SPLASH (1984)

Forrest Gump is knocked unconscious when he falls off a boat near Cape Cod and he would have drown if he hadn't been saved by a mermaid (Daryl Hannah) who falls in love with him.  Stuff happens and the mermaid follows him back to New York City.  They hook up (she can somehow magically grow legs when she's out of the water) and then all kinds of "only in the movies" problem arise simply because she refuses to tell him she's a part-time mermaid.  Stuff like a mermaid obsessed scientist (Eugene Levy) stalking them, the government getting involved, her hiding from the rain, him being confused as fuck all the time, etc.  Also, at one point he illegally parks directly in front of a police station and doesn't get murdered by the police.  Totally unbelievable.

This was my first time seeing SPLASH and I'm kinda confused as to why it made so much money in the theaters back in 1984.  It's a okay film, but nothing special.  Yet somehow it made three million more than THE TERMINATOR and THE LAST STARFIGHTER combined!!!  It was the #10 money maker for the year!  I guess it was a good date movie or some of it could be attributed the desperate nerds wanting to wack off to Daryl Hannah's ass. Who knows. I've never been a part of normal human society so maybe something in this film was lost on me.

Mediocre story, average acting, no real laugh out loud moments only a few chuckles, John Candy in a few scenes not doing much, Ron Howard's dad, Ron Howard's brother, cool NYC street scenes including (in the highlight of the movie) an awesome looking theater showing a double-feature of THE EVIL DEAD and XTRO playing right next to a porno theater(?) showing films called THE MISTRESS, SWEET CHEEKS and SKINTIGHT...not even sure if those are real movies.

MR. PEABODY AND THE MERMAID (1948)

Forty-nine year-old Mr. Peabody (played by 56 year-old William Powell) goes on a Caribbean vacation with his wife, who's 17 years younger than him.  It's never explains how, but somehow they have enough money to rent a beachside mansion with a full-service staff.  Anyway, 56 year-old Powell is depressed that he's going to be turning 50 soon, so he goes for a walk and he hears some annoying, I mean, beautiful singing coming from a nearby island.  He goes out there and...nothing happens.  Finally, 26 minutes into the film, he meets the mermaid in the title, so he promptly brings her home and dumps her in the bathtub.  Then, for whatever bizarre Hollywood logic reason, his once loving wife suddenly turns mean when she sees a large fishtail sticking out of the water.  So now, for nearly the remainder of the film, it's just Powell hanging out by his pool doing nothing.  I was surprised at how unfunny MR. PEABODY AND THE MERMAID was!  I thought this was suppose to be a comedy?

Ann Blyth is absolutely gorgeous (her beauty is the highlight of the film), but she has nothing to work with.  She never says a word and spends the entire film simply floating around in the water.  Also, the character of Powell's wife (played by Irene Hervey) was completely unlikable.  Slow pace, non-existent humor (example: the mermaid cries while underwater and wipes her tears away with a handkerchief.  Hardy-har-har.), woman littering on the beach, very little mermaid swimming action, dead on arrival acting, unsatisfactory ending.

I love William Powell, but this movie is lame as Hell.  Skip it.

It's a little known fact that the girl that Frankenstein's monster threw into the lake actually turned into a mermaid and that the monster himself escaped the fire at the mill.  They later hooked up and ran off to Hollywood, CA were they lived happily ever after and operated a pet store for the next 54 years until it burned down.  The fire was captured in the documentary PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE.  After collecting the insurance money from the fire they retired and moved to Cedar Park, TX where I still occasionally see them holding hands.