The DVD I watched was distributed by the guys from Troma. This is the most awesome fake skyline ever, I LOVE it!
A young Burt Reynolds and sharks in a movie directed by Samuel Fuller! Hoo boy, did I get all excited for nothing. In his autobiography A Third Face, Samuel Fuller describes sitting through a private screening of the final film with Peter Bogdanovich. "What a horrible shock I had!" he writes, "They'd completely recut my movie, retitling it Man-Eater, refashioning almost every scene to suit their tastes, which were lousy... Over and over, the producers butchered scenes, destroying all trace of timing and subtlety. I was flabbergasted with their reediting." Shark! is one of a string of B-movies Fuller directed towards the end of his career where the arrangements with his producers turned out badly (Fuller eventually petitioned to have his name removed from the credits to the film). I can't believe Fuller actually sat through the entire film.
Sudan? So this is the Red Sea, I guess?
Shark! is supposedly set in Sudan but was filmed in Mexico. In it, Burt Reynolds is an American adventurer and arms dealer who agrees to cooperate with another couple in their attempts to recover treasure from a sunken ship in shark-infested waters. The copy I watched was in terrible shape. I'm no technical whiz, but it looked like it was cut into pan-and-scan -- is this part of the butchering Fuller described? The reediting was not the first bump in the road - Fuller's account of the film's shoot is one of problematic local arrangements and a script that did not inspire him. He praises Burt Reynolds for keeping his chin up and making the best of a bad situation. Trying to visualize what could have been was an impossible task for me with Shark!
Won't you at least look at me when I'm talking to you? Burt Reynolds and the back of Silvia Pinal's head.
What kind of over the shoulder shot is this!?
