. “What happens now?”
asks Strangling Guy as the scene fades to the guest house.
Blonde
watches some of the gals run down to the boats, holding these (I'm
guessing) fishing nets which look a lot like brooms, and yes, I'll
admit I'm unenlightened enough so that a part of my mind laughed and
said, Ha ha, they're going to sweep the sand off the beach! But I
quickly stifled that you'll be pleased to know.
Anyway,
Strangling Guy and Blonde discuss all this “taboo” stuff,
Blonde is pretty shaken by the whole “stay away from those
guys” thing, while Strangling Guy is insistant that they find
someone who “knows the ropes” (hey, YOU know them,
Strangling Guy, ha-ha!) so they can get off the island. He's pretty
insistant about it, but then he turns around and tells Blonde to
lighten up, “life's just beginning!” Geeze, Strangling
Guy, make up your mind, eh? Eh? Eh?
Blonde goes down to
where the boats are and helps push one out into the water. (The
women let him help—how taboo was breaking that lei supposed to
be?) Other boats are already out there. Strangling Guy is scouting
around the island. He finds a wrecked boat, but based on how excited
he is, it's probably not THAT wrecked.
Back to Blonde on the
beach, he sees one of the gals swimming off the shore so he leaps in
and swims toward her, but she dives under and playfully surfaces
behind his back and stuff. And yes, it's Rescue Gal. Next we see
them running along the beach—there's a sudden second or so of
darkness, like someone forgot to synch up the next reel—and
they chatter like folks who are, you know, in love and all. I'm
jumping the gun here, but just a bit, we all know where this is
going, right?
Anyway, Rescue Gal explains something along the
lines of, when there's a shipwreck, the shark gods are supposed to
get to feed, but Rescue Gal rescued the guys, which made the shark
gods angrier than usual, and when Blonde broke the lei, he, um, made
things worse, some how. Leader has forbidden Rescue Gal to see
Blonde, but you knew she was going to defy that particular order,
right? Well, I did.
Blonde asks why Leader is so afraid, and
Rescue Gal lists all the taboos and angry gods and such like that she
ahem already did, and Blonde points out that if the gods
wanted him to die, they would not have sent Rescue Gal out there with
a knife to cut him out of that kelp. Rescue Gal thinks this is
reasonable. Blonde asks her how old she is, and she says
eighteen.
I'm supposing that an explanation will eventually be
forthcoming, but I'd like to know why this island is populated
entirely by beautiful young women (not counting Leader and the Fat
Chick—hey, that could be a band name!). Are there no men at
all, not to mention children and old people? OK, if there are no
men, there'd be no children, but what about those old people? What
happens when these women become old, or have we just not seen any old
people because they're all driving Flintstone cars elsewhere, hogging
the left lane as usual, and they're not interested in going to the
beach? Or are these women brought here from some other island, to,
uh, to, um, to be a pearl-diving force of young women, an especially
attractive feature for the corporation's “Be A Pearl-Diver”
brochures? And when they get old, they're taken back to where they
came from?
Also, why the heck was this movie called “She
Gods of Shark Reef”? Where are the “she gods”?
You're not going to tell me that Leader constitutes a “she god”
I hope. Besides, there's only one of her, so it can't be plural.
Yes, we DO have a “shark god,” thanks for pointing that
out, no really. But this movie is NOT called “Shark Gods of
She Reef” which would make more sense in context but probably
makes a lousy poster.
My final (for now) puzzlement comes from
the fact that this apparently an isolated place (visitors are not
only rare, Leader said visitors were forbidden, and though she was
very polite and never said anything, it was pretty clear she didn't
want these guys around), yet there's some Pearl Corporation that
knows all about it, and supplies the women with modern houses and
food and such so that they really don't have to do anything, other
than dive for pearls and rescue brothers.
I know that Roger
Corman has been known to pick a title and an advertising campaign
before the script is even begun, but I'm still hoping these questions
won't remain unanswered. If they do, I'll...eat some
pretzels.
Anyway, back to Rescue Gal and Blonde on the beach
and their whole discussing everything scene. Blonde asks why there
are no men on the island, and Rescue Gal...just shakes her head.
