Splash

How to make love to a fish. That would sum up the bizarre story of this sweet and wild comedy featuring fantastic roles by Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah.

However ludicrous the story might be, the movie really entices me with its wit and charm. Lovely and funny. Hilarious supporting role by John Candy, one of his best.

The story is really about falling in love with a mermaid, played by Darryl Hannah. She is human out of the water and only becomes a fish in the water. Can fish and human get together and fall in love? Wait and see.

Recommended for all ages. This is one heck of a great family film, wich could be enjoyed by young and old.

The true star of this movie is undeniably Tom Hanks. The youthful energy of Tom Hanks just splashes across the screen in this movie. This movie launched his career way back in the eighties.

I recently saw an old David Letterman interview with Tom Hanks prior to the release of this movie, and man, did they NOT know back then how BIG Tom Hanks and this movie would become!

Hanks, in his younger years, was an uncontrollable force of comedy and wild antics. Seen it over 10 times by now, for sure. For every Tom Hanks fan this great comedy is a must watch. For anyone else just longing for a hilarious romantic comedy, they dont come much better than this!!!

SPLASH (1984) **** Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy, Eugene Levy, Shecky Greene. Excellent fantasy comedy directed by Ron Howard about produce salesman Hanks who, unbeknownst to him, falls in love with a mermaid (innocently played nicely by Hannah) in Manhattan and asking the immortal question: Is love blind? Superb support ably handled by Candy as Hanks' would-be swinging bachelor brother and Levy as a mad-as-a-hatter obsessed marine biologist intent on exposing Madison (named after the avenue). Best bits: Hanks' opening soliloquy about him not finding love in a bar and Hannah's gift of love: a water fountain.

My brother bought this for me on DVD as a Christmas gift in 2006, every year on Valentine's Day I watch it because I'm a big fan of the romantic comedy genre.

Director Ron Howard with the help of writing team Babaloo Mandel & Lowell Ganz created a timeless, funny and enchanting romantic comedy that's so magical it's also classic. The cast is well selected, Tom Hanks is one of Hollywood's brightest stars I remember seeing him on television as Kip Wilson from Bosom Buddies and Ned Donnelly from a few episodes of Family Ties. His portrayal of a lonely businessman who falls for a woman with a secret was comical and sweet.

Darryl Hannah is lovely and whimsical as the mermaid, she doesn't act like a dumb blonde but rather a curious beauty trying to navigate through a world she's never been in before. The chemistry between her & Hanks is smart & touching. John Candy's break out role as Freddie Bauer Allen's older, bachelor womanizing brother was a laugh a minute great. There's a memorable scene in which Allen, Freddie and Dr. Kornbluth played by the brilliant Eugene Levy make a rescue plan to save Madison. She tells him not to feel guilty about not loving her anymore, He says "Oh Madison". "All the time we were together, you always knew how I was feeling. Can't you tell now? then they kissed. The song Love Came For Me sung by Rita Coolidge during the part where the happy couple swims away together and while the credits rolled was a moving moment.

Splash is one of 1984's best films not just for the comedy but also for the romantic fantasy displayed,I'd give it a 6.9/10.

I never saw "Splash" in the theatre, but I remember some of the media hype prior to the release of the film. And specifically I remember the much talked about production of another film staring Bo Derek and Warren Beatty. And therein lies a small fish tale.

I was working at a bookstore in a local mall prior to "Splash's" release. I was behind one of the cash registers when two men (one bald, or so I recalled, the other wearing a beret), standing above five feet, both wearing long black trench coats, and both speaking Italian (or possibly Greek), came into the store. They wanted books on mermaids, and said it was for Bo Derek's new film.

Being a shopping mall bookstore, and a small one at that, we didn't have a whole lot on mermaids. But I remember pointing them to the small mythology section, and hearing some rustling and mumbling in Italian. They came back, reminded us that it was for "Bo Derek's new film..." to which we (myself and one other employee) shrugged, and guided them to another section (children's fiction, I think). Dismayed they complained to us that there was nothing there, to which we told them that we must not have anything, and that they might want to check the library.

They left, and argued with one another out in front of the store. My coworker laughed, commenting "They know Bo Derek? Ya right!" I shrugged, and replied "You never know." Reflecting back on that episode I know understand that these were either the art directors or conceptual artists for the "other" mermaid film that was to be the basis for the mermaid-film-market that summer. Only Ron Howard was able to get his project off and completed before my two Italian patrons could get the green-light for their film.

I can't imagine what the other film would've been like. It probably would've been long, sappy, mildly amusing, and probably painted over with John Derek's supposedly "erotic" cinematography of his then wife.

Whatever.

I'm glad "Splash" came out, and was as funny as it was, and as big a hit as it was. Sometimes films don't need a market competitor, and deserve to monopolize the playing field. Not always, but sometimes they do. "Splash" could've fallen into the Mariana's trench of summer B-movies, but Howard and company had the right intuition to make the film smart, and not to put a nail in Davy Jones's locker by making "Madison" some mindless love interest.

I can imagine Bo's movie would've had her roaming naked on the screen for about a third of the film, and probably would've packed the theatres with older teenage boys and frat-rats. I guess there's a place for that sort of thing. Even so I'm glad "Splash" was the film that made the charts instead of that other one.

Splash is a really well-made Hollywood fantasy comedy, with early Tom Hanks already developing into the charismatic everyman and Darryl Hannah and John Candy at their best. But under the comedy and sweetness I have always thought there was a disturbing undertone of extreme pessimism--just what kind of ugly and cruel society do we live in, in which the mermaid Madison's only prospect is that she will be tortured, from which Hanks' character ultimately has to flee, never to see his beloved brother again? (The same dark undertone is even more pronounced, I think, in Ron Howard's next big hit Cocoon, where the old folks willingly escape an earth and families that don't seem to offer them anything anymore.)