Omoo-Omoo the Shark God
Omoo-Omoo the Shark God
| 09 June 1949 (USA)
Omoo-Omoo the Shark God Trailers

The curse of a shark god follows a group of people who have violated a sacred jungle idol.

Reviews
Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.
Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity
Alistair Olson After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
bkoganbing Imagine my shock to learn that this film was based on a Herman Melville novel. I checked into Wikipedia and learned that Omoo-Omoo The Shark God was a sequel novel to Melville's first published work Typee. The film adaption of Typee was nothing to write home about. But next to this it is Citizen Kane. I'm sure the book was nothing like what we get here.Now if you said this was an Edgar Allan Poe story I might believe it better. A schooner bound for the South Seas is on a mission to recover two stolen black pearls that Captain Trevor Bardette stashed before he could get away. Those black babies were the eyes of the native Shark God, Omoo-Omoo. And Omoo-Omoo has tossed some mighty bad karma in the direction of Bardette and later his daughter Devera Burton.Ron Randell one of the crew of Bardette's schooner has made friends with Chief Pedro DeCordoba and he's working to recover the pearls without a finder's fee, just a chance to get away alive and with Ms. Burton. But the rest of that crew wants those pearls.I can only imagine what Herman Melville would have thought of this. This one is cheap all around. No color which would have been a must for a story set in the South Seas. The players looked pained delivering the dialog probably because it was so bad and because they were worried their salary checks might not clear. Lots of stock footage from various jungle films used and some shots from an aquarium no doubt.Probably they had no shark footage so a tiger which we all know is native to the Pacific Islands is brought in to do the shark god's dirty work.Don't criticize Ed Wood for making bad films before you see this.
JohnHowardReid Camp? No! Well made? No! Good acting? No! Competent director? No! In fact this is the only film directed by Leon Leonard. Thrilling screenplay? No! In fact, this is also the only film written by Leon Leonard. Before he surfaced for Omoo, Leonard's only other association with the movies occurred way back in 1930 in which he acted in a Rudy Vallee short called "Campus Sweethearts" and was actually billed ahead of Ginger Rogers. Solid production values? No! Made on a shoestring budget? Definitely! Moody photography? Yes! Thank you, Benjamin H. "Tough Assignment" Kline! Based on the 1847 novel by Herman Melville? Sort of! Other info: Aside from a small, uncredited part in "The Threat" (1949), this is the only film appearance of its female "star", Devera Burton. The male star, however, Australian actor, Ron Randell who played the title role in "Smithy" (1946), went on to have a most distinguished career on the Broadway stage which, oddly enough, ran parallel to an extensive movie (mostly minor films) and TV career (mostly – except for the "O.S.S." series in which he played Captain Frank Hawthorn – "guest" roles). Available on a very good Alpha DVD.
dbborroughs A ship heads to Tahiti in order to recover some hidden pearls. The captain of the ship is sick, a native stowaway insisting that the illness is tied to the captains stealing of two huge black pearls that were the eyes of the natives' shark god statue. Its greed, romance and spliced in nature footage as some of the crew seek to make things right while others are looking for the treasure. Nominally based on a Herman Melville story this is mostly a concoction of Hollywood story telling with a Bengal tiger figuring prominently into the story (wasn't this about a shark god?).Creaky set bound film best known for its unique title rather than for any quality or lack there of. Neither good nor bad the film just sort of is. It's the type of thing that one used to run across at 3am on the Late and then half remember in the daylight. In this case it's the sort of thing that you remember the title of because it sounds so silly. Worth a look only if you need to know what is hidden behind the legendary title of the film. All others are advised to look elsewhere. (and if you do pick this up with the intention of doing so make sure its part of one of the numerous multi-film packs that it appears in so you get maximum bang for your buck)
dwpollar 1st watched 2/18/2007 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Leon Leonard): Fair adventure movie based on a novel by the author of Moby Dick fame, Herman Melville. This movie is about the captain of a ship who had stolen the eyes(that were extremely rare black pearls) from a native tribe's God sculpture and hidden them somewhere that only he knew about before leaving the Island of Tivi. He got very sick and was on a secret voyage to go back to the island to retrieve the pearls for himself while others(like his daughter) thought that he was going back to be treated by the local medicine man. Others didn't know the reason for the voyage. A stowaway actually knew the real reason for the trip -- to return the eyes to their God. The silly part is that the pearls were hidden very close to the statue and all this time the natives ran their tribe without their God having eyes(causing them all kinds of problems). Along the way, we are treated(for some reason) to a short underwater nature show with an electric eel fighting a local octopus(I guess only Herman Melville knows what this was all about). Once they get to the island, the Captain dies but passes the whereabouts of the pearls to his daughter but she also gets the sickness curse as well. One of the bad guys finds out where the God is housed and convinces the daughter to go there and steal back the pearls but at this point the good guys find out what's going on and a fight ensues. I won't tell you the results of the fight or the ending, I'll leave that up to you to find out if you want. As I said earlier, the movie was OK, but some very silly things that I've already mentioned lessened it's impact. I wonder if that new "Pirates of the Caribbean" got some of it's plot from this one ---hmm… black pearls, a curse( I wonder…) Well, it doesn't matter, those elements didn't make for a very good movie in this case or the other. It seems they would learn they're lesson, but with the money rolling in on that newer movie I'm sure they won't. Oh well.
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