Grizzly (1976)

I can almost hear the pitch for a number of movies in the mid-1970s.  "It's like Jaws, but with..."  As in, with piranha, a killer whale, a pack of dogs, a giant squid, killer bees or, in this case, a bear.  Not just any bear, but one waying over a ton and standing 18 feet in height, said by one character to be a throwback to the bears that roamed during the ice age.  

The reason all these and more got made?  They made money.  Grizzly, despite a number of dull sequences and a not-so-convincing mechanical bear standing in whenever the real one couldn't be used, was the highest grossing independent movie until Halloween came around two years later.  It also has some interesting tales of theft, deceit and general wrongdoing behind it that are more interesting than the movie or its spiritual sequel, Day of the Animals. 

The tourist season is wrapping up, but there are still a number of backpackers in a stretch of national forest land that forest ranger Kelly (Christopher George) is concerned for everyone's safety.  He is looking forward to settling down with his girlfriend Allison (Joan McCall), but after a report of two women not returning to the park's base reaches him he goes in search for them, only to find the girls' mutilated bodies.  Kelly commences using his rangers to search for the bear that did it, finding it elusive and finding himself in the crosshairs of his boss Kittridge (Joe Dorsey) who blames Kelly for the bear attacks.

After several other deaths, including some of his rangers, Kittridge still refuses to close the park but instead allows hunters to come in and look for it.  Kelly also calls his consultant Scott (Richard Jaeckel), a naturist who has spent time tracking the animals in the park, and helicopter pilot Don (Andrew Prine).  After the hunters have no luck and attacks continue the three set out to find the bear and end its reign of terror.

Despite the fact neither director William Girdler nor the team of writers made any attempt to hide the fact that this was just Jaws with a bear the movie was a success.  It didn't rocket any of its stars to household names, but many returned for Girdler's next film and found success in similar b-movies.  What they didn't find success in was getting paid for Grizzly, at least not for a few years until lawsuits against executive producer Edward L. Montoro were completed.  He decided to take all the profits for himself, eventually embezzling from the company behind the feature and vanishing in the 1980s.  

As for the movie, it isn't terrible.  The characters are dull, there is little tension, and it really needed to be rated R so it could be a bit nastier to earn status as a genuine classic of the genre.  It is plenty bloody, since it is a '70s PG, but it seems like the producers were afraid of going the full exploitation route.  Thus, this got played, with edits, on television quite a bit in the 1980s, especially on Saturdays, where I remember it as one of many of the "animals attack" movies of the '70s.  I just remember it a bit more fondly than I should, because the attacks using what one can see of the mechanical bear aren't great and, though the real one wasn't tiny, there was no way at the time to make it look like the 18-foot monster it was supposed to be. 

Grizzly (1976)

Time: 91 minutes

Starring: Christopher George, Andrew Prine, Richard Jaeckel

Director: William Girdler