The Day the Fish Came Out

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!
The plot for this 1967 film builds on an in-flight collision in 1966 in which four American nuclear bombs were briefly lost in coastal waters off Spain, causing so much hullabaloo that future flight crews faced with ditching their nuclear cargo were told to do so over isolated dry land whenever possible to facilitate secret recovery.

So when an Air Force plane has to ditch its cargo of two nuclear bombs and a mysterious armor-plated box called "Q" just before the plane plunges largely unseen into isolated Mediterranean waters; the two flight crewmen (navigator Tom Courtenay and pilot Colin Blakely in a hilarious, bickering odd-couple relationship) dump their nuclear cargo via parachutes over a fortuitously near-by dry, sun-drenched, treeless, rocky Greek isle inhabited by only a small coastal fishing village and several inland goat farmers. Though the crew are presumed killed in the crash by their superiors, they survive without injury and manage to swim ashore naked and...

Flop Film Takes You By Storm
I never caught "The Day the Fish Came Out" on television and the critical panning it received upon release in 1967 as some catastrophic waste indulging a gifted young director prevented me from trying harder to see it but still a tad intrigued. The director (who had had an AAN for "Zorba the Greek"), Michael Cacoyannis could recoup his critical damage by this new release by the new 20th Century-Fox Cinema Archives, the 20th version of Warner Archive in MOD DVD-R editions. They did not restore "The Day the Fish Came Out" and it does look raw, almost amateurish with no extras and a few blemishes and scratches. Cacoyannis wrote, produced and directed, and even did the costumes which are supposedly futuristic set ahead in 1972 (remember "Camille 2000's" costumes?"). These have the influence of the films of Fellini from the sixties and today seem to find an acceptance on the screen as neither too "effete" or too "awful." The setting in the future of the story in 1972 A.D. gives us an...

Classic movie of that era
Loved this movie when I saw it when it first came out. Just as good today as then ..a classic of its time.
'Always loved the soundtrack and still do.

Click to Editorial Reviews