Tiger Shark

Tiger Shark (1932)

Runtime: 77 minutes

Directed by: Howard Hawks

Starring: Edward G. Robinson, Richard Arlen, Zita Johann, Leila Bennett, Vince Barnett

From: Warner Bros.

You had me at “Mustached Edward G. Robinson plays a Portuguese tuna fisherman w/ a hook for a left hand and a single earring.”

Another theme for this month on Turner Classic Movies is that each Thursday night they will play a few Robinson pictures. As his role just sounded incredible on the surface and it's from Howard Hawks, it was not a difficult choice for me. G sports an accent I'll describe as “generically foreign” but that's alright as he was a delight in the role. Then again, the other two in the love triangle he's in (Richard Arlen and Zita Johann) also delivered solid performances.

Robinson was not a Tiger Shark King as they were a constant source of trouble while off the coast of California; this was how he lost his appendage and it killed various crewmen. On the shore, there's the drama of him in a marriage of Johann where she only married him due to his kindness rather than love. There was never a dull moment with all the colorful characters and Robinson always a charmer despite his occasional gruffness. It was also appreciated by me the segment where a few minutes is spent seeing the crew catch a big load of fish. Tiger Shark was a nice look at a blue collar community and that moment helped establish the difficulty and strife in the commercial fisherman field.

From hearsay I understand that Robinson's 1941 movie Manpower has pretty much the exact same plot except for a difference in profession. At least my opinion of Tiger Shark can be offered: it is pretty good.