Mermaids of Tiburon

1961's "The Mermaids of Tiburon" aired on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater on Sept 5 1964 (the final 4:00 PM broadcast, the Sunday night co-feature being 1931's "Svengali"), and no doubt was shown in black and white. Today available on a DVD double bill with 1957's "Cry of the Bewitched" (both in glorious color) in the original fullscreen version, and the later letterboxed version, featuring new footage of topless models acting like mermaids. It's nice to have the 'nude' version, but the star of the original, the luminous Diane Webber, is almost completely cut out, and the story arc revolves around our hero's innocent pursuit of this untouchable goddess of the sea (there are glimpses of other mermaids but Diane reigns supreme). All of the topless models are missing the fins worn by the originals, looking like normal women out for some vigorous underwater exercise. Director John Lamb's photography brings this world to life, even including a scene with Diane swimming alongside a (possibly fake) shark. Timothy Carey's gratuitous villain spearguns a topless mermaid, and strips another of her lone seaweed garment, neither of which appear in the original. His intrusive presence disrupts the film's charming narrative, which is left unresolved as the hero vows to return someday. Until a better mermaid film comes along, this one manages to enter their world better than any other. Diane Webber would again don the fiberglass fin for a 1967 episode of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (after Marta Kristen got her shot in 1965's "Beach Blanket Bingo").

"Mermaids of Tiburon" has a wonderful, otherworldly quality about it, thanks to the efforts of writer / director John Lamb, who's best known as a top notch underwater photographer. It has a sedate pace, not much of a story, and not a whole lot of action, so it won't be for all tastes, but cult movie lovers who love the surreal are sure to find it quite engaging. Given Lambs' background, it's not surprising that the visuals are so strong. The underwater scenes in this thing are just gorgeous - and, naturally, the women are all gorgeous too. It may take a viewer out of the story to some degree seeing that not all of the mermaids have fins, but the film remains a interesting and erotic experience.

George Rowe, in his only acting gig, plays Samuel Jamison, a marine biologist with Marineland who accepts a gig offered to him by elderly gentleman Ernst Steinhauer (John Mylong of "Robot Monster"): travel to the waters around Tiburon, an island off the coast of Mexico, in search of pearls. Well, George finds something else entirely: a grouping of exquisite mermaids who fascinate him. The real world also intrudes harshly, as a greedy fellow pearl hunter, Milo Sangster (played by the legendary screen psycho Timothy Carey) shows up using unscrupulous methods in the search for treasure.

Not a lot may happen in "Mermaids of Tiburon", yet it just pulls a viewer right in with its ambiance, enhanced by a beautiful music score courtesy of Richard LaSalle. Rowe never speaks on camera; instead his dialogue is entirely expressed in voice over narration. He does a decent job, and Carey is great malevolent fun as one could expect. The physical charms of the mermaid performers are impossible to resist, with Playboy Playmate Diane Webber (who would again play a mermaid on an episode of the series 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea') and Gaby Martone placed front and centre.

This has an agreeable midnight movie feel to it at all times, and it's sure to appeal to lovers of obscure B pictures. Clocking in at a mere 77 minutes, it's always watchable.

Seven out of 10.

As soon as I saw the thank-you's to Marineland & Mexico in the opening credits, I had a feeling I'd be in for some road show Jacques Cousteau sure to bore the pants off me and I was right. Filmed by a noted underwater photographer, it's certainly nice-looking but still, it's an hour-and-a-half of watching lead mermaid (the aptly named Diane Webber, a former Playboy Playmate) swim around and around -and around- as a marine biologist and a slimy villain search for giant pearls off the coast of Tiburon, an uninhabited Mexican island. On the plus side, it was in color, the three mermaids weren't cheesy, and the bad guy was played by the great Tim Carey but even he couldn't keep me from occasionally nodding off. This was the original version -actually a "DVD extra"- since the film was butchered and re-released with topless mermaids inserted and the waterlogged plot changed ...to what, I don't know because I have no intention of sitting through it again.

The visuals were beautiful. Having different mermaids other than the mermaid queen, made the movie exciting. They were au naturel too, not that I'm trying to be nasty, but that's how one would imagine mermaids to be in their natural habitats. Not wearing silly flower or clam shells. It is really the only real mermaid movie I've seen besides Splash. That movie was very disappointing because there were only couple seconds where she was really a mermaid. I don't know why they call it Aqua Sex, because it says "Mermaids of Tiburon" in the beginning, I have a color version but I cannot enjoy the movie because it has big white letters in the middle of the screen that it is not for public distribution.

With just a shade more imagination, this could have been a truly beautiful piece of work. It is very effective and thought provoking despite its surface appearance of cheapo trash. Its details have been very carefully worked out to the point where you can almost believe in the existence of the mermaids. The story is a simple but believable conflict of good and evil set against a gorgeous background. It's also a story of nature threatened by greed. If the mermaids had been just a little more mysterious and less obviously girls in mermaid costumes, it would have been perfect.