The Swede (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a beefy, slow-witted turtle hunter who works on a boat called The Manfish which operates out of Montego Bay. He likes his work but he loves the ship, and can't imagine life without it. Brannigan, his boss (John Bromfield), is a shady character who is always one step ahead of losing the boat because he owes people money (which he gets but then gambles away). One night, Brannigan flirts with an exotic woman named Alita, but her sugar daddy, an eccentric older man known as The Professor (Victor Jory, pictured to the right of Chaney and Bromfield), takes exception to this and the two men tussle, with the Professor threatening to kill Brannigan. The next day, the turtle hunters come across a human skeleton underwater holding a bottle (a nicely creepy image). Inside the bottle, Brannigan discovers half of a treasure map in French and a ring, and he remembers seeing a similar ring on the Professor's hand. The Professor fesses up that he knows about the lost treasure of the pirate Jean Lefitte, and soon all of them, along with Brannigan's girl Mimi, wind up on the Manfish in search of the treasure.
Though the title promises sci-fi horror a la Creature from the Black Lagoon, this is just a so-so B-adventure thriller. It's a fairly cheap production, but the location shooting in Jamaica helps. With the exception of the Swede (Chaney in Of Mice and Men mode) and the two native turtle hunters on the Manfish—and all those two do is complain that they haven't gotten paid—no character is likeable. At first, I saw this as a debit, since I didn’t really care if the asshole Brannigan or the dissolute Professor got the treasure. But midway through, when they decide to join forces, I realized the film was heading into ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ territory, and it got a little more interesting. To protect himself against the younger and stronger Brannigan, the Professor burns the map and memorizes it, so the two men really do need each other. But greed causes things to move inexorably toward a downbeat ending with a couple of interesting plot twists along the way. The credits claim that the screenplay is based on two Poe stories, The Gold Bug (following secret codes to find a treasure) and The Tell-Tale Heart (murder followed by guilt), but these are minor plot points. Sierra Madre is clearly the strongest influence on the story. Bromfield is hunky but can't quite throw himself into despicable bad-guy mode in a part that calls for an over-the-top performance. Jory comes closer, but I've never taken to him—maybe because I remember him mostly as Tara's slimy overseer in Gone With the Wind—so that leaves Chaney by default as the best actor here, though his (deliberately) halting delivery gets repetitious. Rough going for a while but worth sticking with if you have 90 minutes to fill. [Streaming]
The Swede (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a beefy, slow-witted turtle hunter who works on a boat called The Manfish which operates out of Montego Bay. He likes his work but he loves the ship, and can't imagine life without it. Brannigan, his boss (John Bromfield), is a shady character who is always one step ahead of losing the boat because he owes people money (which he gets but then gambles away). One night, Brannigan flirts with an exotic woman named Alita, but her sugar daddy, an eccentric older man known as The Professor (Victor Jory, pictured to the right of Chaney and Bromfield), takes exception to this and the two men tussle, with the Professor threatening to kill Brannigan. The next day, the turtle hunters come across a human skeleton underwater holding a bottle (a nicely creepy image). Inside the bottle, Brannigan discovers half of a treasure map in French and a ring, and he remembers seeing a similar ring on the Professor's hand. The Professor fesses up that he knows about the lost treasure of the pirate Jean Lefitte, and soon all of them, along with Brannigan's girl Mimi, wind up on the Manfish in search of the treasure.
Though the title promises sci-fi horror a la Creature from the Black Lagoon, this is just a so-so B-adventure thriller. It's a fairly cheap production, but the location shooting in Jamaica helps. With the exception of the Swede (Chaney in Of Mice and Men mode) and the two native turtle hunters on the Manfish—and all those two do is complain that they haven't gotten paid—no character is likeable. At first, I saw this as a debit, since I didn’t really care if the asshole Brannigan or the dissolute Professor got the treasure. But midway through, when they decide to join forces, I realized the film was heading into ‘Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ territory, and it got a little more interesting. To protect himself against the younger and stronger Brannigan, the Professor burns the map and memorizes it, so the two men really do need each other. But greed causes things to move inexorably toward a downbeat ending with a couple of interesting plot twists along the way. The credits claim that the screenplay is based on two Poe stories, The Gold Bug (following secret codes to find a treasure) and The Tell-Tale Heart (murder followed by guilt), but these are minor plot points. Sierra Madre is clearly the strongest influence on the story. Bromfield is hunky but can't quite throw himself into despicable bad-guy mode in a part that calls for an over-the-top performance. Jory comes closer, but I've never taken to him—maybe because I remember him mostly as Tara's slimy overseer in Gone With the Wind—so that leaves Chaney by default as the best actor here, though his (deliberately) halting delivery gets repetitious. Rough going for a while but worth sticking with if you have 90 minutes to fill. [Streaming]
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