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Somewhere in the neighborhood of summer of the shark 2017, we mused about the bits and pieces of missing memories, welcoming them home. For the final movie of marathon, I picked SHARK from the Samuel Fuller collection. Some may have bought another movie to this franchise, but for me it was the first one I watched. I still remember watching it as a child on a VHS and this gives me the chills.
This movie was a blast from the past. Right around when VHS tapes were in stores and there were people actually searching through racks of tapes like they were looking for actual treasures. K MART was the store where I first found my copy of SHARK. I still remember the store vividly and how I used to wonder if I would find Godzilla movies that I have not come across up until now. And boom I have finally got my hands on SHARK.
The cover art literally dragged me in. They used simple cardboard to encase the tape with black as base color. The title was written on top in font that was red, eye catching and straight to the point. In my favorite font ‘SAND TIGER SHARK’ was portrayed below. And right there on the cover it said “It Will Rip You Apart in a Frenzy of Threshing Limbs!” And for me a kid obsessed with dinosaurs and sharks, this was godly. It was the best and biggest treasure I found so I started pleading my mom to buy it but she couldn’t handle it and gave in.
As soon as I got home, I plugged the tape into the VCR with uncontainable excitement, but soon became disappointed to learn that rather than a looming shark, the movie featured some heralded super feature. Regardless, I watched the movie several times and kept the tape safe till I got rid of my enormous VHS collection about a decade later. I haven’t seen SHARK in over twenty years, so I thought now would be a good time to revisit it.
Shark centers around Caine’s (portrayed by Burt Reynolds) adventures as a charming but often reckless gunrunner. When we first meet him, Caine is sneaking a haul of arms across the border to Sudan. The story begins with Caine loading the truck with the rest of the arms, trying to sneak the last few pieces of weapons. Just as Caine is about to cross, the border guards decide they want to look into his cargo. Upon a more thorough inspection, the guards find a guns hidden, and this forces Caine to escape. As he is chased through the desert, he ditches his vehicle and goes off a cliff, hitching the nearest village after.
Caine finds himself in a small port town by the Red Sea, where he attempts to keep a low profile while planning his escape. This task is a challenge because local officer Inspector Barok (Enrique Lucero) is watching closely over the new smuggler. He intends to kick him out as soon as possible. But suddenly, destiny plays a hand when a couple of Americans pay Caine to assist them in a sea “scientific study.”
Given that a shark devoured the last person who worked for them (as shown in the first few minutes of the film), Professor Dan Mallare (Barry Sullivan) together with his assistant Anna (Silvia Pinal) are certain that Caine would be an ideal (i.e., disposable) choice. Unfortunately, Caine proves them wrong as he uncovers the true reason the professors keep diving in waters where sharks are present. He blackmails the pair of them, which triggers a chain of double-crosses, and a few people end up as shark’s lunch in the end!
One of those films that is more captivating for its storyline than for the actual film itself is Sam Fuller’s SHARK. During the making of this film there was a lot of reported drama which resulted in director Sam Fuller walking out before the production was finished. What finally drove him away were the producers’ attempts to exploit the tragic death of stuntman Jose Marco for advertising purposes.
It seems that Jose was tormented and murdered by a Reef shark that was not sufficiently sedated. Attempts to capitalize from this failure resulted in the producers changing the film’s name from CAINE to SHARK as an attempt to make money off brute and careless exploitation. This left Sam Fuller with his fair share of grievances. He abandoned the project, rather unceremoniously, to its producers, and popular film editor Carlos Savage.
The end result was a film that Fuller claimed he wished to remove his name from as he did not acknowledge it anymore. This was initially the case with the backers of SHARK. Whatever the reason, it makes a more compelling story. He claims that the cut of the film is missing fundamental elements and creativity that he wishes was included – which most are willing to accept as acceptable background information for the film. Although I too wish Fuller managed to put together a rough cut of the film before he drowned in his misery, the proceed version may be crude, but is entirely watchable. Show SHARK to the critics and the movie will probably pass the higher ups do not care much about well shot versus poorly shot, or deeply edited versus unedited. Regardless, the movie has some redeeming quality in that it is well shot and is very easy to comprehend. Unfortunately, after the opening jaws of death shark attack, the movie slows significantly. Caine’s happened sabotaged import attempt does not help elevate the climax either.
The film begins coming together in the final part, where Caine finds out that the Professor and Anna are searching for a missing shipment of gold bars. This eventually results in two good fights (one sees Caine’s henchman, “Runt,” getting hurt), and a series of backstabbing at the conclusion of the movie. Thankfully, Burt Reynolds plays the role of Caine very well, as he is a seasoned criminal with a particular moral code.
He loves romance, but is not afraid to deliver a very effective revenge on a woman who has played him. He is a man’s man who doesn’t shy away from physical altercations, but he is gentle enough to care for a boy who lives on the streets. Burt Reynolds’ Caine is a multifaceted character, and ultimately bears the weight of the movie. He does because SHARK is in real need of some actual sharks!
In the flick, there are four or five moments where humans come in contact with the scary fish, and for a movie, it is pretty gripping. (Not since MAKO: THE JAWS OF DEATH have I seen so much blatant disregard for the safety of actors!) At some points, there is the stuntman struggling with the shark and a part of me wonders whether some of this footage showed the last moments of poor Jose Marco. I mean, the producers couldn’t have been that unscrupulous to actually edit his death into the finished film… could they? (Oh my Last Days In The Desert!)
In summary, SHARK is a subpar action movie about treasure-divers who betray each other, and occasionally feature a shark.
There are some good stunts and the cast is acceptable: Arthur Kennedy’s drunken Doc has some good lines (“What a wonderful world it would be, if alcohol flowed through our veins.”) while Silvia Pinal has that “thing” that seems to make you pay attention to the screen as soon as she appears. Even so, it is not enough to lift the standard for a film that really isn’t particularly engaging.
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