Manfish

Manfish is based on two entwined Edgar Allan Poe stories: 'The Gold Bug' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. It's an eerie seaworthy treasure seeking adventure film with a quite a few thrills that kept me glued to the screen.

Captain Brannigan (John Bromfield) of the ship named Manfish - is a man who becomes obsessed with finding treasures of gold. While Swede (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a man with a heart-of-gold and loves his only home "The Manfish". The two sets sail on an adventure that leads them into a world of treachery, murder and gold - lots of gold.

The movie is not actually classified as a horror film but it is a film that some of the fans of horror might enjoy - especially if they like Lon Chaney, Jr.

8/10

1955's "Manfish" is sometimes thought of as a horror film due to its title, the presence of second billed Lon Chaney, and the fact that not one but two Edgar Allan Poe stories were combined for the script, "The Gold Bug" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." As things go, it's one of the few decent efforts by the resolutely dull director W. Lee Wilder (Billy's elder brother), and his 4th of seven films written by his son Myles Wilder (the shooting title was "The Menfish"). 'Manfish' is actually the name of the Jamaican boat captained by John Bromfield's Brannigan, Chaney his first mate 'Swede,' in danger of losing their beloved vessel due to outstanding debts brought on by Brannigan's gambling. The pair earn their keep diving for sea turtles, one day discovering a skeleton on the bottom of the sea bed, still holding a map contained inside a bottle, revealing the hidden location of a French pirate's treasure chest. This brings them into contact with another greedy soul, Victor Jory's 'Professor,' forcing Brannigan's hand by memorizing the map's contents before burning it. They find the trinkets soon enough, heading back to port to finalize payment on their boat, but a second treasure map spells doom for those most desirous of instant wealth. In the end, the lone survivor is the one whose love for the sea proves to be his salvation. Nearly an hour goes by before the treasure is found, then "The Gold Bug" finally gives way to "The Tell-Tale Heart" in its depiction of a crazed killer desperately trying to cover up his crime by hiding the corpse in the drink, tied down by an oxygen tank that continuously gives way to bubbles that make it look like the dead is still struggling for air. Lon Chaney had worked on a previous Wilder title (1950's "Once a Thief..."), and continues to excel in sympathetic mode despite often being cast as wicked henchmen; it's another simple minded character like Lennie in "Of Mice and Men," but a sailor who genuinely cares about his vessel and the divers he employs (he had just finished Jack Palance's "I Died a Thousand Times," moving on to Kirk Douglas' "The Indian Fighter").

It seems pretty likely to me that this film was given the title Manfish to try and hook in the horror audience. Those who have seen the film of course know that the 'Manfish' is in actual fact the name of the boat owned by a couple of treasure hunters. This was initially disappointing to me as I was expecting a schlocky 50's monster movie, however, the film actually turned out to be alright all things considered.

The story in summary is about an unpleasant captain who is forced to join forces with an unpleasant professor in order to locate a horde of buried pirate treasure. This situation becomes a game of cat and mouse that ends very badly.

Bizarrely, this non-horror film is based on two Edgar Allan Poe stories, 'The Gold Bug' and 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. They are surprisingly well integrated into the plot-line all-in-all. In the main the film is a sea adventure but it turns into a tense thriller for the final third. It has some pleasing Jamaican on-location photography too, with some good underwater scenes. Although, it is a pretty cheap film in other regards, with a definite low-budget feel.

Lon Chaney is the top billed act, although he plays second fiddle to John Bromfield as Captain Brannigan and Victor Jory as the Professor. These two are the brawn and the brains, and they fight with each other continually. They were an impressively immoral pair to base the film around, and they were a lot of fun to watch. Chaney is the lumbering simple-minded but good-hearted ship's mate, and I suppose he provides the heart.

Manfish is certainly a minor film. But not bad as these types of films go.

John Bromfield is the busted skipper of the ship, with Lon Chaney Jr. His dull but amiable crew. . He finds a map to a pirate treasure, but can't make heads nor tails of it. Beachcomber Victor Jory can, and offers to split. But neither he nor Bromfield figure on splitting with a partner, and dead men tell no tales.

It's another B movie directed by W. Lee Wilder, whom brother Billy called "A dull son of a b***h. Fortunately he has a good underwater cameraman in Scotty Welbourne, who shoots Jamaica footage well, and his wife, Tessa Prendergast, even better. Jory acts up a storm, and that keeps the second half of this movie going.

The reason the DVD releases of this film are in black and white is because nobody can get their hands on a color print of this public domain film, a modest sea story at best.

Distributed for television thru Allied Artists, DVD's (or VHS) on the market at this time for this title are all coming from the same 16MM television print. Films distributed for television prior to 1963 were often distributed in b/w prints, because the bulk of viewers did not have color sets anyway. Striking b/w prints for television was also cheaper, as it often involved quite a few prints to cover all stations running a film on a syndicated basis.