Trog (1970)

User Rating:

2.9/10   

Director:

Freddie Francis

Writers:

Peter Bryan (story)
John Gilling (story)

Release Date:

24 October 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Horror

Tagline:

From a million years back...Horror explodes into today!

Plot:

A sympathetic anthropologists uses drugs and surgery to try to communicate with a primitive troglodyte who is found living in a local cave.

Plot Keywords:

Troglodyte | Anthropologist | Missing Link | Land Developer | Rampage

Cast

Joan Crawford	...	Dr. Brockton
Michael Gough	...	Sam Murdock
Bernard Kay	...	Inspector Greenham
Kim Braden	...	Anne Brockton
David Griffin	...	Malcolm Travers
John Hamill	...	Cliff
Thorley Walters	...	Magistrate
Jack May	...	Dr. Selbourne
Geoffrey Case	...	Bill
Robert Hutton	...	Dr. Richard Warren
Simon Lack	...	Colonel Vickers
David Warbeck	...	Alan Davis
Chloe Franks	...	Little Girl
Maurice Good	...	Reporter
Joe Cornelius	...	Trog

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

UK:15 (video rating) | UK:AA (original rating) | Australia:M | USA:GP (original rating) | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Berkshire, England, UK

Company:

Herman Cohen Productions

Trivia:

After seeing this film, Joan Crawford supposedly joked that if it hadn't been for her end-of-life conversion to Christian Science, she might have committed suicide due to her embarrassment at having been in it.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Under sodium pentothal, Trog "remembers" seeing dinosaurs...impossible, since they went extinct 30 million years before the first ape, let alone the first "ape-man", evolved.

Quotes:

Dr. Brockton: Trog!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)

Fish and Lishardsh

It is said Bette Davis commented that if she had found herself starring in "Trog," she'd commit suicide. Alas, poor Joan Crawford, who obviously felt she couldn't be fussy if she wanted the work, descended to this cut-rate, Herman Cohen-produced monster movie. Ironically released in the States by Warner Brothers (on the bottom half of a double-bill with "The Torture Garden"), the studio for which Ms Crawford made several of her hits including "Mildred Pierce", the only scary thing about "Trog" is the sight of a once-glamorous, legendary leading lady schlepping around in a lab coat (she plays an anthropologist), obviously tipsy as she slurs inane lines like "Trog lives on a diet of fish and lishardsh." Let's face it: under the circumstances, you'd drink, too.

Trog is cutesy for troglodyte: a primitive missing-link cave-dweller portrayed by a burly actor in an Alley Oop-like caveman get-up and an over-the-head, dime-store Halloween mask. Discovered by a hunky and shirtless, albeit unfortunate, team of spelunking college students, Trog is captured and put under the observation of Dr Brockton (Joan).

The true villain of this piece is Michael Gough (also slumming it), a representative of the opposing townspeople who, in a public confrontation with Joan, causes her to explode in a moment of impassioned fury. Regrettably, she does not give Gough her trademark slap in the face.

Trog eventually escapes to wreak some customary monster-movie havoc and Joan hunts him down with her "hypo-gun" across the bleak fields of the northern English countryside and down into his cavern, dressed in a smartly tailored tan jacket, slacks and boots ensemble.

Hollywood Royalty? Joan tries to maintain her dignity and poise despite having to deliver lines like, "Put the child down, Trog!" and occasionally looking a little woozy. This sad swan song to a long, brilliant career, amid the preposterous mise en scene, gives "Trog" the feeling of a tragi-comedy. Like one of her memorable screen characters, the real Joan Crawford endeavors to be strong and, ultimately, to triumph against all odds.