Grizzly

"Why are you looking at me? I'm a *BEAR*!"

William Girdler's Grizzly (1976) was among the earliest Jaws rip-offs, and possibly the most successful. Teaming with indie producer Edward L. Montoro, Girdler delivered a chintzy Jaws-in-the-woods that made an impressive $30,000,000 against a $750,000 budget. The best that can be said is that Grizzly isn't painful to watch.

A National Park is the site of several vicious bear attacks. Park Ranger Michael Kelly (Christopher George) enlists naturalist Scott (Richard Jaeckal) and helicopter pilot Don (Andrew Prine) to help kill the bear, which Scott believes is an extinct Grizzly subspecies. But Kelly's hamstrung by his obnoxious boss (Joe Dorsey), who refuses to shut down the park, allowing a gaggle of idiot hunters to track the bear. More fatalities occur before Kelly finally gets to face his furry foe mano a garra.

With a competent cast, beautiful Georgia scenery and a lean 91 minute runtime, Grizzly goes down fairly easy. But it so blatantly steals from Jaws it's impossible to ignore. Girdler lifts the plot structure, characters and specific scenes directly from Spielberg, reworking them in subpar fashion. Quint's USS Indianapolis monologue is replaced with a goofy Indian legend, while the Superintendent not only keeps the park open for no reason, but invites the press to cover the bear hunt (!?!). Jaws clearly cared about its story and characters, while Grizzly just marks time between killings.

What really sinks Grizzly is the bear. The filmmakers employed Teddy, an 11 foot captive Kodiak bear, and there are some nice shots of her running and rearing up (apparently prodded by marshmallows). But they're mixed with an obvious guy in a costume, dampening the effect. The attacks are inept; we get close-ups of bear hugs and gory severed limbs, but thanks to incoherent editing the effect is comical. Displays of its power (busting up a cabin, swatting a helicopter) are silly. Certainly the finale, where Kelly incinerates the ursine with a bazooka (!!!), is hilariously absurd.

Christopher George (El Dorado) emerges relatively unscathed, giving a low-key and likeable performance. But Richard Jaeckel (The Gunfighter) and Andrew Prine (Gettysburg) come off badly trying to out-ham each other. Joan McCall's love interest is annoying and Joe Dorsey's villain wouldn't pass muster on a bad Scooby-Doo episode ("Meddling bears!"). Susan Backlinie, a shark victim in Jaws, expands her range playing a bear victim.

Grizzly is a goofy B Movie knockoff, nothing more or less. At the very least it lacks Orca's turgid self-importance, for which we can all be grateful.