Alligator (film)

Infobox Film
name = Alligator


director = Lewis Teague
producer = Brandon Chase
writer = John Sayles
Frank Ray Perilli
starring = Robert Forster
Robin Riker
music = Craig Hundley
cinematography = Joseph Mangine
editing = Larry Brock
Ron Medico
released = July 2, 1980
runtime = 89 mins
country = United States
language = English
amg_id = 1:1677
imdb_id = 0080354

"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. It follows the attempts of a police officer named David Madison and a reptile expert named Marisa Kendall to stop a deadly giant alligator that is killing humans in the sewers of Chicago.

The film received praise from critics for its intentional humor and, in 1991, an apparent sequel was released, titled "". Despite the title, this film shared no characters or actors with the original, and the plot was essentially a retread of the first film. [Wingrove, David. Science Fiction Film Source Book (Longman Group Limited, 1985)]

Plot

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 Ramón by the girl, is promptly flushed down the family's toilet by her surly, animal-phobic father and ends up in the city's sewers. Twelve years go by, during which the alligator not only survives, but eventually feeds on covertly discarded pet corpses that are spiked with an experimental growth formula, causing it to grow into a convert|36|ft|m|sing=on-long 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 police officer David Madison 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 brings him into contact with reptile expert Marisa Kendall, 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 Slade, the influential local tycoon who sponsored the illegal growth experiments and therefore doesn't want the truth to come out. This changes when an obnoxious tabloid reporter, Thomas Kemp, goes snooping in the sewers and supplies graphic and indisputable photographic evidence of the beast at the cost of his own life. Ironically, Kemp had, up until that point, been one of the banes of Madison's existence.

An attempt by the police to flush out Ramón 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 pompous big-game hunter Colonel Brock to track the animal. Once again, the effort fails: Brock is killed, the police trip over each other in confusion and Ramón goes on a rampage through a high-society wedding party; among his victims is the tycoon who helped to create him. The alligator also devours the groom. 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. As the film ends with Madison and Kendall walking away after the explosion, a drain in the sewer spits out another baby alligator.

Cast

* 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 (actor)*Robert Doyle - Bill Kendall
* Patti Jerome - Mrs. Madeline Kendall
* Angel Tompkins - Newswoman
* Sue Lyon - ABC Newswoman

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, saying, "The film's suspense is frequently as genuine as its wit and its fond awareness of the clichés it's using." [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 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." [Film review at www.rogerebert.com, November 24, 1980.]

Video Releases

On September 18, 2007, Lions Gate Entertainment released the film on DVD for the first time in the USA. The disc features a new 16x9 anamorphic widescreen transfer in the original 1.78:1 ratio and a new Dolby Digital 5.1-channel sound mix in addition to the original mono mix. The included extras are a commentary track with director Lewis Teague and star Robert Forster, a featurette titled "Alligator Author" in which screenwriter John Sayles discusses the differences between his original story and the final screenplay, and the original theatrical trailer. The film had previously been available on dvd in other territories, including a version released in the UK in February 2003 by Anchor Bay Entertainment (now Starz). This release features an optional DTS sound mix, includes the 1991 sequel "Alligator II: The Mutation" on a second disc, and includes the same Teague-Forster commentary found on the recent Lions Gate US release.

References

External links

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