Damn, was that supposed to answer stuff, woman? Argh. Blonde notes
that Rescue Gal knows “nothing about us” and gives her a
kiss. She says, “Don't!” but she doesn't object when he
does it again. In fact, she kisses him back pretty hard.
Cut
to Leader, walking along the tall grass again. She pauses, and we
see Blonde and Rescue Gal walking nearby (I'm guessing based on the
scenery) and they start kissing again, and you know that's not going
to set well with Leader. Sure enough, she gets her rock-prune face
all set and looks away, as if mourning the coming death of
Paradise...*cough*
Back to the guest cottage, Strangling Guy
runs excitedly out the front door and calls to Blonde, who is
returning alone. Strangling Guy tells about the boat, and he takes
Blonde to see it. Yep, it's still there. I think this movie was
shot using location sound, because it's very hard to hear what the
guys are saying over the sound of the surf. Strangling Guy says they
can use this get anywhere they want (oh yeah, even the Moon?),
and Blonde notes that the mast is broken and will need to be
replaced.
Just then, Leader shows up and demands that Blonde
leave Rescue Gal alone. There's this repetitive discussion about how
the two guys have brought a hatful of bad luck, she wants them gone
when the ship shows up, etc and etc. She's pretty adamant that they
stay away from everyone and leave on that company boat when it gets
here in a week. Strangling Guy and Blonde are both kind of, Whaddaya
mean? Wha? Like they already knew all that. Because they did. And
so did we. I suppose this scene helped the people who saw this in
theatres and had to get another soda and thus missed things, or who
had fallen asleep in front of the TV, awakening to a frightening
blaze of static and white noise, or something.
Leader says
that now, other women are thinking that Rescue Gal may be bad luck.
Rescue Gal's life is here, on the island, not with some Blonde guy.
I'll summarize:
“Stay away from Rescue Gal!”
“Huh?
Wha?”
“Stay away, or there'll be trouble!”
“Huh?
Wha?”
Leader stalks off, and Strangling Guy and Blonde
turn to the boat to begin their repairs.
Fade to hands
beating on a big drum. Cut to the guy's guest house, the drum wakes
up Blonde. He goes out on the porch. Turns out it was Fat Chick
drumming. And now all the gals are singing another song which sounds
kind of sad or something, plus they're all looking downcast.
Leader stands up with some leaves, and asks for a sign, and
throws the leaves into the fire which reponds with a grateful WHOOSH.
Leader calls to the gods to “take our trouble away” and
there's a significant glance at Rescue Gal. Leader then asks for
another sign (what, now?) and throws in the last leaf, and there's no
WHOOSH. Everyone reacts to this as if this was the ultimate bad
mojo.
Me, I'd like a sign that this film might move a bit
faster. We're only at the 33 minute mark! No movie ever made was
just thirty...five minutes. A quick glance at the IMDB shows
that this is sixty-seven. Could be worse: imagine if this film was
made today. It'd probably clock in at two and a quarter hours. Our
primitive ancestors did some things right.
Anyway,
Leader goes into haughty-raised-profile and claims that the gods
aren't satisfied. No dum-dum-DUM music but we all get the idea,
right?
“Tomorrow morning, we make the ceremony,”
Leader says, “Tomorrow morning—we make the purification!”
And she leaves to the sound of drums. Then, everyone leaves, except
Rescue Gal, who goes off in a direction different from the others.
She meets Blonde.
Well, I guess I should have paid more
attention to these native names, because in answer to his question
about “Huh? What?”, she says that “Itu” is
really angry, and he (or she) is in charge of the dead, and he (or
she) is really hungry. Tomorrow, “we go there” and
Blonde has to ask “Where's that?” and she names a
location, I'm sure it's been named a lot in the course of this movie
(cough), and Blonde says, something akin to “But you said you
didn't go there! There are lots of sharks!” and Rescue Gal
says that the shark IS the god.
So, just for those of you
keeping track, assuming you haven't gone into your BookMarks for some
place more interesting: there is a Shark-God on Shark Reef, but so
far no She Gods. Unless the shark is a female...but Rescue Gal
refers to this shark-god as “he.” As MeatWad once said,
“Damn it!”
