Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with today’s installment of A Movie A Day.
[For those now joining us, A Movie A Day is my attempt at filling in gaps in my film knowledge. My DVD collection is thousands strong, many of them films I haven’t seen yet, but picked up as I scoured used DVD stores. Each day I’ll pull a previously unseen film from my collection or from my DVR and discuss it here. Each movie will have some sort of connection to the one before it, be it cast or crew member.]
You know, for the reputation this movie has, the relatively low rating on IMDB and the fairly ridiculous premise, I found I enjoyed it a whole lot.
THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN is a film about talking dolphins… a serious film about talking dolphins… a serious film starring George C. Scott, written by Buck Henry and directed by acclaimed stage and screen director Mike Nichols… about talking dolphins.
And I liked it!
I guess you can look at this as a grown up Flipper. It’s about a man and his wife who are researching dolphins, specifically one they have been raising since birth, the first live dolphin birth in captivity. They call this little guy Alpha (Pha, for short) and we come to learn that they’ve been teaching the dolphin how to talk as part of a corporate tax write-off fund in dolphin research.
It starts off teaching Pha how to graduate his clicks and squeaks into mimicking English words, but by the time we’re out of the first act we realize that Pha is actually conversing. It’s not like The Brain Gremlin from GREMLINS 2 or anything… it’s still very much dolphin squeaking and simple words, but communication nonetheless…
Surrounding Scott are Trish Van Devere as his wife and partner in this research, Paul Sorvino as a shady character sniffing around this research, Fritz Weaver as the sympathizing company man, Edward Herrmann (Max from THE LOST BOYS!!) as a young and thin hand on the island assisting in the research and John David Carson (the lead in the great and underseen PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW… when’s that coming to DVD?) as another assistant.
The film pulled a fast one on me, I have to admit. When it starts out we see Paul Sorvino hanging around various dolphin testing fascilities and research offices. Then he pops up at a lecture Scott is giving. The way Nichols reveals him, the way the score changes… well, it paints a bad picture.
There’s my villain, I thought, but boy was I mistaken. For the first two acts I got exactly what I expected… some beautiful scenes with Scott communicating with Pha and Bea (short for Beta, a female dolphin brought in so Alpha can get some lovin’ on), some sleazy stuff of Sorvino blackmailing Fritz Weaver into giving him access to the research fascility and then… well, the film takes a radical turn and it’s suddenly a political assassination picture!
What the fuck!?!
I think I literally said that as I realized what the hell was going on. It’s almost a James Bond plot. A board of super rich dudes kidnap the dolphins, using a man planted in with the researchers to communicate with the creatures. See, these dolphins might be able to communicate and understand certain phrases and sentences, but they have no concept of lying or theory. To them a thing either is or it isn’t.
So when this traitor tells them they’ll see Pa (Scott) if they do some errands, they do what is asked, thinking it’s coming from the figure both of them start seeing as their parental figure.
The tone of this movie is something, alright. It’s all very serious, about family dynamics and the majesty of these creatures, until it becomes an assassination plot movie and even then it’s still deadly serious, but with George C. Scott shouting orders to a dolphin.
THE DAY OF THE DOLPHIN falls firmly into that “I can’t believe this movie exists” category, which is a huge bonus for me. I love stuff like that. That’s why I love so many of Takashi Miike’s movies. There’s something to a movie that just shouldn’t have been made that instantly pardons damn near any fault you can find and that’s the case with this one.
At least for me.
Final Thoughts: Bizarre, bizarre movie, but one that kind of holds up. I was definitely emotionally invested, but then again I’m a big softie and an animal lover, so it doesn’t take many “Awwww… cute sea-puppy!” moments to win me over. Add in a completely straight lead performance by George C. Scott and you get a solid recommendation from me. I like dolphins, sue me.
Here’s what we have lined up for the next week:
Wednesday, December 3rd: CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (1971)
Thursday, December 4th: THE CINCINNATI KID (1965)
Friday, December 5th: POCKETFUL OF MIRACLES (1961)
Saturday, December 6th: MIKEY & NICKY (1976)
Sunday, December 7th: TWO MINUTE WARNING (1976)
Monday, December 8th: THE SENTINEL (1976)
Tuesday, December 9th: HOW TO STEAL A MILLION (1966)
Happy 6 month anniversary to AMAD! I can’t believe it’s been half a year…
Tomorrow we follow Mike Nichols once more to the ‘70s classic CARNAL KNOWLEDGE… finally plug that hole in my film knowledge and I can’t wait. I love me some Jack Nicholson, especially from this era. See you folks for that one!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
