GRIZZLY (1976)

Director: William Girdler

Writers: Harvey Flaxman, David Sheldon, Andrew Prine (uncredited)

Producers: Harvey Flaxman, David Sheldon

Cast: Christopher George, Andrew Prine, Richard Jaeckel, Joan McCall, Joe Dorsey, Tom Arcuragi, Vicki Johnson, Kathy Rickman, Mary Ann Hearn, Charles Kissinger, Kermit Echols, Harvey Flaxman, Susan Orpin, Brian Robinson, Sandra Dorsey, Gene Witham, Mike Clifford, David Newton, Mike Gerschefski, David Holt, Brian Robinson, Amos Gillespie (uncredited), Lee S. Jones, Jr. (uncredited) 

An enormous man-eating grizzly bear is attacking campers in a national wilderness park surrounded by forests. The head forest ranger Michael Kelly (Christopher George) clashes with his park supervisor Charley Kittridge (Joe Dorsey) about how to deal with the deadly beast. Kelly is joined by the park’s expert naturalist Arthur Scott (Richard Jaeckel) and helicopter pilot Don Stober (Andrew Prine) in his hunt for the bear. Arthur Scott deduces that the creature they are pursuing is of a prehistoric bear species that stands at least 15-feet tall. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

1975’s Jaws was an absolute blockbuster of a movie. Great film successes start trends and inspire rip-offs. Without a doubt, the following year’s Grizzly is a rip-off. Although producer David Sheldon claims to have conceived this film before Jaws debuted on movie screens, and his co-writer Harvey Flaxman was inspired to initiate the story by an actual bear attack incident he had been warned about during a trip to Yellowstone National Park, this completed film’s story structure and characters seem too similar to that other man-eater movie to be entirely coincidental. Nevertheless, Grizzly is a lot of fun. It is Jaws on land, which for the animal-attack movie fans, is just enough of a variation to sate their appetite for more bloodthirsty, bestial thrills.

Like Jaws, this is pretty brutal for a PG rated film. Kids are not safe in this flick, either. The giant bear is a worthy successor to the great white shark for making mincemeat out of human beings. This beastie also has the interesting habit of storing leftovers for later.

Christopher George, as the forest ranger hero Michael Kelly, begins the string of horror film appearances that would cap off his career. He is handsome and likable and never better than when getting completely pissed off at his supervisor. Frankly, this contention he has with the authority figure that just won’t cooperate with him is the most forced Jaws-inspired aspect to this story, but without it we wouldn’t get Christopher George at full-boil yelling, “Bullshit!” I love that scene. 

While George’s character of Kelly is the stand-in here for Chief Brody of Jaws, Richard Jaeckel, as naturalist “Scotty,” is the Hooper substitute, and Andrew Prine, as Don Stober, fills in for Quint. Like Quint, Don is a war veteran who owns and pilots the transportation used to chase the beast. He also gets his own old and scary tale to tell about the nasty sort of critter they are after. Andrew Prine actually improvised this short yarn himself. 

This trio of George, Jaeckel, and Prine has a good chemistry going among them. Despite the absolutely Jaws-derived nature of most of this film, including these three actor’s characters, they still play it with energy and sincerity. 

Rip-off or not, when one knows about the effort that went into making this film on a pretty low budget, you really have to appreciate that moviemaking requires a lot of work, adaptability, and ingenuity. Having the largest Kodiak bear in captivity shipped clear across the country to be the title star is quite a feat. Then trying to control this behemoth to get the necessary shots while keeping cast and crew safe during a fast shooting schedule seems like a recipe for disaster. I was amazed to find out that the bear “Teddy” had been trained to avoid an electrified wire separating him from humans, but when on the actual shooting location that wire was not electrified. Teddy just assumed that it was and stayed on his side of it. I wonder if this film’s completion bond guarantors were aware of that risky bluff. Maybe these filmmakers were so ballsy they thought they don’t need no stinkin’ bonds.