Anyway, Blonde draws the needed
conclusion that this will result in Rescue Gal's death, and Rescue
Gal says that's the plan, that her “bad luck” and such
like has brought bad luck and such like onto the tribe, so she's
gotta do what she's gotta do, you know. She runs off, and Blonde is
like, man, what the heck? Where do reason, and civilized
behavior, and stuff like that apply to this, um, primitive
society, which is funded by a global pearl corporation, er, and is
therefor totally isolated from any kind of advanced social mores,
and...uh...my head hurts. He looks really determined,
though.
...how about a smack-down between the she-gods and the
shark-gods? I'd pay actual, real money for that. In fact, I smell
pay-per-view. The heck with that, I smell X-Box. Sorry, just
spewing thought...
And, now we have more footage of the gals
setting out into the sea in their boats, with Blonde and Strangling
Guy looking all, That Ain't Right while this goes on. And out on the
open water, we see that coffin-shaped metallic face again, then back
to the beach where Blonde gets in a boat and hauls ass to stop this
nonsense, then back to the boat where Leader is basically “Here's
the infidel! Here you go!” and Rescue Gal jumps overboard,
right into the aforesaid coffin-shaped metal face. (Those of you who
have read Philip K. Dick's “The Three Stigmata of Palmer
Eldritch” may feel a chill at this point. Go ahead and
suppress it, you wusses.)
Um, hold on. Rescue Gal didn't jump
into the water. Uh, okay, that was some other gal who jumped in to,
um, make sure the Shark-God was awake. Yeah, that's it. So, NOW,
honestly, really, Rescue Gal jumps in (her wrists tied, too). She
falls in front of said coffin-thing while a shark swims around.
Blonde is cruising to get her, he throws a spear which—you
jerk!--imaples whatever innocent dogfish was seeing whazzup around
his shark-god stele. Blonde rescues Rescue Gal and gets her to
shore, Leader looks mightily ticked off about this, everyone beaches
then, Leader follows behind warning how this is pretty damned
bad, but Blonde brushes everyone off and Strangling Guy gets
some water for Rescue Gal, and Rescue Gal is all right! Whew!
But
just then! Leader is going through those same tall grasses she's
been through already many times, and much as I am a fan of tall
grasses, my gut reaction is, this is probably not good. She goes to
a tree and unties a flag or something, and raises another one which
probably means “We are completely screwed here, can we have
some plot advancement please?” She then takes the flag down,
realizing it was a bit damn obvious though I suppose her excuse will
be that it got the plot moving, didn't it? Away with you all, and
your fines and regulations!
Back to Blonde and Rescue Gal,
comforting each other (no, not like that, you pervs!). Rescue Gal
and Blonde and Strangling Guy decide that if they can go, they're
gonna go. Blonde leaves her, to ask Strangling Guy when the boat
will be ready. He says, “Anytime,” and Blonde's pretty
happy about that. They go to check the boat, but of course, Leader
is watching them and the music turns all ominous and stuff. We see a
lot of Blonde and Strangling Guy readying the boat, and Leader
looking pretty peeved at all this. Yes, trouble is brewing. I feel
pretty safe in predicting this, I don't think Leader is following
Blonde and Strangling Guy because she thinks they need souvenir
t-shirts (Polo shirts are even better, you can wear them at work).
Hey, imagine a t-shirt that said, “I was going to be sacrified
at Shark Reef, instead I was given this t-shirt which, personally, I
think was made with poor workmanship; being a lowly peasant I fear to
be certain.”
Digression From the Real World: What is
it with cats? Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, they're the most
independent pets on earth. Other times, their neediness just crashes
out and bleeds through, and they become...Oh man. I was going to
write “more pathetic than dogs [NB: I love dogs] in their need
for affection” and Striker just stopped licking my arm and
LOOKED at me, just before I was going to type. I am officially
freaked out. I wonder who first coined the word “pets”
because he was either a) a genius for the ages, or b) a madman who
would like to see us all humbled. Either way, man, I need to save
his life or something so I get a bit of a break.
[Antidote
spray] Huh? Wha? Where the hell am I?
