Tiger Shark

The plot of this film is nothing to write home about. Other reviewers have aptly summed it up as the quintessential love triangle. There are two things that make this film rise above 4 or 5 stars out of ten.

The first is the great footage of commercial fishing as it was practiced circa 1930. It really was man versus the sea back in those days. There is also some footage of how the fish is delivered and then processed once the fishing boat docks.

The second thing that makes this an interesting film is the odd combination of Edward G. Robinson on the way up, Richard Arlen on the way down, and Zita Johann in one of her few film appearances before she shrugged her shoulders and walked away from film after she decided she didn't need all the irritation she had to deal with as a Hollywood star.

Edward G. Robinson was a newcomer to talking films, having only one credited film appearance in silents, that being in 1916. Not a classicly good-looking man, he was fascinating to watch in almost any role because of his talent for drama as well as comedy. Richard Arlen was a great leading man over at Paramount, and even retained his position at that studio for a few years after sound came in. He had the looks, he had the voice, but his popularity fizzled nonetheless. Zita Johann does not have, as others have mentioned, a thick accent. Her diction is perfect, and she has exotic looks that can only be compared to Kay Francis.

Thus these three are thrown together in this film in exactly the way you'd believe them to be. Robinson as the likable fisherman, Mike, with a big heart who can't get a girl to love him because he is missing a hand that was taken by a shark. Zita Johann is the daughter of a fisherman on Mike's boat who falls overboard and is killed by a shark. Mike nurses her back to health - she is ill at the time her father dies - and takes care of her in general so that she feels beholden to marry him, plus she thinks she is through with love and feels that Mike will do as well as any man. Finally there is Arlen as Pipes, handsome friend of Mike. He and Mike's new wife fall in love but do not want to hurt someone that they feel has been very good to them.

There are two big problems with this plot. In execution, the problem is that we don't see any relationship build between Mike's wife and Pipes. She just announces to Pipes one night that she loves him and that is that. I realize there is not much room for character development in a 75 minute film, but they could have let this build a little bit. In concept, the whole fact that someone as likable as Mike would not be able to attract a woman just because he is missing a hand is a bit much. Women have not now nor have they ever been attracted to men just because of looks. Character counts a good deal more. This is a case of a man writing about women as though they were men.

In summary, if you run across this one it is always worthwhile to see Edward G. Robinson in action, but don't lose any sleep if it never comes your way.

All the old-time Hollywood studios recycled their scripts, turning previously-filmed properties into remakes and then re-remakes. More so than any other studio, Warner Brothers were notorious for re-re-re-remaking their previous films with only very slight changes in setting and dialogue. "Tiger Shark" is an historically significant film, as this movie provided the original template for a plot line which Warners recycled about two dozen times ... each time with just enough changes to fool the audience into thinking they were seeing an original plot. Except for stories which are in the public domain (such as Cinderella), "Tiger Shark" holds the all-time record for being re-made MORE OFTEN than any other movie ... each remake being "disguised" as a new movie.

The basic plot is this: an older man with a physical handicap falls in love with an attractive young woman who owes him a favour. She marries him, more out of a sense of obligation than for love. Then she becomes attracted to a handsome young man who works alongside her handicapped husband. The young man returns her attraction, and they start having an affair. The husband discovers his wife's infidelity, and then (in the climax of the film) he and the younger man duke it out. That's the plot of "Tiger Shark", starring Edward G. Robinson, and it's also the plot of two dozen other Warners films which are uncredited remakes of "Tiger Shark".

Compare this film to "Manpower" (1941), also starring Robinson. In "Tiger Shark" he plays a one-handed fisherman, with a hook at the end of his left arm. In "Manpower" he plays an electrical lineman with a limp. In both films, his love interest is a younger woman with a European accent: Zita Johann here, Marlene Dietrich in "Manpower". Robinson's younger rival in "Tiger Shark" (played by Richard Arlen) is basically the same character as Robinson's rival in "Manpower" (George Raft). The climax of "Tiger Shark" is a fight on the seashore; the climax of "Manpower" is a fistfight at the top of a telephone pole during a lightning storm. Once you allow for the change of setting, they're both the same film. I could make the same connections between "Tiger Shark" and about two dozen other Warners films, not all of them starring Robinson.

