Alligator (film)
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| Alligator | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lewis Teague |
| Produced by | Brandon Chase |
| Written by | John Sayles Frank Ray Perilli |
| Starring | Robert Forster Robin Riker |
| Music by | Craig Hundley |
| Cinematography | Joseph Mangine |
| Editing by | Larry Brock Ron Medico |
| Release date(s) | July 2, 1980 |
| Running time | 89 mins |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Alligator is a 1980 comedy horror film, directed by Lewis Teague with a screenplay by John Sayles. It stars Robert Forster, Robin Riker and Michael V. Gazzo.
The film follows the attempts of a police officer David Madison and a reptile expert, Marisa Kendall to stop a deadly alligator which is killing human in the sewers of Chicago.
The film received praise from critics for its intentional humour and in 1991, an apparent sequel was released entitled Alligator II: The Mutation. Despite the title this film shared no characters or actors with the original, and the plot was essentially a retread of the first film.
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[edit] Synopsis
The film opens with a teenaged girl purchasing a baby alligator while on vacation with her family at a tourist trap in Florida. After the family returns home to Chicago, the alligator (named "Ramone" by the girl) is promptly flushed down the family's toilet by the her surly father, and ends up in the city's sewers. Several years go by, during which the alligator not only survives, but eventually feeds on covertly-discarded pet-corpses which are spiked with an experimental growth formula, causing it to grow into a behemoth with an almost impenetrable hide.
The alligator begins picking off humans in the sewer, and the resulting flow of body parts draws in world-weary Chicago police officer David Madison (Forster) who, after a horribly botched case in St. Louis, has gained a reputation for being lethally unlucky for his assigned partners. As Madison works on this new case, his boss Chief Clark (Gazzo) brings him into contact with reptile expert Marisa Kendall (Riker), who years earlier was the girl who bought the alligator. The two of them edge into a prickly romantic relationship, and during a visit to Kendall's house, Madison bonds with her motormouthed mother.
Madison's reputation as a partner-killer is "confirmed" when the gator snags the young cop who accompanies Madison into the sewer searching for clues. No one believes Madison's story, partly due to a lack of a body, and partly because of the influential local tycoon who sponsored the illegal growth experiments and doesn't want the truth to come out. This changes when an obnoxious tabloid reporter goes snooping in the sewers and supplies graphic and indisputable photographic evidence of the beast, at the cost of his own life. (Ironically, the man had up until that point been one of the banes of Madison's existence.)
An attempt by the police to flush out Ramone comes up empty, and Madison is put on suspension, but then the gator literally smashes his own way out of the sewers and comes to the surface, killing a young boy who gets tossed into a swimming pool during a party. The ensuing city-wide hunt turns into a media circus, including the hiring of a pompous big-game hunter (Henry Silva) to track the animal. Once again, the effort fails: the hunter is killed, the police trip over each other and Ramone rampages through a high-society wedding party; among his victims is the tycoon who helped create him. With only Kendall to help him, Madison finally lures the alligator into a trap back in the sewers and destroys the beast with a massive charge of explosives, barely escaping with his own life.
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Robert Forster | David Madison |
| Robin Riker | Marisa Kendall |
| Michael V. Gazzo | Chief Clark |
| Dean Jagger | Slade |
| Sydney Lassick | Luke Gutchel |
| Jack Carter | Mayor |
| Perry Lang | Officer Jim Kelly |
| Henry Silva | Col. Brock |
| Bart Braverman | Thomas Kemp |
| John Lisbon Wood | Mad bomber |
| James Ingersoll | Arthur Helms |
| Robert Doyle | Bill Kendall |
| Patti Jerome | Mrs. Madeline Kendall |
| Angel Tompkins | Newswoman |
| Sue Lyon | ABC Newswoman |
[edit] Critical reaction
While the film is both low-budget and derivative of the formula established by the 1975 film Jaws, it has regularly received praise from critics for its (intentional) humor and wit, lack of pretension, and the performances of the human stars. Screenwriter Sayles also penned the script for Piranha, another well-received tongue-in-cheek horror film of the era.
Vincent Canby of the New York Times praised the film, "the film's suspense is frequently as genuine as its wit and its fond awareness of the cliches it's using."[1]
Film critic Roger Ebert was not a fan of the movie, suggesting that it would be best to "flush this movie down the toilet to see if it also grows into something big and fearsome".[2]
[edit] Trivia
One of the sewer workers Ramone kills is named "Edward Norton", after the character of the same name and profession played by Art Carney on the classic TV series The Honeymooners.
[edit] References
- Wingrove, David. Science Fiction Film Source Book (Longman Group Limited, 1985)
[edit] Notes
- ^ Vincent Canby review at [ http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?_r=1&title1=Alligator%20(Movie)&title2=&reviewer=VINCENT%20CANBY&pdate=19810605&v_id=&oref=slogin]
- ^ Film review at www.rogerebert.com, November 24, 1980.
[edit] External links
- Alligator at the Internet Movie Database