Oh yeah, She Gods of
Shark Reef. Sigh. Here we go--
Strangling Guy and Blonde are
getting the boat ready, Leader is sneaking around. Back at the guest
hut, Leader—what the hell?--wakes up sleeping Rescue Gal, tells
her that everything is futile and those guys are dead anyway, and she
(Rescue Gal) really needs to get it up for this whole sacrifice
thing. Rescue Gal protests that she doesn't believe Leader's “facts”
but Leader is stronger than she looks and forces Rescue Gal out of
the hut. Of course, Rescue Gal is our heroine so she fights the
whole way. In fact, there's a fight the WHOLE way, only broken up
because Rescue Gal shouts out for “Chris! Chris!”
(Blonde) and he comes and cleans Leader's clock.
Which
stinks. Honestly, it stinks! Come on, Rescue Gal was able to rescue
both Strangling Guy and Blonde from Stangling Kelp Strands, in SPITE
OF the fact that the, uh, Shark Gods forbade this sort of thing (I'm
guessing). Rescue Gal is the most competant person in this entire
stupid movie, and has shown herself to be fully capable of
non-groupthink talk, and defiance of the superstitious beliefs of her
people. But she still has to have men rescue her!
I
suppose in 1958, it was expected, but here in the technical vastness
of the future, such gender models are out-dated and make you 20th
century hominids seem even more primitive than the Mooninites had
told us!
Whatever, whatever, I hate these interjections more
than you do—believe me! The brothers overpower Leader, Rescue
Gal shouts about how she's innocent, and they all go back to the Male
Guest Quarters. (Didn't see how agreeing to THAT nomenclature would
harm your case, did you, Leader?)
Well, back at the MOVIE,
Blonde asks Rescue Gal (while they tie up and gag Leader) how to get
out of here, and Rescue Gal is pretty dumbfounded by this (“Chris
leave TONIGHT?”). Blonde explains how it's the only way, etc,
but my (BeckoningChasm's) brain hurts, a lot. Also my back, since I
lifted those boxes. And Strangling Guy is like, woah, I'm totally
amoral, I'm only for the plan that saves my skin! (Do you see where
this is going? Yeah...yeah...yeah, sounds like a scenario to me!
Thank you for suggesting it, so I can be (seen as) less of a fool for
once. Because my guess would be, Strangling Guy takes Blonde's
place...um.) Anyway, Strangling Guy decks Blonde for being moral
(near as I can tell) and there's some more fisticuffs, because
Strangling Guy knows whazzup and Blonde is all Innocent in the Ways
of the World...I hope it's not a surprise how this turns out,
because...it's sure leading that way. Strangling Guy asks Blonde if
there's a map, Rescue Gal says there is, Strangling Guy is going off
to get it, the others will sit tight waiting for the all
clear...which, if this was made in the last 20 years would be the
signal that Strangling Guy is going to his death. Redemptive death,
of course. They all go off to the boat, taking Leader with them who
is not terribly happy. Did any of that paragraph make sense? Oh,
good.
Now we're outside and some woman is carrying some large
sticks someplace. Have I mentioned how crappy this print is? She
dumps the wood into the fire place. Strangling Guy goes to the
“office” to see about getting the map and whatever else
he can find that will be useful. Fat chick walks in on him, and goes
off yelling to the authorities and he's soon chased by a gaggle of
women. The brothers, Rescue Gal and reluctant (tied-up) Leader make
the boat and push off, the other women in hot pursuit, manning the
boats and stiking the water...but then in the next shot we see the
boat all alone on the ocean! Since Blonde is doing all the paddling,
I guess this makes him the most manly of men. They spot the reef
they wrecked on at the start of this film, and Rescue Gal calls out,
and they wonder what to do with Leader. Blonde's all, well, I didn't
want to bring her anyway! Very helpful, Blonde. Why not complain
about the food too?
Anyway, the take off Leader's gag, and she
tells Rescue Gal that Strangling Guy stole the pearls from the
office. She heard the pursuing gals yell it out; Rescue Gal didn't
hear because she was “too scared” to listen to the actual
contents of the shouts, just the sheer noise of it all terrified her.
