The Day of the Dolphin

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The Day of the Dolphin

Promotional film poster
Directed by Mike Nichols
Produced by Robert E. Relyea
Joseph E. Levine
Written by Buck Henry
Robert Merle (novel)
Starring George C. Scott
Trish Van Devere
Paul Sorvino
Music by Georges Delerue
Cinematography William A. Fraker
Editing by Sam O'Steen
Distributed by Avco Embassy Pictures
Release date(s) Flag of the United States December 19, 1973
Running time 104 min.
Country US
Language English
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 science fiction-thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott. Loosely based on the 1967 novel, Un animal doué de la raison (A Sentient Animal), by French writer Robert Merle, the screenplay was written by Buck Henry.

Contents

[edit] Plot

A brilliant and driven scientist, Jake Terrell, and his wife, Maggie, train dolphins to communicate with humans. This is done by teaching the dolphins to literally speak English in dolphin-like voices. Two of his dolphins, Alpha ("Fa") and Beta ("Be") are stolen by officials of the shadowy Franklin Institute headed by Harold DeMilo, the backer of the Terrells' research. An investigation by an undercover government agent, Curtis Mahoney, reveals that Institute is further training the dolphins to carry out a political assassination using a limpet mine against the yacht of the President of the United States.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production and reception

The film received relatively mixed reviews when released -- Pauline Kael, the film critic for the New Yorker suggested that if the best subject that Nichols and Henry think of was talking dolphins, they should quit making movies altogether -- and was not successful commercially, though it was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Score (Georges Delerue) and Best Sound (Richard Portman and Larry Jost).

The film was originally going to be directed by Roman Polanski; however, while Polanski was in London, England, looking for filming locations in August 1969, his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in their Beverly Hills home. Polanski returned to the United States, and abandoned the project.

[edit] Differences from the novel and other sources of inspiration

DVD cover for the film
DVD cover for the film

Merle's novel, a satire of the Cold War, is supposedly the basis for this film, but apparently the film's plot was substantially different from that of the novel. The movie is rather inspired in part from the scientist John Lilly's life. John C. Lilly was a physician, biophysicist, neuroscientist, and inventor who specialized in the study of consciousness. In 1959, Lilly founded the Communications Research Institute at St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands and served as its director until 1968. There he worked with dolphins exploring dolphin intelligence and human-dolphin communication.

[edit] Cultural References

  • On June 25, 2007, Stephen Colbert recommended his viewers rent this film after making an allusion to it that received little reaction from the studio audience.
  • The Simpsons episode "Treehouse of Horror XI" features a segment entitled "Night of the Dolphin," in which dolphins, angered at having been forced to perform for human audiences, lead a war against the humans, ultimately banishing them to the sea.[1]

[edit] External links