DAM Effzett, between history and the movie Operation Monster!
Today we talk about DAM Effzett, an immortal swinging spoon and about the movie Operation Monster. Being a true lover of swing fishing, I couldn't start without a quote from an older article written by Florin Negrețu, from the time when information still smelled of ink and printing paper. By far, I think, one of the most beautiful tribute items dedicated to these banal but fascinating pieces of metal.
"Even forgotten, left aside, too rarely or without advertising campaigns, the oscillating spoon stubbornly lives, catches fish and, from time to time, gives birth to a live chick, a new and catchy model. Like sharks or sturgeons, they have endured since the early days of spinning. I can tell with my hand on the tool kit that the wobbler has always been a staple lure. Why do they call it magic? Because it is pure illusion. She is attractive only in motion. And it's mainly just based on vibration and flash of color. The oscillator is reduced to vibration, it's essence, it's the avatar of prey, so to speak. In the few moments of stop-thinking and start-feeling that I had watching the silver flashes, I often saw the pike undulating behind the beats of the spoon: to attack, not to attack? Fisherman, lure, predatory fish as if we were playing rock-paper-scissors; each is defeated and victorious in turn, in a circle. Only the oscillation passed through us, further, until it was lost in the background... if you felt it and resonated, then the day, the game, and maybe even more are saved."
Florin Negrețu
The movie Operation Monster, the important thing for me is to catch you, with DAM Effzett!
I don't think there is an angler out there who hasn't heard of Dam Effzett, probably the most famous pike in the wobble world. Protagonist also in the movie "Operation Monstrul" - 1976, together with Original Heinz, DAM Effzett "played" in this movie along with three famous fishermen and actors: Toma Caragiu, Octavian Cotescu, Marin Moraru.
"Now, after we got over the moment of surprise, after we got used to the idea that Titus Popovici, screenwriter no. 1 of the "films of our past" dropped the anchor in the present and still on the edge of comedy, that Manole Marcus, the serious-loving director allowed himself to be seduced by the same seductive comedy, now, after all the exclamation marks had been consumed and they had exhausted all surprises, we have to admit: we are still in front of a film by Titus Popovici and Manole Marcus. A film that is far from Power and Truth, far from the Actor and the savages, but it is close and close to those who made it. And he represents them. It represents them, because this comedy more or less "with fishermen", more or less comedy, is an attitude film. lar attitude, more precisely her courage, is the sign under which the Titus Popovici — Manole Marcus collaboration works. Visibly and highlighted and emphasized by the authors, the stake here is not extraordinary. "Inherent" evils are neither new nor capital. Courage is therefore not shown towards tigers, but towards a few rascals, some tricksters, others fools. But, as we are being shown, these little boys only need a small, a very small chance to become tigers. Almost a fable. A fable, played out in many travesties: police film travesties, at first; for now vessel later; of a somewhat friendly batch, of bad satire, of tender comedy, transvestites, even after a realistic film. A realistic film about some people, there, who return from vacation discussing wives and obligations, while a swaggering fisherman tells how he caught the monster. And everything freezes around a word that comes as if from an all-too-familiar bank: calm, calm, calm.
Calm. This is also the atmosphere of the film. Calm and an endless patience that calls for the calmness and patience of the viewer. For the comedy viewer, accustomed to being bombarded with pleasure by gags, jokes, situations, funny lines. Willing to "laughter" no matter how he is provoked. Which is not the case. With a few, a few moments-exception, Operation Monster is not a comedy of laughter, but of smiles, and not always very cheerful, but rather closed, rather with pursed lips, because, as someone very wise said: «Who are you laughing at... »
That being the case, and aware of their condition, Manole Marcus focused all his attention on the performers and visibly entrusted them with the task of keeping the viewer's interest awake. Thus the film became an opportunity for micro-recitals for several wonderful actors. Stimulated probably by the scores written for them, "the four", Toma Caragiu, Octavian Cotescu, Marin Moraru and Ovidiu Schumacher, launched into a real game of boredom, stupidity, demagoguery, of dignity, of sincerity — a play in which, participating from the shadows, one feels a fifth: the director. Between all of them, a "stage" complicity is created, favored by the long sequences that bring pictures within an act, and by the contrast between the length of the sequences and the short dialogues, made of words left in suspension, completed with silences and "game of mime", a complicity to which the spectator is also invited with a kind of "let's have fun together". The procedure is good and it actually works for a while as long as it doesn't get dull through repetition. At that moment something else is needed, and that something else actually appears. In the form of a masterful scene between Toma Caragiu and Marin Moraru (Marin Moraru lost under the sleeping bag, telling the story of "that guy with the yellow bicycle", dazed and tangled, peltic and sleepy, remains a page of unique comic candor), or in the form of a scene between Torna Caragiu and Octavian Cotescu kissing shakily in the boat, moved by the moment of sincerity; or, again, Toma Caragiu falling into the water and suddenly starting, as if in a trance, to plead against noise pollution; or, Octavian Cotescu sneaking, with narcotic smuggler's gestures, the tape with Periniţa into the tape recorder; or… It would seem that it is enough. I do not believe. I don't think so, perhaps also because of the "fault" of the actors who, in the few named sequences, demonstrate very well what they could have done if... It seemed to me that Ovidiu Schumacher was especially insufficiently exploited, slowly reduced to a scheme, from the main character what was in the beginning. There is then a visible break between the weight of the four and the rest of the main cast (Alexandru Manolescu, Cristina Hofman), a gap of tension that, in a film with live action and many characters, might have gone unnoticed. Not here. And, finally, the image. Surprising for what we know these two very good operators, Alexandru Þorsureanu and Gheorghe Fischer, can do. The director avoided the alert, tight cut, the variety of angles, the movement in the frame, as if he wanted an image numbed by the heat and the boredom of the identically repeated gestures, for ten years, on identical vacations. It's as if he wanted to see the warmth and the softness and the monotony of the repetition, not in the images, but on each image. Which, I admit, Alexandru Þorsureanu and Gheorghe Fischer managed to faithfully reproduce this, but, again, I don't have the impression that it is for the good of the film.
