Trog
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| Trog | |
|---|---|
 Promotional poster for Trog |
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| Directed by | Freddie Francis |
| Produced by | Herman Cohen |
| Written by | Peter Bryan, John Gilling, Aben Kandel |
| Starring | Joan Crawford, Michael Gough, Bernard Kay |
| Music by | John Scott |
| Cinematography | Desmond Dickinson |
| Editing by | Oswald Hafenrichter |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1970 |
| Running time | 93 min |
| Country |  UK |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Trog is a 1970 Warner Bros. sci-fi/horror/thriller motion picture starring Joan Crawford. Others in the cast include Michael Gough, Bernard Kay, Kim Braden, David Griffin, John Hamill, Chloe Franks, and Joe Cornelius.
[edit] Synopsis
Three local male students who are hiking in the English countryside discover an opening on the moors and climb down to investigate the caverns below. An ape-like creature (played by Cornelius) attacks and kills one of the boys and drives one of the others into hysteria. The survivors are taken to the nearby Brockton Research Centre for treatment. While they are recuperating from the ordeal, the incident arouses the interest of noted anthropologist Dr. Brockton (played by Crawford). Her student, Malcolm Travers (played by Griffin), is one of the boys from the group.
Dr. Brockton, who is involved in the study of early man's development from the apes, hires Malcolm as her assistant for the summer and they return to investigate the creature in the caves. They manage to get a photograph of the creature, which does indeed appear to be a primitive ape-man. Dr. Brockton believes he is a Troglodyte, or prehistoric cave dweller, the missing link between ape and man, who must have been frozen for thousands of years.
For the sake of scientific research, she decides to make a study of the Troglodyte, whom she nicknames "Trog," and attempt to communicate with him. She has a hard time convincing the authorities and disgruntled fellow scientists about the significance of her find, however. The local townsfolk, lead by the hostile reaction of Sam Murdock (played by Gough), a skeptical and trouble-making religious bigot, are afraid of Trog, whom they believe is nothing more than a dangerous monster, and oppose his presence in the community. Murdock firmly advocates killing the creature before it causes any trouble.
Aroused from his cave by a TV camera crew, Trog comes to the surface and Dr. Brockton manages to give him a tranquilizer shot. He is then taken to her lab at the research centre, where she begins a program with the help of Malcolm and her daughter, Anne (played by Braden), to teach him some basic skills and orient him with the present-day world.
In a scene in the gardens, Dr. Brockton plays "catch" with him. She has him examine and play with toys in another scene, including a train and a windup doll. She plays some jazz music and he reacts to it violently. She then plays classical, which he likes. She states triumphantly, "Music does have the power to soothe the savage breast." In another scene, electrodes are attached to Trog's skull and his prehistoric memories are visible on a monitor, showing a sequence from the dinosaur age. It is not explained why he should be able to recall the creatures, since they must have died out before his time.
Though Dr. Brockton has made some progress in taming Trog, who even receives an operation to give him vocal cords and manages to speak a word, "Blue," it does not satisfy Murdock. The publicity, and the experts marveling at Trog's progress, only arouses his anger further. After an unsuccessful court hearing, where he demands that Trog be destroyed as a dangerous animal, Murdock decides to take matters into his own hands. He breaks into the lab one evening in order to kill the creature. He is killed by Trog.
Having been released from his cage, Trog then goes on a rampage in the local town and wreaks havoc, killing shopkeepers, impaling a butcher on a meat hook, and overturning cars. He frightens children on a playground and abducts a little girl (played by Franks), taking the unconscious child back to his cave.
The authorities are now determined to kill the creature and go on a massive hunt. Dr. Brockton and her colleagues must find him first. Against police orders, she goes down into the cave and manages to get Trog to surrender the child. Despite Dr. Brockton's pleas for more time to calm him, the police move in and shoot Trog in a hail of gunfire. Trog then falls on a wooden stake and dies.
When Dr. Brockton is offered an opportunity for a final comment by the TV man, she refuses the microphone. With a look of contempt and sadness, she walks away from the camera into the distance.
[edit] Trivia
- Trog was the second of two movies that Crawford starred in for her friend, Herman Cohen. The first was Berserk! (1968).
- The dinosaur sequence in Trog, which was taken from studio stock footage, was from the Warner Bros. movie Animal World (1956).
- Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco presented a staged version of Trog in August-September 2006 with mixed results. The souvenir program contained the note: "For those of you who have seen the motion picture Trog, no explanation is necessary. For those who haven't, no explanation is possible."
- Trog was the last silver screen appearance of Crawford.
