THE EYE OF THE TIGER

Bogart-styled adventure mayhem with Hemingway's To Have and Have Not once again the classic model. Harry Fletcher (remember Harry Morgan?) is a charter-boat captain after the big billfish and marlin by St. Mary's Island off the South African coast. Harry's bills pile up during the off season and when a charter fare fails to show, Harry goes for dirty money to bail himself out. Two gangsters on board turn on him after retrieving a sunken package (it has a strange big bell in it), so Harry kills them but not before taking a slug that permanently injures his left arm (remember Morgan's amputated arm?). The story then drifts into The Maltese Falcon with Harry and a new crew of evil types, including a very, very fat black adventurer, chasing a solid gold tiger's head with a huge diamond in its forehead. At the end Harry's new girlfriend tries to betray him--remember Mary Astor's Brigid O'Shaughnessy? It's enough to drive you back to the late-late show.