Why I liked 'Manfish'
Finally watched the DVD Manfish from retromedia today and even though it's cheesiness showed through it wasn't a bad little film. Lon Chaney playing his famous 'Lenny' dumb role is always fun and everyone was smoking and drinking. The Manfish in title is not a monster, it is a turtle/tortoise harvesting boat in the Caribbean. Of notice to me are a couple of things:
1. I liked the guy warning Brannigan not to leave the girl alone on the ship with a bottle of Rum. When they come back in the dingy she's waving a bottle obviously fake acting like she's smashed but it's still funny.
2. The film seems like it was never edited very much since it's starts up with the standard countdown numbers and keeps flashing a picture of what looks to be a drunk Lon Chaney Jr.
3. No dissolves or scene fades here folks! When they change scenes the camera spins views several times very fast. No need to be on a boat at sea regarding the filming of this movie, the scene changes alone will make you sea-sick!
4. Someone mentioned that the underwater corral swimming scenes/photography would be beautiful in Color. I agree and the film is in Black and White BUT at the very end of the credit scroll it says 'Color by DeLuxe'. Is this an Ed Wood type deal where nobody could afford the move up? I'm curious so someone/anyone let me know! and.....
5. My favorite part of the movie!! (spoiler alert!) After the Professor murders Brannigan with a harpoon he tries desperately to dispose of the body. It is so funny and seems to last for 20 minutes in the film. After he kills the captain of the manfish boat he starts trying to anchor the dead body to a huge lead oxygen bottle. While keeping the dead body covered he keeps getting interrupted LOL! A guy walks up wanting his pay and won't leave. Another guy walks up wanting his pay. A girlfriend walks up wanting to see the captain. Dog barking all the time. All of these people arrive wanting to see the captain who is dead under a tarp. FINALLY, everyone leaves and the professor starts tying a rope to dead captains neck AND a boat pulls up slowly next to him carrying at least a dozen people! After hours of waiting, the prof finally gets the rope around captains neck but the body falls in the water before he can anchor it. By now I'm laughing like it's the Three Stooges! He finally fishes the rope back and attaches it to the tank and drops tank/body in water. Finally! Dead, done, gone!! But No! The oxygen tank on bottom tied to dead body starts leaking huge bubbles up to the water surface! For some reason I found this hilarious.
Check out this cheesy movie, it's fun.
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't ~ Bart Simpson