She Gods of Shark Reef (Rhoades)

“She Gods” Extols Wild, Wonderful Women
Reviewed by Shirrel Rhoades

I’m a big fan of Roger Corman, the cheapie movie producer who reminisced about his career in a book accurately titled “How I Made A Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime.”

Of course, he never spent a dime in making them. At least, that’s what you’d think after watching a number of his low-budget productions.

He once joked that he could make a film about The Fall of the Roman Empire with two actors and a sagebush.

However, the secret of his success was more than just pecuniary tightfistedness. It was also his knack for picking up-and-comer actors and assistants. Among them: Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Peter Bogdanovich, Dennis Hopper, Bruce Dern, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Peter Fonda, and Robert De Niro. An impressive group of protégées.

No such luck in “She Gods of Shark Reef,” the Roger Corman film that’s showing tomorrow night at the Tropic Cinema. November’s theme for these Monday night classics is Wild, Wonderful Women.

This 1958 B-movie was directed by Corman himself. And it stars such unknowns as Bill Cord and Don Durant.

Cord and Durant play two brothers who escape to an uncharted South Seas island after one of them kills two men in a botched heist. As fate would have it, the isle is inhabited by beauteous female pearl divers.

The good brother falls for one of the wild, wonderful women (Lisa Montell). The bad brother seeks to escape before a Navy ship comes to their rescue – and arrest. They eventually make off in a rickety island boat, but let’s not forget the sharks in the film’s title.

You’ll hoot, you’ll holler, you’ll enjoy the campy adventures of this Roger Corman flick. If it’s not so great, give Corman some slack: he made 8 bargain-basement films that year alone.

srhoades@aol.com
[from Solares Hill]