Otherwise, a film with few sets, correctly signed by Virgil Moise, with few costumes as well, signed, as usual, short: Tomina, with music by George Grigoriu, pleasant, music thought out so that it goes as well with a film by adventures as well as a comedy, because Manole Marcus cared a lot about these two sides of his film, otherwise, Operation Monster, as its authors wanted it: unglamorous in form, spiky in content.
As they wanted him and as he is, he found his viewers. Which, of course, matters."
Eva Sîrbu – Cinema magazine no. 4, April 1976, images from the Buftea Studios Archive, the film Operation Monster, set photographer Eugen Gheorghe
A little history DAM Effzett, before the movie Operation Monster
More than 87 years have passed since Effzett made its first appearance in the DAM catalog in 1933. Invented by Fritz Ziegenspeck, the famous spinner received the name "Ever Ready Spinner", Ever Ready being at that time one of the most famous brands DAM with Quick and Damyl. At the same time, the most popular model of all time was being prepared for release, the 6.5cm version, made of 1.7mm thick brass, plated with silver on the outside and gold on the inside, with a red stripe and stamped scales on the tail.
In 1936, another version was launched on the market, this time in a black nickel version intended for clear water fishing under the name Z-Spinner, named after the inventor Ziegenspeck, keeping this name between 1949-1958. It was not until 1958 that the Effzett-Spinner was rechristened, the first Effzett in the DAM catalog announcing: "Effzett, the unrivaled, world-renowned, hundreds of thousands of times proven oscillator, formerly known as the Z-Spinner".
The water passes, the oscillating DAM Effzett remain
Going back to our days, for me the wobblers were the number 1 lures when I started pike fishing. Probably also because the wobblers were not yet familiar to me, and the silicone lures had only just begun to appear in our country. I no longer say that they did not exist in the Romanian fisherman's vocabulary spinnerbait, chatterbait, frogs, gliders, topwater or other alternatives from overseas.
Back to the future, DAM Effzett returns
Even though I had them in my kit for a few years, I had my first contact with the famous Effzett catfish in the Danube Delta, fishing in deep channels with current, where there was not much vegetation. I needed a heavy jig to quickly get close to the bottom where, of course, the pike were set. Whether I was fishing linearly above the substrate or playing the "fall" in the tender water level of the deep channels, the Effzett never let me down.
And on the boat and on the shore, DAM Effzett
I've also used it successfully in shore fishing where the shape and weight of this lure helped me cast much farther than I could with any other wobbler. Personally, I've been strictly limited to pike fishing, but I've heard many stories of perch, bream, catfish and even walleye that have had to do with DAM Effzett on the old arms of the Danube. Mountain or plain lakes are no exception to the rule, the important thing is to trust the lure you are fishing.
DAM Effzett, DAM Effzett, but how do you play it?
The jig is a jig that I use exclusively in deep water and near the bottom when the fish are on the bottom. The evolution, depending on the case, I alternate between a slow, linear retrieve, vibrating with the substrate, alternated with jerks from the tip of the rod, or a kind of jigging in which I lift the wobble off the substrate and let it fall again. Attacks occur either on falls or on breaks in rhythm from continuous recovery.
Everything that goes around the world has a wheel!
And yet why this "remember" of the famous oscillating DAM Effzett? Simple, because according to the slogan "DAM Effzett hypnotizing fish since 1933!" corroborated with the expression "Lures catch both fish and fishermen" I was "hooked" by the new models newly launched in Romania. I chose the ones in the photo, but as every angler has his preferences, I invite you to take a look at the Arrow International website where a small army of oscillating and rotating rods awaits you at a click away DAM Effzett.
Extra tip from the movie Operation Monster, DAM Effzett
- Please be kind, take out that spoon for me too. But you see, no noise, let's not spoil the place.
- Don't pull the rod, leave it like that. Leave it!
- Honey, make sure it doesn't get lost, I really like it, it's an Effzet 18, I got it from Sweden.
– Sweden…
– Be careful, be careful because it stings badly. Be careful.
About the history of DAM Quick reels did i tell you
4 Comments
I am also faithful to the oscillations. It would be nice to catch expensive and colorful wobblers as well, but the truth is that spoons are always the solution to damage. I mean, I put them in when nothing works. But I wanted to say something else. I always wondered what was wrong with that goat at DAM. Well, the goat in German calls him Ziege. So from the Ziegelspeck.
They are expensive and colorful wobblers that at times catch much better than oscillators. You just have to give them time, learn to fish them and trust them.
"Operation Monster". benefited from the script of a passionate fisherman and hunter. : Titus Popovici. !!!
Correct, directed by Manole Marcus after the screenplay by Titus Popovici!