Cannery Row

Cannery Row has never been

like anywhere else.

Its people are different.

When the town died off,

most failed to notice.

Some say nobody would live here

unless they had to,

but some, like The Seer,

wouldn't live anywhere else.

Of all the people on Cannery Row,

Doc is probably the best known.

He makes his living

by collecting marine animals

and selling them

to colleges and museums.

Doc has become

a pillar of the community,

and its fountain of

science and philosophy.

He had friends

he didn't even know about

and some he would never forget.

Friends like Mack and the boys.

Mack leads a small group of men

who have in common no families,

no money and no ambition -

beyond the time

to discuss matters

of interest but little importance.

The youngest and strongest

of the group is Hazel.

A childhood illness left him with a

slightly diminished mental capacity.

As a result, he had the mind of

a small boy in the body of a bull.

Hey, Mack?

What is it, Hazel?

Mack, you said you was gonna

lead us in some exercise.

You said we was out of shape.

- I said that?

- Yeah, that's right.

- I must have been drunk as hell.

- Well, come on. We're waiting.

Here we go. Come on, Mack.

Okay, Mack.

- All right, you ready?

- Yeah.

Touch your toes. Swing your hips.

Jumping Jacks.

Mack, I'm going to La Jolla for a

few days. Feed my mice, will you?

- There's beer in the refrigerator.

- Don't worry about the mice, Doc.

- We'll take care of it.

- Okay.

Doc is a hell of a guy.

Give you anything he's got.

A hell of a guy. We ought to do

something nice for him sometime.

Despite the esteem

in which he was held,

Doc was not fully content.

He'd been afflicted with

a gnawing restlessness.

A sense of something unfulfilled.

So he planned a collecting trip,

hoping to smother his unease

with activity.

At first, he turned up very little.

But by the third day,

his luck began to change.

Under the boulders of the intertidal

zone, he found eight baby octopi.

It was a little bonanza for him,

if he could keep them alive.

He dedicated himself to building an

octopus world within walls of glass,

anticipating every octopus need,

and eliminating every danger.

Doc, I got something important

to talk to you about.

- How much do you need, Mack?

- Two bucks.

Here, take it out of that.

- What about my story?

- What story?

I had a story about

why I needed two bucks.

- You don't need a story.

- The hell I don't!

I worked all night on it.

Hazel cried when I tried it on him.

You see, my aunt in Salinas...

She lost both husbands in the flood.

- I didn't know you had an aunt.

- I don't have an aunt!

That's the goddamn story!

Doc, what is the matter with you?

I got a problem, Mack.

- How am I going to light them?

- Light what?

The octopi.

Octopi are afraid of light. How can

I light them without scaring them?

- Why don't you just give up?

- Mack, octopi are fascinating.

They have emotions like ours.

They show fear, anger and excitement

by colour changes in their bodies.

I need a wide-angle binocularscope.

- What?

- Binocularscope.

Even if I do get the right light...

Doc, look at me.

It's me, Mack, your friend.

What's wrong?

You've redone this tank five times.

I'm all right, Mack. Really.

I need to do something different

for a change. Something of value.

- You ain't done nothing up to now.

- That's just the point.

A man ought to make a mark.

Every year I go to the Congress of

Marine Biologists in San Francisco.

Every year I listen to guys reciting

papers on the stuff they know.

This year,

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