The Sharkfighters

1956 "FIGHTING THE TERROR OF THE SEAS!"
5.1| 1h13m| en
Details

Landing on a small island not far from Havana, Cuba, Lt. Cmdr. Ben Staves joins a Navy scientific project engaged in finding an effective shark repellent to help save the lives of WWII military personnel stranded in shark-infested waters. His zeal for completing the project as fast as possible is explained by his having lost a large percentage of his crew to sharks when his ship was sunk by the Japanese. Against the advice of the others on the project, Staves demands that the new repellent be tested on a live subject surrounded by hungry sharks and will allow no one but himself to be the test subject!

AD
AD

Watch Free for 30 Days

Stream on any device, 30-day free trial Watch Now

Trailers & Clips

Reviews

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!
Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good
Rio Hayward All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS**** Beautifully tanned with a set of sparkling white teeth-like the sharks in the movie- hunk of a man Victor Mature is US Navy Lt. Cammander Ben Staves who risks his life to develop a shark repellent that can keep sharks away from their prey until help arrives. It was Staves who in fact survived a shark attack when he and his fellow shipmates were stuck on a leaking life boat that was attacked by a school of sharks in the Pacific who ended up killing and eating most of them. Now in pre-Castro 1943 Cuba he's determined to get his act together in formulating a shark repellent that can saves lives from shark attacks and is more then willing to use himself as a guinea pig to do it.It takes a while to get his crew of navy men to go along with his idea but in him always being right on target as his second in command Lt. Commander Loenard Evans grudgingly admits Staves ends up getting his way but only after one of his crew members the cocky and possibly high on pot local beach boy Carlos played by Rafael Compos,in a very similar role he played in "The Blackbord Jungle" the year before,ends up jumping off the shark hunting boat and ending up as shark bait! It's after that incident that Staves goes full blast into proving that the shark repellent he developed is worth looking into in it being mass produced for the US Navy.***SPOILERS*** Nerve wracking final with Staves in the water using himself as bait for the some dozen man eating sharks that are trying to take a bite out of him to prove him right or ending up as their main course. It's not until the repellent starts to dissipates that things get really spicy for Staves as he's forced to fight the sharks off with his knife that leads to many more sharks, smelling blood, start to join in on the feeding frenzy. In a way much better the the movie "Jaws" which just had a giant but phony looking mechanical shark in it the movie "The Sharkhunters" was far more realistic with the sharks in it being the real thing. There's also in the movie the pretty blond Karen Steele as Staves wife Martha whom he keeps out of the loop, in what he's doing, in making her think that she's only on a vacation to the Caribbean with him not in her husband risking his life for his country! P.S There's also actor James Olsen as Ensign Harold Duncan in his movie debut.
liscarkat-2 Victor Mature was self-deprecating about his acting ability, which has led to the myth that he wasn't very good. However, he's terrific in this interesting, entertaining movie about a World War II U.S. Navy commander who loses some of his crew to a shark attack and is then assigned to a research team in the Caribbean to develop an effective shark repellent. The whole cast, especially Karen Steele as Mature's wife, is excellent, and the location photography, which includes pre-Castro Havana, is beautiful. The action scenes with sharks are exciting and the outcome, given the fate of several of Mature's characters in other movies, is not certain. To top it off, Jerome Moross, perhaps the greatest of all film composers, wrote the music score. "The Sharkfighters" is well worth seeing.
cshep The Big Victor(Victor Mature) in a film about the evolution of shark repellent 1950's style, before "Jaws". Shot with one camera adds o the one-dimensional aspect. Philip Coolidge is the "Icthyologist" being aided and is always interesting to watch. Film score does help but not enough to make people care . Most interesting is Cuba before Castro aspect. Mostly for the curious. 1 star out of 10, hard to argue for more... Check other reviews for more details. Look for Claude Akins and introducing James Olson. I think film is more propaganda than entertainment.Color print I saw was poor, and camera out of focus.
billsanantonio This movie is really pushed by the phenomenal score, conceived by Jerome Moross. Victor Mature gives a solid, quite cool performance as the stereotype hero. The story is a bit thin, the finish could have been better and the supporting cast has not much space, but nevertheless it's enough to be good entertainment. Directing is handsome and the locations are pretty, the style looks sometimes a bit like documentary and that's indeed quite interesting. The scene, when the shark gets one of Matures companions is quite convincing and anyway there have been a lot of movies, where the effects around blood-thirsty animals have been much worse. As a not fully developed precursor of Spielbergs 'Jaws' this movie is definitely a recommendation.