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GRIZZLY

Directed by WILLIAM GIRDLER Screenplay by HARVEY FLAXMAN and

DAVID SHELDON

This is an idea-for-idea, character-for-character, and sometimes even shot-for-shot knock-off of Jaws. The major differences are that the location has been changed from the ocean to a national forest, and the character in the title role shambles instead of swims. The original has been copied even down to minor details. Jaws Author Peter Benchley, for instance, had a cameo role in the film as a television newscaster. Here, Co-Scenarist Harvey Flaxman shows up as a reporter, pressing Hero Christopher

George with some tough questions and being lectured in return on the responsibilities of a free press.

Now it is conceivable that such an appearance could have been someone's idea of a joke. Grizzly, however, bears no internal evidence that the film makers possess a sense of humor. The only human emotion apparently familiar to them is greed. They cast the movie either with worn faces (George, Andrew Prine, Richard Jaeckel) or yokels who must have been discovered hanging around the Georgia location. Then they turned their attentions to having most of this motley assembly torn asunder by a marauding bear who is, in fact, rather cute. Since the bear seems such a regal, friendly creature, and since the cast is so ripe for quick demise, rooting instincts remain solidly with the animal.

This effectively destroys whatever residual suspense the film makers may have been able to scrounge.

Grizzly is too cheapjack to be a considerable success, but it also will not need much of a return at the box office to show a modest profit. It is notable mainly as the first in what promises to be an infestation of Jaws sequels, rip-offs and derivations. Universal is presently at work on the official reprise, Jaws II. Other studios will soon bring forth films about marauding crocodiles, deadly swarms of bees, a car — apparently driverless— that terrorizes a small town, and a plague of earthworms, this last called Squirm. Most of these items hold little promise, but perhaps some small consolation may be found in the fact that the folks who made Grizzly have already produced what will probably stand as the bottom of the cage in this particular film genre. j,c.