GamerTab That was an excellent one.

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

dmayo-911-597432 Critics who deign to notice this movie at all have nothing good to say about it, and what they do say runs to far fewer words than you're about to read if you bear with me. Reviewing a thing like this is for people who can see a glass as half full even when it's nearly bone dry. I am such a one.Consider that the stars are Hugh Herbert and Allen Jenkins. Jenkins was an iconic supporting player: the tough-sounding but easygoing, nasal-voiced, weary-eyed New York working man or minor crook. His spirit lives on in the type, even for those who have somehow missed his own performances. However, a movie in which he's a star is bound to be small beer.The other star, Hugh Herbert, is a study in the fleeting nature of fame. Once he must have had quite a strong presence in moviegoers' minds, for his unidentified caricature appears in a Disney cartoon, "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" (1938), along with those of the Marx Brothers, Charles Laughton, W. C. Fields, and other enduring stars (but also others like himself who have not endured). Today, it's unlikely that anything about him would ring a bell with most non-buffs. He seems to exist not only in the past, but in a parallel past of secret fame. One would like to think that this fate was visited on him as punishment for his tedious trademark: saying "woo-woo" at crucial junctures.The opening scene of Sh! The Octopus finds Herbert and Jenkins in their star vehicle, a police car, driving along a lonely country road on a stormy night. So you see, the glass is going to appear half full if only you're in the mood. This is a burlesque of spooky-house mysteries. It goes beyond parody -- well, beneath it -- and revels in zany riffs.The ultimate setting, which we reach after a few more minutes on the country road, is a deserted lighthouse with as many sliding panels as one finds in the better sort of ancestral mansion. The riffs are played not only on the hackneyed situations of the genre, but also on the stock characters who turn up in it. These include the vulnerable but determined young woman with a missing inventor stepfather who screams just like Fay Wray (the young woman, not the stepfather) and the suave young man who may or may not be deceiving her.Then there's the not-so-young woman with something to hide, the straitlaced but comforting old nanny, the gentle old salt, and the jeering old salt for good measure. The usual bumbling, bickering police detectives are played by the stars.The metropolitan police are beleaguered by a crime network called the Octopus. The lighthouse is beleaguered by a real octopus. The missing stepfather is presumably of interest to the first of these. When asked who he is, the young woman promptly replies, "He's the inventor of a radium ray so powerful that anyone who controls it controls the world."Though it's a stormy night and the lighthouse is on an island three miles from shore, characters (including the nanny) keep arriving with no apparent difficulty. Such blithe staginess, along with the assembly of types, gives this little film the feeling of an extended revue skit. For most of its length, it's only a mind-clearing diversion. Then, when a certain performance shifts into high gear, it becomes a night to remember. To say more about that would be spoiling too much.As silly as this film is, it leaves us with something of value: a renewed understanding of what it means to be a journeyman actor. Even though we think we're watching plays or films intelligently, a well-executed type can tempt us to believe that the actor hasn't much else to offer. There's usually nothing to pull us back from that temptation. When characters in an Agatha Christie mystery reveal hidden identities, the revelations come as nothing more than new information about the same people. But here, where no semblance of reality is required, the actors can drop their types and take on utterly different personalities. Several do so before the story ends, and one of these is granted the chance for a bravura turn. You may never get it out of your head, but that's all right. It will make your head a better, more freakish place.The five-star rating I've given this movie does not mean I'm dissatisfied with it. I'd call that a high mark for a minor romp. As part of a double feature, it's worth half the price of a ticket.

gmda Entertaining comedy. While I was watching this, many of the lines were said in a way that reminded me of some other people. Martin and Lewis came to mind. Bing and Bob came to mind. But then it "HIT" me. They are really, Abbott and Costello. 3-4 years early. And the act works. I am thinking that by the time A&C came along, the formula had been perfected, or at least improved on, and that the time for this type of team comedy was ready to take off. Even down to the way lines are said, many that Hugh Herbert makes down in the basement of the lighthouse, when he is alone, is totally Lou Costello. I am wondering if A&C were just mimicking this style of comedy with their own spin. Great as they were. I enjoyed them very much, as well as the others I mentioned.The movie, as a movie, is very enjoyable and moves along at a good pace. I had a good time, and that was the point, then as now.

fibbermac ...this film is downright silly.Being such a fan of Hugh Herbert, I went to great lengths to acquire a DVD of this film and I really wanted to like it, but outside of a few comical moments, I was let down by this film.Hugh Herbert would eventually star in a series of Columbia 2-reel comedy shorts and this film plays much more like one of those Columbia 2-reelers than a feature put out by Warner Bros./First National.It is odd that in such a slipshod production, the special effects are surprisingly well done. Like when they used the remarkable on-screen transition effect mentioned by other reviewers to expose the true identity of the "Octopus". This was only the 4th time I've seen this effect being used in a feature film. (The other three were: The 1935 film "Werewolf of London" where the effect is used on Henry Hull in the very initial portion of his first on-screen transformation into the werewolf, the 1931 version of "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" where Fredric March becomes Hyde for the first time, and the 1925 version of "Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ" where the transition effect is used to show a woman being miraculously healed of her leprosy.) Although, a quick review of the career of William McGann, who directed this film, shows that his one nomination for an Academy Award came, not for directing, but for Special Effects (Visual), for the 1946 film "A Stolen Life" starring Bette Davis. So maybe the use of that transition effect in this clunky little film isn't so strange after all. Judging from this film, McGann appears to have been much better at special effects than at directing.Fans of Hugh Herbert or Allen Jenkins will probably find this film worthwhile. I suspect all others are in for a loooong 54 minutes.

aberlour36 How can you make a bad movie with Allan Jenkins and Hugh Herbert? We now know it's possible. The script is hopeless. The acting, aside from the two main characters, is terrible. The sets are cheap and at times seem ready to fall down. I'll bet that the film was made in less than a week.This is the classic two comics in a haunted house. The result makes Monogram's Charlie Chan series look professional and expensive. I rather like "B" films, but this is a "C." I'll wager that the kids in the Saturday matinées laughed when the fake octopus tentacles come reaching out of the wall to grab people. But why go on? This is a stinker, mercifully unavailable in standard VHS or DVD format.