I am away over the weekend as I am leaving the country for a short vacation/city visit.
So, there won’t be a post on Sunday this week.
Also, the VIP club will get its monthly update, a little later than usual….on August 3!
That means the VIP club members will receive the password as well on August 3.
So, please be patient, it will come 😉
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I will reply to emails of course, but only once or twice a day.
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But I do have a recommendation for you folks!
My TV magazine recommended a documentary named “Waterwoman” some weeks ago which is currently still running on German TV.
I watched all 4 episodes and it was quite fascinating.
It’s about German freediving champion Anna von Boetticher who is holding several national records.
In these episodes, she is diving in Mexiko, Iceland, the Acores, and (under) Budapest…. and she is wearing smooth skin wetsuits while doing so 😉
Yeah, she isn’t exactly the youngest (52), but she looks great in these suits, is highly skilled and the episodes offer great pictures of beautiful underwater landscapes!
So I really recommend watching the episodes, even though there are some obstacles for folks outside Germany.
Yeah, the audio is German and the episodes are only available online here if you are in Germany:
Just a quick post for today as I don’t have enough time.
Many of you will know this Instagram account by now, but for those who don’t, check out her Instagram account …and also her Youtube channel (linked on her Insta):
Now check out this scene, which can also be found in that TV show made 4 years later:
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Well…. quite odd! They re-used the complete underwater footage here!!!
The scenario is exactly the same. The detective (Ben Gazzara!) wants to meet with a woman only to be attacked by a mysterious frogwoman in rubber!
But there are some differences (despite the different actors):
Here we actually see some very short scenes of the evil frogwoman above the water.
In the original, they fight underwater and suddenly….cut….and he is in a hospital. One of the worst cuts in the history of humankind! ARGHHHHH!
In this “remake” we see him pulling the obviously defeated frogwoman to the shore, with her mouthpiece in his hand!
But then…. I start yelling at the screen! AGAIN, they don’t show the villainess anymore except for some seconds where she is already covered in a blanket.
How bizarre is that? Why have they shown only so little of her??? I would have loved to see the defeated frogwoman in her wet rubber suit on the surface! Just add a dialogue there and show her!
The murderer is finally caught and she just vanishes without saying a word!
DAMN! Really frustrates me big time! That and that the moment of him overpowering her underwater isn’t shown properly.
However the flaws, that ending… in both versions…. in one of my all-time favorites!
It’s such a unique scenario. An evil frogwoman in rubber who wants to drown a guy in this scene ….and already did drown a woman earlier in the episode!
How often do you get that in a TV show or movie? Spoiler-Alert….Basically NEVER! 😉
Ok, it’s hard to say if the diver who actually did the diving during filming is actually a woman….since the underwater picture is rather dark… or if they used a male diver to double for the villainess.
However it is supposed to be a woman, that is 100% clear.
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So, why the same scenario and the same underwater footage?
These episodes are from different TV shows but are basically identical as the script is nearly a copy (some slight changes).
With some quick research, I found out that both TV shows were made by the same company (Roncom Films) for the same network (NBC).
The earlier show is from 1964 and the “remake” is from 1968.
So they “just” re-used footage that they shoot some years earlier.
Quite bizarre that they just remade an entire episode just some years later in a different TV show.
Don’t know why they did it, perhaps they were just lazy and recycled the script 😆
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In the original, the villainess is the secretary of the guy who was in love with the drowned woman from the beginning of the episode.
Here is a picture of the villainous redhead from the original (Fiona Volpe vibes):
Really a shame she wasn’t shown on the surface in her rubbery frogwoman suit. 🙁
In the remake, she is his personal physical therapist (and less attractive)…but that is already one of the biggest changes from the original to the remake.
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I guess you might wanna know now from which TV show that remake is?
I know this movie since it came out in 2015 and got the UK DVD back then (for some reason it wasn’t released on Bluray?).
It was recommended to me at least 6 or 7 times since then but I didn’t make a post until today.
Why? Well, I was unsure about what to post about this movie. If I would post every scene that is somehow (scuba and/or wetsuit) interesting to this blog… I would have to post at least 70% of the movie…. as here the main actress is in a wetsuit for basically the whole movie(!) except for some flashbacks and…
Spoiler title
…the very first and last minutes of the movie.
So, I decided now to focus on the scuba part of the movie and cut out some minutes where the villain is just starring down at the ice for loooooooong.
What happened before the video scenes?
Well, basically the woman realized that her husband is a murderous psycho and he wants to kill her.
