Northwest Film Forum

AMPHIBIAN MAN is one of the most beloved of all Russian films (65 million admissions in 1962, which roughly translates into 520 million American box-office dollars today). It's a tall tale about handsome, water dwelling gilled mutant Ichtyandr (Vladimir Korenov). His father has replaced Ichtyandr's faulty lung with the gills of a young shark. The story unfolds in a coastal locale among pearl divers, rogues and salty old seamen. When Ichtyandr saves a local fisherman's daughter (Anastasiya Vertinskaya) from a shark attack, he falls in love with her and wants to give up the water for a life on land. The film is perhaps the ultimate product of the late 50's-early 60's Soviet political "thaw." This enchanting hybrid of THE LITTLE MERMAID and THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON brims with surreal Latin song-and-dance numbers and Russian stars in brownface (shot on beautiful Cuban locations) that you must see to believe. Korenov and Vertinskaya (who went on to play Ophelia in Kozintsev's HAMLET and the Princess in Bondarchuk's WAR AND PEACE) both became huge Soviet stars as a result of this film's massive success. -Robert Skotak

"A dizzy morph from a CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON template to a forecast of EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, all shot in rich tropical greens... and fueled by mad-scientist ideas of a class-free 'underwater republic.'" -Michael Atkinson, Village Voice