She asks Strangling Guy if this is true but he's completely
motionless—man, he's like a still photograph. Blonde asks him
if that's true, and he says, no way, man, all I took was “this”
which is a huge collection of papers, one of which is the map (which
is a little tiny thing about the size of a greeting card).
Strangling Guy explains that beyond the reef are the islands where
there's a boat waiting for them.
Weighing their options, they
decide to land the boat on the reef. Now, I'm certainly no boat guy,
but that seems kind of unsafe. Are they going to drag the boat
across the reef, like Fitzcarraldo?
Well, they pilot the
boat between these two parts of the reef...seems that part went
fairly easily. And now their parallelling the bigger rock, and
Strangling Guy jumps over board to guide the boat. Everyone clambers
onto the rock, including Leader who (I guess) tries to escape by
casually walking away. Strangling Guy is having none of that,
though, and she's quickly brought back and tied up. When the two men
return to finish tying up the boat, Leader says to Rescue Gal, “I
saved your life! I bring you here as little girl! I feed you! And
this is what you do to me!”
Back to the guys, they've
finished securing the boat, and I think the plan is that they'll be
safer at high tide or something, as Strangling Guy says “After
tonight, that'll be the end of it![their adventure]”
“Will
it?” offers Blonde doubtfully.
Back on the rock, we
see a very nice wide shot of the four of them standing on it. A
nicely composed shot, as well. The whole place looks beautiful—as
much as the print allows out, I harp repeatedly.
Anyway,
Blonde notes that it'll be another four hours before they can leave
(so I guess it is a tide thing. I mentioned earlier about the
location sound problem. It lends verisimilitude, but it also makes
it hard to understand people when the roar o' the mighty ocean is all
around, like a carpet of bees.)
Strangling Guy says he's
going somewhere (couldn't quite make it out, but I think he's looking
for boats). Blonde offers to come with, but Strangling Guy wants him
to watch Leader to make sure that a tied up old lady doesn't create
trouble with a capital T. There definitely does seem to be something
“significant” and such about Strangling Guy's mission,
like he's going to check on his secret cache of stolen pearls that he
didn't steal. Or something of that ilk. He dives out into the water
and swims off. Blonde goes to chat with Rescue Gal, who's down in
the dumps. Blonde asks why.
“Why you run from Police?”
she answers. “Why you afraid of them?”
Blonde
explains that that is a long story, and Rescue Gal asks if he did
something wrong? No, he answers, it's Lee (Strangling Guy). He was
smuggling guns, and he hit a man and that man died. And he once shot
a man for snoring. (I added that last bit, it's from an old
Time-Life commercial...about Beethoven.) He says that Strangling
Guy came to him for help, that the boat that was wrecked on the reef
was his (Blonde's) boat. Once they get to Strangling Guy's friends,
he'll be OK.
Rescue Gal points out that Strangling Guy is
Blonde's brother, but “he is not like you.” Lady, I gave
you credit for brains about a thousand paragraphs ago, start using
them! Unless...she can't think straight because...could it
be...love?
“I've got to help him,” Blonde
cliches.
And we're back with Strangling Guy, swimming along
nicely. And good heavens, he has apparently swum all the way back to
the island! I guess that magical word “pearls” got his
brain all riled up, and his swimming muscles too. He's sneaking off
to the office again, trying to remain out of sight. Only the wiley
women have locked it on him! Fortunately, there's a crow-bar just
sitting right there. He goes in, but here comes Fat chick again.
Man, is she a magnet for trouble or what? Strangling Guy decks her,
I guess with the crowbar. He grabs the pearls and runs back through
the jungle.
Meanwhile, Fat chick recovers and staggers out of
the office.
Back on the rock, everyone's just sitting
around, except Leader who has severed her bonds using the rock she's
propped against. She jumps into the ocean and I'm guessing swims
back...cut to everyone finding the collapsed Fat chick, and sure
enough, next shot has Leader wading back out onto the shore. How the
heck far away is this reef, anyway? Strangling Guy swam the distance
and didn't even seem winded, and he was paddling a boat. Leader is
an old woman, and she swam the whole way. So, when the boat was
escaping, why didn't the island women, who swim these waters every
day, just follow them out to the rock and blast Blonde and Strangling
Guy with their death rays? Aside from not having death rays, I
mean.