He is a scuba instructor and has special plans for her after he drugged and kidnapped her…
Preview:
The crazy guy has special plans….
….for our frogwoman!
How much air is left?
(click to enlarge)
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Here is the video:
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Watch the video before you continue!
Well, quite a sinister and crazy dude!
And that is just the part where she has her scuba tank… there is a lot more to come.
First, let’s start with some things I don’t like about this scene:
The whole aspect of how much air is in her tank is quite weird. Right before the video starts he empties her full tank from 3000 PSI down to 1000 PSI in a matter of seconds by sucking on the regulator and pushing the “air shower” (the translated german term) button on it. That would never ever work that fast. Plus why does he use the “air shower” button and has the regulator in his mouth? That wouldn’t work for long as someone can’t take in that much air. And it would take much longer than in the movie.
Plus the whole air pocket aspect. Is it possible that there is such a big air pocket on a lake under the ice? I mean the exhaled air from her tank would be there for sure, but that would be completely useless as this air is already “used. (*EDIT: My mistake)
In two takes the camera focuses on her depth instead of her gas gauge!
Well….why? I mean she is just under the ice the whole time and has only one way to go (up). The audience knows that, so why show it twice?
Perhaps, as the gauge is near zero… the movie makers confused it with the gas gauge?
Very odd….
And then the gas gauge very quickly goes from 1000 down to near zero in a matter of seconds! How is that possible? Or is that supposed to be a time-lapse?
However, there are a lot of positive aspects for me as well:
It’s quite a unique setting! I mean a guy who wants to drown a woman but puts a wetsuit and a scuba tank on her?
Certainly never seen that in any other movie….
The whole “running out of air” while the killer is just above her is very suspenseful!
The frogwoman is attractive and her wetsuit is quite nice. Of course, I would have preferred a black smooth skin wetsuit, but well, this way the heroine is very “flashy”.
And as the villain here is 100% evil and crazy… it’s a very intense survival scene…and that’s only the start for her.
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About the whole movie:
There a very long takes of him just staring down at the ice. I mean the movie has only a length of about 70 minutes but it seems like they had to include a lot of overly long takes to even get to that length.
Plus his whole plan is kind of odd. I mean ok, he is crazy.
His whole plan for her is quite odd. I mean he certainly wants her to suffer before she dies.
He gives her a scuba tank but it is only one-third full.
So I guess he was “worried” that she might freeze to death before drowning? Even I can only guess how long someone could actually survive the ice-cold water, even with …an inappropriate… wetsuit on.
He gives her a wetsuit but that is only a little protection when the water temperature is around zero (celsius).
He straps the regulator to the back of the tank so she has to struggle a lot to even reach it.
Plus he is there on the ice but basically can’t see anything of her struggle, except some silhouettes and some air bubbles.
I guess he enjoys the whole situation big time, otherwise, he wouldn’t have come up with such a complicated scenario for her.
I am pretty sure that the screenwriter might have some aqua fetishes 😉
The flashbacks are interesting and important to the story, but too long for my taste and drag down the intensity a little.
I guess I will make a special cut of the whole movie where I cut out the flashbacks and overly long scenes of the villain doing nothing but starring for loooong takes.
But this movie is very much unique and very suspenseful, as I am cheering for her to find a way to get out of this horrible situation.
Yeah, this is a low-budget production and the acting isn’t always very good (especially the wooden villain) but certainly a very interesting scenario that you won’t find like this in any other movie.
Certainly, a movie that you should know and I can only recommend watching the whole thing!
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Here are two posters of the movie (minus the title):
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Very good motives in my opinion! Even the right one looks like bad CGI.
You could nearly think that someone who worked on this movie had a little fetish 😉
I mean the two who are waiting on the beach are wearing full wetsuits with hoods and scuba socks just to quickly run into the water and assist the other guy for some seconds.
But they are running around in wetsuits for over 10 minutes in the movie. That could have been achieved without both in full rubber…but well….. I won’t complain about it 😉
However, she looks gorgeous in that suit, even though I curse that this wasn’t shot in color back in 1966, which would be done most likely if this would have been a US movie. I think color is just a lot sexier.
If I would be the actor on that beach with her she would probably wonder why I look away from her 99% of the time to keep “cool” 😆
I am glad that she is the one who is wearing the hood most of the time, really adds to the great optic.
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Quite a dark ending that all but the villainess die in the end. A really good scene as he tried to run away from the police in order to use his dive gear to escape. Even that would have been quite difficult, even if he made it without getting shot. But well, the whole movie had this atmosphere that was leading to a tragic ending.
