You wouldn't know this was a Howard Hawks movie if you hadn't read the credits. It was a bit early in his ouevre for his obsessions to have firmed up. There isn't much in the way of a solidary professional male group into which a tough wise-cracking woman earns her way. There's male rivalry, though, and Quita is sui generis, with broad features and a low voice, prefiguring maybe Lauren Bacall, although by no means as devastating looking. The plot is rudimentary, going back to Camelot at least. A tuna boat out of San Diego, with Mike (Robinson) as skipper. He loses a crew member on a trip, comes home and breaks the news to the daughter, whom he is meeting for the first time. She's had a tough life. Mike, a generous outgoing likable guy with a scarcely believable Portugese accent, falls for her. She agrees to marry him but warns him that she doesn't love him. Mike doesn't care. He's not exactly a Jungian thinking type. On their wedding night, Mike throws a big bash at his colorful apartment on the docks. There is dancing, singing, eating and drinking. There are even family members, although how they sneaked into a Hawks film we'll never now. His later characters will not have much in the way of family background. Alas, over time, Quita and another of Mike's crew, Pipes (a funny nickname already!), come to feel a certain warmth for one another. When Mike discovers this he becomes enraged and tries to throw Pipes to the very sharks that took Mike's own forearm. "Them!", Mike hollers, "they of the sea! They decide everything." Unfortunately for Mike, they decide in Pipes' favor. As Mike is bleeding to death, he retains his good cheer, showing a big smile as he nods gently off, "They . . . decide everything." Again, it really isn't very Hawksian. Later in life, Hawks claimed that he always tried to have his heroes live at the end of the movie because, "Why would anybody want to kill off characters that the audience likes?" A perfectly reasonable question -- for another guy who was never a Jungian thinking type.
Review of Tiger Shark
