Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961)

"It's all right -- be calm, everybody. The boat is insured."

Our film opens in the midst of the Cuban revolution as interpreted by artist Paul Julian, who gives us another quite nifty opening animated credit sequence. And with the fall of Batista imminent, several of his Generals abscond with a good chunk of the national treasury and arrange to sneak both it and them out of the country with the help of that American expatriate, gambler, and all around no-goodnik, Renzo Capetto (Carbone, looking like he just wandered off the set of a third-rate, botchilized dinner theater production of To Have and To Have Not (1944) and got lost).

Also along for this clandestine ride is Capetto's deviously deadly mol, Mary-Belle Monahan (Jones-Moreland), and the motley crew of his cabin-cruiser / Tardis (-- judging by how much room there is inside that thing); a trio of boobs that probably wouldn't pass muster on the S.S. Minnow, starting with Monahan's idiot younger brother, Happy Jack (Bean -- in a role originally intended for Corman); followed by the idiot first mate, Pete Peterson (Dickerson), who, after a rash of severe cranial traumas, mostly communicates with wild animal calls. And rounding things out is another idiot by the name of Sparks Moran (Towne -- another Corman protege, who would go on to write The Last Detail (1973) and Chinatown (1974), who just so happens to be an undercover government spook sent to keep tabs on Capetto; and who also has a knack for making communication devices out of kitchen condiments -- that Peterson keeps eating. 

Anyways, after they set sail, having lost his gambling interest to Uncle Fidel and the Fuller-Brush Beard Brigade, Capetto aims to even-out those losses by stealing the treasure out from under his charter. To do this, however, he must first thin out the dozen or so Cubans on board first. And to do this without raising suspicions, Capetto comes up with a hair-brained scheme to concoct a monster, based on the old Hemingway legend to take the blame for the impending fatalities. (Wait, you say. The Old Man and the Sea Monster? Really? Yeah, well, just roll with him.)

Thus, with the help of a couple sharpened hand rakes and a handy plunger, Capetto's plan commences without a hitch -- that is, until a real monster shows up and starts clandestinely munching on his passengers, too… 

As with most of Roger Corman's early productions, the story of making the film was usually a lot more entertaining than the finished product itself. Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), though a whole six-pack of irreverent stupidity all on its own, was no different.

This time, seems back in 1960 old Roger got wind that there were certain tax incentives to be fleeced if he filmed his latest opus in Puerto Rico. Already headed there on someone else's dime to produce and shoot Battle on Blood Island (1960), as was his modus operandi, Corman planned to film a second feature for his and brother Gene Corman's fledgling Filmgroup enterprise by, one, using the same crew; and two, cutting every corner he could, logistically speaking -- especially in the room and board department for the cross-pollinated cast and crew, packing them all into one bungalow with a malfunctioning toilet and no food since the only refrigerator was stuffed with film-stock to protect it from the heat and humidity; and three, by bilking some extra money from another one of his productions back in the States, most likely Harvey Berman’s The Wild Ride (1960).

The end result of these efforts was The Last Woman on Earth (1960), another gonzo epic that merits its own write-up that I'll get to someday. Honest. Anyhoo, when the two week shoot for that film was wrapping up, Corman realized he would have a few extra rolls of half-frozen film leftover and enough money for about five more days of shooting. Plenty of both to get a third feature in the can.

Always one to recycle anything and everything, a quick call to Chuck Griffith got the ball rolling, who was told to basically cannibalize his script for Naked Paradise / Thunder Over Hawaii (1957), already re-used once before in South Dakota by Monte Hellman with Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). Thus and so, Corman trotted out the same heist-gone-wrong plot again; only this time, fresh off the critical success of the minimalist absurdity of A Bucket of Blood (1959) and The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), he wanted this third feature to be another backdoor comedy.

Remember, before films like A Bucket of Blood and Creature from the Haunted Sea, Corman had always balked at doing a comedy because, by his own admission, his skills weren't good enough and he didn't have the time nor money to experiment, which is why he’d always stuck with a known commodity: Westerns, Action, and Sci-Fi. According to others, however, the analytical and technical director was balking because he was kinda dense on the difference as to what was actually funny and what actually was not.

Still, some comedic elements were starting to sneak in, via long-time collaborator Griffith, with the likes of Not of this Earth (1957); and then finally, with A Bucket of Blood, another five-day, $35,000 wonder, Griffith convinced Corman that he didn't have anything to lose. And so, Corman took the plunge, once Griffith explained to his clueless director on how to pull it off by, basically, taking his absurdist script about a homicidal sculptor becoming a cause célèbre amongst the beatniks when he turns his victims into macabre works of art and playing it straight for the camera.