Leader returns to the office and spills the beans about
the pearls...man, is that irony or is that irony? She'd accused
Strangling Guy of taking the pearls when he didn't have them (and
near as we can tell, had no intention of going after them) and just
by the passage of time, her story is now correct! Post-modernism in
action, friends, it just doesn't get any better than this. Well, no,
it does. Many times. Just not in this movie. Sorry.
Strangling
Guy gets back to the reef and runs along the rocky shore, and in the
single funniest image in this whole stupid movie, almost runs into
Rescue Gal and Blonde, who are apparently sleeping in each other's
arms. He comes up short, like, “Whoah! Almost stepped on them
and woke them up and crashed my dastardly plan onto these very
rocks!” But the whole reef thing is pretty flat, with a few
rocky bits jutting up here and there. So Strangling Guy should have
seen Rescue Gal and Blonde in plenty of time to avoid a
collision.
Anyway, he goes behind them and discovers the old
woman gone. He wakes up Blonde and yells at him, saying they have to
leave now, no matter the police boat, blah blah blah. Blonde sees
the bag of pearls. The accusations fly, Strangling Guy points out
that they have no money, now they're set for a long time, and there's
a lot of discussion of “Nobody saw you?” “Nobody.”
“Nobody?” “Nobody.” Rescue Gal says that
there's always somebody guarding the office. Strangling Guy admits,
oh yeah, there was a guard. “And she didn't try to stop you?”
Strangling Guy grins and says, “She won't be stopping anybody
for a long time.”
“It always ends up like this,
doesn't it, Lee?” Blonde says.
“What was I
supposed to do? Surrender to some old woman? Let's take these
pearls and get out of here.”
“We can't go on
running forever, Lee!” Blonde says. “I can,”
Strangling Guy says, grinning pretty damn evily, and then he gives
Blonde this tiny little smack on the chin, which sends Blonde reeling
to the rocks. They start fighting, and I have to say, for a guy who
swam to the island and back, Strangling Guy's holding up his end
really well, while Blonde, who was resting, is a pretty duff sparrer.
Maybe he needed his morning caffeine or something, I know how I am
way early in the morning.
Anyway, Strangling Guy and Blonde
end up in the water, fighting and such, til finally Strangling Guy
whacks him with the bag of pearls (this is probably more irony).
Strangling Guy gets in the boat and pushes off, while Rescue Gal
consoles Blonde.
Out on the water, Strangling Guy seems to
be having trouble with this whole “boat” thing, as he's
messing about with the sail and stuff (I guess he is worn out, he
doesn't want to paddle). We see the women in their boats in the
distance, and elsewhere a solitary fin breaks the surface.
Strangling Guy, messing with the sail, manages to fall overboard
while the shark gets closer. Blonde and Rescue Gal stand stand up in
alarm. Blonde dives in to go rescue his brother, while Strangling
Guy is...man, I think I mentioned I don't know boats from hats, but
he's in the water with the sail, and he's doing something with the
ropes...man, what the hell is he doing? It's like he's trying to
wind the rope around the end of the sail. Strangling Guy, is this
really the time or place for that?
And now Rescue Gal jumps
in the water too. Blonde reaches Strangling Guy, and I think I get
it now—Strangling Guy was all tangled up in the rope. The
shark dives, intercut with Rescue Gal, and I'm hoping we're not going
to see another pointless shark death. Yeah, we do. Damn it. I
think it's the same footage from the beginning of the film. The
effort of knifing the shark has apparently exhausted Rescue Gal, so
now Blonde rescues her (turnabout being fair play and all). Somehow,
Strangling Guy, while trying to get back in the boat, grabs the bag
of pearls and opens it. There's a really nice shot (underwater) of
him looking pretty upset as they rain around him.
Another
shark appears. Blonde, having secured Rescue Gal in the boat, goes
to save Strangling Guy again, but the shark swims into his
(Strangling Guy's) stomach, and there's a big cloud of blood in the
water. The funny thing is, the shark is really small, maybe two feet
long or so. Blonde, underwater, sees this and his expression is all,
Oh well, that's how it goes, eh.
