Fri 20 Apr 2018
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN (1973).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , SF & Fantasy films , Suspense & espionage films[11] Comments
THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN. AVCO Embassy Pictures, 1973. George C. Scott, Trish Van Devere, Paul Sorvino, John Dehner. Screenwriter: Buck Henry, based on the novel by Robert Merle. Director: Mike Nichols.
The first thing you need to know about this movie is that, in it, George C. Scott talks to dolphins. And the dolphins, at least one of them, talks back with loving affection, telling him how much he loves him. Now if you can suspend disbelief on this rather fantastic matter, you may also be able to suspend disbelief regarding the movie poster’s famous tagline and how it gives away the whole plot: “Unwittingly, he trained a dolphin to kill the President of the United States!â€
Now, I know what you’re thinking. The Day of the Dolphin must be a fun, quirky action-adventure movie with an over the top performance from Scott. It has to be, right? Wrong. Inexplicably, director Mike Nichols (The Graduate) decided to play it straight, taking the source material deeply seriously, embellishing it with cinematic artistry and artifice.
All of which makes this movie one of the oddest motion pictures I’ve ever seen. Technically, it’s extremely well filmed. And Scott was a trooper, giving a stellar performance as a marine biologist who has unknowingly been working for a shadowy group within the government that hopes to assassinate the president.
But it all comes back to Alpha. That’s the name of the prized talking dolphin. Actually, it’s “Fa†for short. As in Al-Fa. You see “Fa loves Pa.†Or so he says in a squeaky voice. The viewer is supposed to take this all seriously. Maybe you can. I couldn’t. But that didn’t stop me from watching The Day of the Dolphin to the very end.
It’s got sheer chutzpah for even existing, this strange little neglected film that concludes on a most somber note with the protagonists quietly waiting for their deaths at the hands of powerful hidden forces in the government. For a movie with talking animals, this one is a downer.
Final note: interesting factoid, originally Roman Polanski was set to direct this film and was in London working on pre-production when he learned that Sharon Tate had been murdered in Los Angeles by the Manson Family.
April 20th, 2018 at 8:42 pm
Great cast, but Buck Henry & Mike Nichols were odd choices for a project like this.
April 20th, 2018 at 9:19 pm
No, not the kind of movie you’d expect from either of them.
April 20th, 2018 at 9:27 pm
Robert Merle’s brilliant novel was a philosophical thriller with a fine blend of day after tomorrow science fiction, satire, and conspiracy thriller. It was never going to be an easy book to adapt, and weighing it down with a scene chewing Scott and mediocre Van Devere plus an inexplicably bad screenplay by Buck Henry that misses the point of the book completely and absolutely flat direction by Nichols doomed it.
How anyone got this dull heavy handed paranoid thriller out of Merle’s intelligent savage and deeply humanistic literary thriller I can’t imagine, but this one is a legendary bomb thanks to Nichols, Henry, and Scott. It’s heavy handed, slow moving, and even the dolphins are dull. Frankly I would rather have seen it as a Disney film than what that lot did to it trying to make a political statement.
April 20th, 2018 at 9:45 pm
Disney is good thinking, David. Would have been an adventurous way to go.
April 20th, 2018 at 10:34 pm
I remember seeing the trailer for it many times, perhaps for a TV showing, but I was never interested enough to watch the entire film.
April 21st, 2018 at 5:58 am
What I remember about it is that the one and only time I saw it was on a airplane flight home from London in August of 1975.
I never got Trish Van Devere.
April 21st, 2018 at 7:39 am
In that first picture of George C. Scott standing next to the computer,is he naked from the waist down? I’d enlarge it, but if he is, I really don’t want to see it.
April 21st, 2018 at 9:55 am
An overactive imagination can sometimes be a dangerous thing, Dan.
April 21st, 2018 at 9:56 am
But if you’re right, I also really don’t want to know.
April 21st, 2018 at 10:47 am
Scott is wearing beige-colored pants. They match in color the beige desk at the far left. Such “color harmonies” have a long tradition in film design.
I have never liked any Mike Nichols film at all. Don’t get why he is considered a good director by so many. Haven’t seen this one.
June 29th, 2018 at 10:28 pm
Absolutely loved the film. Will never forget it. Was 8 years old when Dad took us to see It at the Drive-In.
Our family used to make fun of it all the time..
Meeee, Paaaa, Beeeee, Maa love Paaa!!
Will never forget the last scene where Scott tells Trish don’t turn around, Dont look at them! Ohh man, we were crying. Nice of my Dad not to laugh or make fun of the scene. Back then, George C. Scott was the Man. Cant believe how serious he played it. Made it believable for us, anyways.