Sh! The Octopus (1937)

Not long after their investigation begins, a host of oddball characters arrives on the scene, including the aptly named Captain Hook (George Rosener), a self-described "marine painter" (John Eldredge), a shipwrecked woman (Margaret Irving), and more -- all behaving strangely. There may also be a body hanging from the rafters. The title refers to a newspaper headline describing a "giant crime octopus" that was read aloud by a pill-popping Kelly in the opening reel, but also to the creature that lurks near the bottom of the lighthouse, fidgeting its tentacles, slamming doors, and assaulting the occasional diver.

It runs just 54 minutes, and it's obvious the film was shot on the cheap, so there's no point in beating up on it for its terminal staginess, or some technical missteps. The performances are all game, and I have to admit that I chuckled at Herbert's incessant "woo-hoo" schtick, which is said to have inspired those early characterizations of Daffy Duck. 

What's surprising is the mileage director William McGann gets out of his effects budget. Those tentacles appear on screen often enough to rouse an audience that might be getting a little sleepy, and a full-size octopus puppet is seen in a couple of shots. Though the effect is resolutely phony, the film is good-natured enough to encourage the viewer's complicity in the illusion. And McGann scores major points with a shot near the end of the film in which the villain of the piece, finally revealed, transforms into a hideous fiend as the camera rolls. McGann got his start as a cinematographer (including work on Three Ages, with Buster Keaton) and later in his career would become a special-effects specialist on films including The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, and The Fountainhead -- and earning an Oscar nomination for the 1946 film A Stolen Life, in which Bette Davis played twin sisters.

Finally, there's a twist ending that plays as a cheeky parody of The Wizard of Oz -- but The Wizard of Oz hadn't even begun principal photography when Sh! The Octopus was released. Just a weird coincidence, then -- one that's apropos for this weird little film. (Unfortunately, it's not available on DVD -- I caught it as part of what was apparently an octopus-movie marathon on TCM over the weekend, courtesy of a mention from the weird-little-film aficionados over at the Mobius Home Video Forum.) C+