SHE GODS OF SHARK REEF (1958)

After the love theme to She Gods of Shark Reef plays ("Nearer My Love to You"), we see a hunky young guy named Lee and his older companion Jim (with scraggly beard and turban, so I presume Indian) sneaking out of the water in the dark and climbing up on a dock, apparently intent on engaging in some criminal activity. They grab a guard and Jim uses a machete to kill him, though Jim winds up getting killed by another guard. Lee escapes into the sea and gets his brother Chris to help him get away. Their small boat winds up wrecked on the reefs of a South Seas island during a fierce storm, and they are saved by the all-female population of the island. Despite the title of the movie, they are not "she gods," but pearl gatherers working for The Company. An elder named Pua seems to be the boss of the women, and the group accepts the men at least until they can leave with a company ship in ten days. Just as Chris is making some flirtatious headway with young Mahia, he accidentally tears a lei given to him, and suddenly the women become very upset and label Chris "taboo." Pua's women worship Tangaroa, a shark god represented by an underwater tiki head, and between the recent storms, the arrival of the male intruders, and the growing danger of the sharks in the water, Pua decides that a human sacrifice is in order, and it might as well be Mahia who gets thrown to the sharks—but not if Chris has anything to say about it.

I'm hesitant to be too rough on this early Roger Corman B-movie because the print I saw on YouTube was in terrible shape, like a dupe of a dupe of a bootleg VHS tape. The images are colorful but full of blur and shimmer, and the incoherence of the narrative might have been due to a chopped-up print. Still, if you read online critical comments on the film, you’ll find disagreement over what is going on the opening scene, and even what the name of the criminal brother is, so I think it's safe to say that this is is one of Corman's more muddled efforts. For example, there are no she-gods, but there is a shark reef. Still, there is some fun to be had, especially for lovers of beefcake, as both well-built brothers are shirtless for the entire movie.  Bill Cord is handsome and heroic enough as the good brother and Don Durant suffices as the bad brother, but neither is particularly memorable. Lisa Montell is a big zero as Mahia, which leaves Jeanne Gerson the cast standout as Pua—she's amateurish but effective. The shark footage is poor but the island landscapes are nice to look at. As is Bill Cord (or did I say that already?). I’d be willing to re-watch this if a good print turned up. Pictured are Cord and Durant. [YouTube]