Tiger Shark

How many times has this plot been used? The older guy--hearty, well-liked, a good man--wins the pretty young thing, but she's attracted to his best friend. It's like "They Knew What They Wanted," with Edward G. Robinson changing Charles Laughton's Italian accent to Portuguese and becoming an ace fisherman instead of a vintner. He's wonderful, in a showy yet subtle performance, and the beautiful Zita Johann is a prize worth fighting for. The writing isn't wonderful, though--we never understand why this lying blowhard is so popular, and the third side of the triangle, Richard Arlen, is given no personality at all. Howard Hawks must have liked the maritime setting, or just being on a boat, because there are yards of irrelevant footage of tuna fishing, leading to a climax that's not very clearly edited (just how does Arlen get out of this, and why does Eddie G. do such a turnaround?). But it leads to a moving big finale. It's atmospheric, with lots of outdoors shooting that makes it seem less studio-bound, and Robinson is always worth watching.

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.

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.

Had the bizarre fishing-village-set TIGER SHARK come out ten years later, it would've made a pretty intriguing Film Noir, following the trope of the pretty young girl marrying an older businessman while falling in love with the handsome younger fella who has no money, and is friends with the rich guy...

In this case that rich guy, before there was any money and when he had both hands... during the more adventuresome Hemingway-meets-Melville first act... saves the life of Richard Arlen as common fisherman Pipes Boley by losing one hand to the titular (yet thereafter unimportant) TIGER SHARK, later replaced with a hook...

Making Edward G. Robinson more a gentleman dandy than the pirate he'd seem... and his only real handicap is baby-faced ingenue Zita Johann, feeling no chemistry with Robinson's Mike Mascarenhas as a husband, leading to when and how he'll discover where her love is going...

Which does genuinely provide the short/stout firebrand the kind of dangerous potential for the audience to anticipate his inevitable explosion...

But too much time's spent on the searing romantic triangle when an actor like Robinson needed and deserved more of an edgy potboiler than this morality play programmer.

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.