The
Great Alligator (1979, Italian, aka
Big Alligator River,
Alligators,
Il Fiume del grande caimano, dir: Sergio Martino; cast: Barbara Bach,
Mel Ferrer, Richard Johnson, Claudio Cassinelli, Romano Puppo)
Evil
Below and The
Great Alligator are my favorites. Evil
Below is noteworthy for its unusual mix of demonism and undersea
horror. A Caribbean treasure hunt thriller with borrowings from Satan's
Triangle and Jaws.
But The
Great Alligator is better still. Cheesy, shamelessly derivative,
stunningly stupid, and enormously enjoyable. In other words, your
typical low-budget Italian ripoff.
You already
know the plot. You've seen it before. Here it is again: A greedy
white businessman (Mel Ferrer) opens an ostentatious hotel in a third world
jungle. His timing is awful. Something in the river has begun
killing people. The nearby natives think it's the "great god Kruna,"
who
is angry at them for associating with white men.
No, it's
not
Kruna. You know what it is. The film's title is kind of a giveaway.
Anyway,
as you'd expect, Ferrer attempts the usual coverup, lest the tourist trade
dry up. The heroes (Barbara Bach and Claudio Cassinelli) suspect
something fishy going on, what with all those missing people. Happily,
their warnings prove futile. The body count is generous indeed.
One of
the fun things about The
Great Alligator is that the victims are so boorish or thinly sketched
that one is free to enjoy the alligator attacks. The victims are
more colorful than in most slasher films, but in the broad strokes of caricature
rather than character. And remarkably un-PC caricatures.
Apart
from its relative obscurity, I'm guessing one reason the film has avoided
PC outrage is because its story is so stupid, it's hard to take seriously. Another reason is that the mostly white tourists are as unflattering as
the colored natives. It's difficult deciding who comes off worse.
The tourists
are
fat, greedy, lustful, stupid, and disrespectful of the environment (drunkenly
shooting monkeys from the safety of a boat). Ugly Americans, boorish
Germans, eccentric Brits. (One Brit matron expounds upon UFOs, for
no particular reason). There's even an obnoxiously preconscious brat
to offer inappropriate commentary on the adults' sexcapades.
As for
the indigenous tribesmen, they're cruel, savage, primitive, superstitious,
fearful, stupid, and ignorant of science (offering Bach as live human sacrifice
to their "great god Kruna"). And in case one human sacrifice proves
inadequate to appease Kruna, the natives attack the hotel, slaughtering
tourists with gusto. Just last night, these tribesmen were happily
performing colorful native dances for the tourists, in exchange for such
fabulous gifts as pants and alcohol. Now, they resemble the sadistic
savages from Make
Them Die Slowly, implying that, while you can take the BLANK out
of the jungle, you can't take the jungle out of the BLANK. (We'll
let Archie Bunker complete those blanks).
The
Great Alligator is that rare dialectic, synthesizing opposing stereotypes
into a remarkably inane ending. (More on the ending later.)
Perhaps
realizing its potentially offensive content, the film explicitly (if artificially)
disavows both stereotypes. Ferrer expounds his respect for the environment,
and physically stops a paying tourist from shooting monkeys. Meanwhile,
Bach offers running commentary throughout the film, lecturing Cassinelli
about her respect for the natives.
Bach's
character
would know. She's an anthropologist working as a hotel guide. It was the only way she could afford to come study the local natives. Cassinelli is the hunky photographer in khaki, hired to take publicity
shots for the hotel opening. We know he's eco-sensitive because he
chides a gamekeeper who is feeding live animals to crocodiles (as though
crocs, uncorrupted by Man, are veggies at heart). Naturally, one
suspects Cassinelli would rather do serious photojournalism.
And just
as naturally, Cassinelli and Bach become "an item," as they were before
in Screamers. (How it is that beautiful lead women are always unattached in these films? I know it's to make them available to the newcomer heroes, but still...)
Director
Martino makes admirably creative use of his limited resources. The
low-budget alligator only rarely looks like a stiffly floating prop, because
(1) Martino's camera constantly pans across the alligator, (2) which is
shot largely in closeups, and (3) edited into brief shots.
Thus,
we rarely see the alligator prop as a whole, but rather only see brief
closeups moving across the screen. When we do see its entire body
(usually from underwater, so even then it's partly obscured) it's apparent
that its legs are still, despite its being propelled across screen.
When the
alligator munches upon tourists, its stiff jaws are shot descending on
screaming actors, intercut with bloody water. But we don't see flesh
pierced. The body count is high, but the gore is almost suggested,
as in Psycho (where you saw blood, but no cutting). The
Great Alligator is a poor man's gore film.
For that
matter, even the natives are a poor man's savage tribe. I'd seen The
Great Alligator several times before I realized that I never really
knew
the story's location. In the opening shots, the jungle and river
resemble the Amazon basin, yet the natives look African, not South American. One of them even refers to "your black woman." But the grass-covered
boats and props -- more than anything else, they look Polynesian. So are we in the South Pacific? Come to think of it, the "Africans"
look a bit like Australian aborigines, albeit tallish aborigines.
The end
credits claim the film was shot in ... Sri Lanka.
Okay,
so I guess that's what Sri Lanka looks like. Yet, I wonder... The natives, their village, the tour boat -- they look as though the filmmakers
grabbed whatever props and extras were available on the cheap. Anything
that
evoked "third world jungle." A grabbag mishmash, with little regard
for consistency or authenticity. I don't know, does "Kruna" even
sound Sri Lankan?
About
that inane ending (skip the next paragraph to avoid a "spoiler") ...
The natives
have slaughtered half the tourists, and nearly killed Bach. Bach
and Cassinelli have returned to the resort, huddling amid the surviving
tourists. The armed natives emerge from the jungle. Bach, Cassinelli,
the tourists -- all gasp!
Will the natives finish them off?
But
then the natives see the dead alligator (killed by Cassinelli, via a method
lifted straight out of Jaws,
to
be lifted again in Evil Below). Some
natives prod the dead alligator, then one announces that Kruna is dead! All natives cheer! Bach grins warmly. Cassinelli, the tourists,
the brat, everyone, grins warmly. The natives grin warmly. Kruna is dead, so there will be no more slaughter. Everyone is friends
again. All previous slaughter is forgotten and forgiven. Happy
music swells. End credits roll.
HUH?!
A final
note. The
Great Alligator features some truly awful day-for-night shots, although
that's hard to avoid if you want to shoot a large expanse of river. Even so, it's a dark "nighttime" in some scenes, and practically daylight
soon thereafter.
Still, The
Great Alligator is immensely enjoyable despite its inanities and budgetary
shortcomings. Richard Johnson, in a cameo as a mad Christian missionary,
hams
it up with some campy dialogue. Bach's wet clothes cling diaphanously
to her firm body. And you got a big alligator (at times resembling
a flotation device) chomping down boatloads of screaming tourists and natives.
What more
can you ask?
Review copyright by Thomas
M. Sipos
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