He surfaces, pushing that
damn sail back into the boat (glad that plot thread got
wrapped up) and they start paddling. Behind them, Leader stands in
one of the other boats and shouts out for Rescue Gal.
Rescue
Gal looks back a bit longingly, then says, “Let us go, Chris.
The tide is high, the wind is strong...we'll leave evil behind us.”
They sail out of shot, we see a final shot of Leader calling out, at
first determined and then resigned, and the boat with Blonde and
Rescue Gal sails off and the words THE END appear. And I'm making
another guess that Strangling Guy's death at the hands (er...) of the
shark have lifted the curse on the island, so they'll have good luck
and so forth. So, in a way, Strangling Guy did take the place
of the designated sacrifice. There just wasn't anything noble about
him doing it. The cliché has come full circle, and anyway,
the damn movie is over.
So....
Man, never was the curse
of “competancy” so apparent. Handled better, this could
have been an exciting film; handled worse, it could have been a laugh
riot. Instead, Roger Corman and crew shot the movie and moved on.
Some of Corman's movies have become classics, like Little Shop of
Horrors and the “Poe” cycle with Vincent Price. A lot of
his 50's science fiction films like Attack of the Crab Monsters, The
Wasp Woman, The Day the World Ended and so on are a lot of fun and
have some interesting themes and ideas in them. People still watch
(and learn from) them today, and when they appear on late night TV
folks get all excited-like.
This one? It didn't even have any
she-gods, for crying out loud. Unless that “she” was a
shortened version of “sheesh.” Mostly, this was
uninteresting, though too competantly made to be really dull. It
might have made an interesting half-hour on some television drama
(“Chris Blonde: Island Adventurer”), but sixty-odd
minutes was really stretching it.
The thing is, the island
society depicted here did raise some interesting questions, none
of which were really answered by the film. Who are these women? Why
are there no men at all? Leader mentions that the Corporation
supplies all their needs, in return for pearls. What was this
“corporation” and how were they able to maintain a
female-only island paradise? (Kind of sounds against international
law or something, to my tiny brain.) How did the women get here?
Were they orphans, or rescued homeless children, or did their parents
sell them to the Corporation? Since the women were pretty much all
in the same age range, what happened to them when they got older? I
was keeping a lookout for some kind of “origin story” and
one never appeared.
So, the film-makers decided mystery and
such weren't what they wanted. Well, aside from the warehouse
assault at the beginning, there wasn't really much exciting action,
and I'm calling that bit exciting just to be charitable. Characters?
Rescue Gal was the most interesting person in the film, but she
wasn't really developed beyond her exoticness. Leader was also
interesting, but she remained a mystery through the whole movie.
Blonde might as well have been called Bland. He was there as the
Love Interest, and as such needed in the movie, but other than that,
man, what a waste of space. Strangling Guy was also pretty dull. He
was rather half-hearted in his villainy (until the end); in fact, I
wasn't really convinced that he WAS a villain until he went back for
the pearls (“Just going for a stroll, see ya soon!”).
Sure, we saw him at the beginning, but we had no background on what
was happening—was he smuggling guns for a good cause? Dunno,
he was just smuggling guns. Smuggle smuggle smuggle. Without a
context, it's hard to know whether we should “root” for
him and his brother.
Speaking of Blonde, we also don't know
(at first) if he's a bad guy or not. Well, he's a forthright and
decent blonde-haired guy in a movie, yes, that's a good indication,
but that's also the only indication. How do we know he wasn't
up to his elbows in all Strangling Guy's smuggling stuff?
Look,
I know that during the time when this film was made, Corman just
wanted to crank 'em out to fill out double features for drive-ins.
“She-Gods of Shark Reef” was probably a title chosen
before there was a script or anything. There was no time to put any
layers into the story, and I'm sure that sort of thing was frowned on
by the producers anyway (Whaddaya think we're makin' here, art
or somethin'? Get back to work!).
The problem then is that's
there's really no reason to watch this movie...other than to say,
“I've seen it.” It exists only as itself in its own
little space. Perhaps it's admirable for a work to do so, to be its
own little unique self, but a film has to have something to
offer a potential viewer. And She Gods of Shark Reef doesn't offer
much of anything. Not even any she-gods!