And that trick worked pretty well for our featured feature, too. Here, Corman put his faith in the hands of a game cast and just let the camera roll. The results were a weird and wonky goof of a film. Granted, not all of the ensuing bedlam works, but there were enough bits of business, I think, to sustain this thing to the bitter end. I especially liked the running gag with the toilet plunger, and how Moran's attempts to woo Mary-Belle away from Capetto usually wound-up in some form of grievous bodily harm as she always beats the holy crap out of him. And, if nothing else, there's always that goofy-assed monster to gawk at.

Stuck in Puerto Rico and unwilling to import anyone else, Corman turned to his jack-of-all-trades, Beach Dickerson, to create his monster for the princely sum of $150. 

Using a stack of helmets from that war movie, some chicken-wire, and a ton of Brillo pads for the misshapen head, the body consisted of a lacquered wet-suit covered in strips of oil-cloth and more shredded sponges for that briny-deep sensation, while the feet appear to be nothing more than an off the rack set of scuba-flippers.

 "ME WANT COOKIE!!!"

Meanwhile, the beast's deadly teeth and claws were also nothing more than carved balsa-wood and stripped pipe-cleaners. And those great-googly-moogly eyes were a combination of tennis and ping-pong balls. And to bring this gangly critter to life, I believe Dickerson split time with co-star Robert Bean for that dubious honor. And for once, and somewhat fittingly, their creation was destined to have the last laugh on everybody:

"We have always killed off our monsters with fire, electricity, floods, whatever,” said Corman in his autobiography, How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime. “The final shot in this picture is the monster sitting on the chest of gold at the bottom of the ocean floor. The skeletons of all the people in the picture are scattered around him and he's picking his teeth. That's it. The monster wins."

Again, the movie itself was only half the story; for even after filming was completed Corman's tropical misadventures were far from over. Seems veteran cinematographer Jacques Marquette -- The Brain from Planet Arous (1957) and Attack of the 50ft Woman (1958), refused to stay in Corman's impromptu barracks and opted, instead, for the local Hilton, where he would invite other cast and crew members to eat and charged it all to his producer. 

All well and good, but, according to Marquette, and corroborated by Jones-Moreland, when the shooting wrapped it appeared Corman was ready to sneak out of the country and skip out on the hotel bill; basically stranding the rest of the cast and crew, who weren't paid yet, leaving them with no means to get home. Not one to be jerked-around, Marquette seized and hid several rolls of film for all three pictures and did not return them until all the bills were paid and all those cast and crew paychecks cleared.

Now, the above tale is hardly an isolated incident when it came to Roger Corman. And even though I like his movies a lot, and his frugal reputation and uncanny knack for finding worthwhile talent and giving them a chance is well earned, from everything I've ever seen and read about the guy, I've always felt that Corman, personally, was kind of a turd. A totally endearing turd, sure, but a turd nonetheless.

And I'm always baffled how this cinematic grifter was able to con the same people, who should've known better, into not only working for him, but bending over backwards to help him get his film in the can again and again and again. "Cheap and generous, an artist and a chiseler" perhaps our featured heroine sums up the dichotomy that is Roger Corman best: 

“Roger Corman could charm snakes off bird eggs. He could charm anybody into doing anything on the planet,” said Betsy Jones-Moreland in a later interview with Tom Weaver for Double Feature Creature Attack. “He has a gift for making you feel like you're part of something important. Albeit it's not important and you're not a part of it [but] he makes you feel like it is and you are. You can't not like Roger. He's a monster, but he's a man with great drive and tremendous energy. He discovered people, he employed people, he used people. Yeah -- he used people...

"You have to be lured by the wonderful, wonderful smile and that ability to make you feel important. Anybody, anywhere has got to respond to that. You have to respond to that feeling that he's taking you in and you're part of the family and your input is important. He just generates that, and I don't even think he works at it. I think it just happens."

Thus and so, it looks like our lovable “monster” always won in the end. 

Originally posted on June 18, 2011, at Micro-Brewed Reviews.

Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961) The Filmgroup / P: Roger Corman / AP: Charles Hannawalt / D: Roger Corman / W: Charles B. Griffith / C: Jack Marquette / E: Angela Scellars / S: Antony Carbone, Betsy Jones-Moreland, Robert Towne, Beach Dickerson, Robert Bean