Must have been… interesting… for the actor who was on the plane as he was filming in that wetsuit for a loooong time.
Would have been nice if the frogwoman would have fought with some cops on her attempted escape….
But ok, that was sadly no option back in the 60s as this was filmed.
You won’t see any women in the video of this post.
So, why do I make a post about it?
I think this scene is a great “template” for a scuba fight with sexy female divers!
Check out the video, I’m very sure you will find it interesting….
I was browsing through some old footage that I had recorded a long time ago and stumbled on this scene.
And I managed to make a video file in good quality for you folks and myself.
Preview:
Just an ordinary day for Mannix. Cruising around in a boat…
…getting attacked by frogmen in black rubber, who…
…want to drown him!
He doesn’t want to drown though… 😉
(click to enlarge)
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And here is the video:
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Well, now imagine that these divers would wear the same outfits…but… would actually be sexy frogWOmen!
They try to drown him and he fights back, struggling with the sexy rubberwomen underwater… 😉
Or imagine Mannix to be a female detective… whatever you like best.
The scuba gear is near perfection for me here. The black rubber wetsuit in combination with hoods and double hose regulators were always my favorite since …a certain movie 😉
And it would be so awesome to have sexy, evil frogwomen in such a scuba fight!
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Ok, back to the scene:
Well, these two really screw up big time! They are two against one. They have a complete set of scuba gear, he has nothing at all, but manages to win the fight.
I guess they wanted to make it look like he drowned, otherwise they could have used their knives…. or they underestimated him.
However, it’s not so easy to pull down a buoyant body down, even they are two.
But they fail to control him so he can temporarily “throw” one frogman out of the fight and is able to fight against one.
I love how he rips off the complete hose from the first stage. Hard to say how realistic that is…. but I think it is possible…perhaps.
And he actually rips it off the intake port, which is on the right side of the tank/first stage. Air is streaming out of it….
Then they actually cheat as suddenly the hose is ripped off from the left side of the tank/first stage. Obviously, the air is free-flowing and the diver is losing air, but with this trick, he still can breathe, so the stunt diver is quite safe.
Seemingly the diver in the scene then immediately drowns, which is quite odd as he isn’t out of air for long and Mannix was underwater longer without air. He is never seen again afterward.
The second diver then finally grabs his knife to kill Mannix, but well… he loses the struggle with Mannix and also his knife to him.
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All in all, I really like this scene as it’s a great template if you have a little fantasy…. 😉
P.S.: The same two divers actually kidnap a woman from a boat and force a scuba tank on her earlier in the episode!
But….tragically…. that story gets only told….not shown on the screen! DAMN IT!
What I would give to have that scene in full colors…..
There are 4 seasons of this TV show. 3 of them were filmed in color. Sadly this is from the first season 🙁
However, I really love that scene despite some flaws!
Thankfully they had a female diver to play the role and didn’t use a male to play her action part as they often did in the 50s and 60s.
A really big minus point for me is how passive she is. But well, fits the time in which this was shot.
She basically does nothing. She doesn’t defend herself and she doesn’t attack him at any time! She did have quite some opportunities to attack him, but she is basically a Scubadoll in a rubber suit 😆
She just holds onto him while he is occupied with her tank harness, she could easily rip off his mask or rip out his regulator! Yes, she doesn’t have her scuba mask, but he is so close in front of her, that she should be able to see him well enough.
The fact that she doesn’t need her tank to breathe underwater is a minus point as well, but you can easily change that in your fantasy 😉
If I remember the backstory right she has the special ability to breathe underwater.
The bad guys are using her as a weapon to fight the submarine of the good guys. Her tank is actually an explosive device.
I love how the guy immediately goes for her mask to blind her (temporarily). He knows what he is doing.
It’s very rare to have an unmasked woman in such a scuba fight scene.
Her “unmasked” face looks quite sexy…
He has to get rid of her explosive “tank” and therefore he strips her of her scuba tank as well and thereby she also loses her regulator (that she needs in my fantasy).
The explosion hits her, and she is unconscious for the moment.
The naughty frogman takes ….advantage…. of that:
Damn, that stunt diver(?) really had a great time! I guess they had to repeat some of these scenes quite often 😆
I added the scene where she is unconscious and gets carried around in the submarine as that is quite sexy as well.
Again I played around with the simple tool to colorize one picture:
Yeah, not exactly a great result but at least better than the black and white version.
Pretty sure that is the Voit logo on his chest. Look like they used the same suits later on in Thunderball (different colors).
This episode actually aired earlier in the same year as Thunderball did (1965).
