Devil Monster (1946)

This is an edited version of a ten-year-old film, _Sea Fiend, The (1936)_ .

Director:

S. Edwin Graham

Writers:

Thelma Brooks (story), Juan Duval (adaptation),

Stars:

Barry Norton, Blanche Mehaffey, Jack Barty

Cast

Cast overview:
Barry Norton	...	Robert Jackson (archive footage)
Blanche Mehaffey	...	Louise (archive footage) (as Blanche Mehaffy)
Jack Barty	...	Capt. Jackson (archive footage) (as J. Barton)
Terry Grey	...	Tiny (archive footage)
Jack Del Rio	...	Jose Francisco (archive footage)
Mary Carr	...	Mother of Jose (archive footage)
William Lemuels	...	Native Chief (archive footage) (as Bill Lemuels)
Maya Owalee	...	Maya (archive footage)
Donato Cabrera	...	Malo (archive footage)

Storyline

A schooner disappears at sea without a trace. Years later, evidence of possible survivors prompts the mother of the schooner's mate Jose to hire a tuna boat to investigate. They discover the lad living happily on a South Seas island, and, when he refuses to leave with them, they abduct him. However, Jose gets revenge by leading the ship into the lair of a mysterious giant manta ray.

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Plot Keywords:

sea | schooner | tuna | south sea island | monster | 

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Taglines:

A vivid tale of savage adventure!

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Genres:

Adventure | Horror

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

1946 (USA)

Also Known As:

Etelämeren kummitus

Company Credits

Production Co:

Excelsior Pictures Corp.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

60 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Did You Know?

Goofs

In some scenes the "native" woman are black, in other scenes they're Asian, and in other scenes they're white.

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Connections

Edited from The Sea Fiend (1936)

User Reviews

This is the stupidest movie I've ever seen.

And I've seen a lot of them. There is more stock footage in this thing than any movie I know except "Jungle Hell" (1956). The only difference is that "Jungle Hell" was all elephants. This one's all sea lions. On and on and on about the stupid sea lions while the stupid crew in their stupid boat looks for stupid Juan Francisco.

Much of the stock footage that isn't sea lions is native women of the South Pacific. I don't know if the editors were blind or what, but whoever was in charge of splicing the stock footage together didn't seem to mind that the women were mongoloid one minute, negroid the next, and caucasoid the next. They change races with surprising speed.

There is another prominent stock footage scene. An octopus in an aquarium (you can see him stick to the glass, and you can see the reflection of lights on the glass) battles a moray eel. The eel is defending all his little fish buddies from the mean old octopus. I'm not making this up. This is presented as if it were happening in the ocean for crying out loud. Who wins? Watch and find out!

Lots of stock footage of men fishing provides for some humor as the overdubbed voices say things like, "Watch out for my face." But it gets tiring after several minutes of the same stupid footage of the same stupid men catching the same stupid fish.

Alas, there is one more big stock footage scene. This one's of the devil monster. It's not a devil, and it's not really a monster. What is it? Let's just say it's not the kind of monster you were hoping for. Juan, who they did find at the end of all those sea lions, battles the "monster". Again, you'll have to watch to find out what happens.

What really surprises me is that the IMDB says this was edited down from a longer, older movie. That tells me that (1) someone thought the original was worth redoing, (2) someone thought this version was better, and (3) the original must've been worse. I can't imagine.