"Tiger Shark" benefits from some excellent direction by Howard Hawks. Richard Arlen is unfairly forgotten nowadays, but he was the closest thing Hollywood had to Harrison Ford before Harrison Ford came along. (I'm referring of course to the modern Harrison Ford, not the silent-film actor of the same name.) Arlen gives a good performance here. Zita Johann is excellent here, hampered only by her thick accent. She retired early from films to marry the producer John Houseman, long before Houseman became an Oscar-winning actor. Johann's most famous role is the female lead in "The Mummy" opposite Boris Karloff. When Johann published her autobiography in the 1980s, the publishers' promo material played up the fact that Johann had co-starred with Karloff, but they managed to avoid mentioning *which* Karloff film she'd been in: apparently they were afraid we would think that Zita Johann was a "scream queen" actress who only starred in horror films.

I'll rate "Tiger Shark" 7 out of 10 on its own merits, or 9 points if you're an aspiring screenwriter who wants to study this film so you can learn how a single plot line can be reworked repeatedly.

Sorry, I forgot to add a point to my comment that was rather an important one, at least to me. Tiger Shark was shot in the early 1930s and there are some interesting scenes of men sailing their boat into a school of tuna, guided by a lookout, then lining up in the leads and pulling the fish in using flexible poles, one at a time. The scenes are authentic and exciting. Alas, they are history. Tuna fisherman now use "long lines." (Koreans and Japanese have huge industries built around this technique.) The fishing boat now needs a smaller crew (less expensive) because there no longer any mano a mano contests between fish and man. The crew simply strings out long fishing lines, guided by sonar, more than a mile long, with baited hooks fixed to the lines at short, regular intervals, set for a given depth. This has proved far more lucrative than fishing exclusively for tuna with poles. The long lines have a tendency to clean everything that swims out of the sea; not just tuna but sharks, sea turtles, porpoises, and game fish like marlin (which can't be legally sold). By the time they are harvested, many of the animals are already dead, especially the air-breathing turtles and porpoises. The industry has become much more efficient and without passion. Mike probably wouldn't have approved but the organization that would now own his boat would have.

Exciting film about a love triangle on the Monterey coast with Edward G. Robinson and Richard Arlen best friends and tuna fishermen. Robinson falls for bad girl Zita Johann who of course falls for handsome Arlen. Familiar storyline but Robinson is excellent as the Portuguese fisherman who battles the sea and the sharks to make a living. Arlen was a so-so actor but very handsome, and Johann had a strange exotic look. She's best remembered for The Mummy with Boris Karloff. Vince Barnett is funny and J. Carroll Naish has one scene. Leila Bennett plays a barber for some reason with pretty Toshio Mori as her assistant. Inez Palange plays a neighbor. Good film all around. But the highpoint is the truly remarkable footage of tuna fishing in a stormy sea.

Edward G. Robinson plays a one handed fisherman making his living on the California coast. Even with a hook for a left hand he does pretty good in his line of work. But that steel hook isn't exactly quail bait.

One of his crew is lost to the sharks during a voyage and he brings the news home to his daughter Zita Johann. She's back home after having run away from the fishing life and has had a pretty rough go of it.

Though she doesn't love him, Johann marries Robinson and then another Robinson's crew, Richard Arlen comes in to complicate things.

Other reviewers have mentioned the gazillion times Warner Brothers recycled the plot of Tiger Shark in other locales. But actually Robinson had done a version of They Knew What They Wanted back in 1930 entitled A Lady to Love. That's the real origin of this plot.

The fishing boat scenes are realistically handled and the principal players do a good job. But this story has been told better and told better by Mr. Robinson himself.