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'Gator Bait | |
---|---|
Directed by | Beverly Sebastian, Ferd Sebastian |
Written by | Beverly Sebastion |
Produced by | Beverly Sebastian, Ferd Sebastian |
Starring | Claudia Jennings |
Edited by | Ron Johnson |
Music by | Ferd Sebastian |
Production company | Sebastian International Pictures |
Distributed by | Sebastian International Pictures Dimension Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $150,000 [1] |
'Gator Bait (U.K. title: Swamp Bait) is a 1973 film written, produced, and directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian. [2]
The film starred former Playboy "Playmate of the Year" Claudia Jennings. It was followed by the sequel 'Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice . [3]
The film follows a barefoot poacher named Desiree Thibodeau who lives deep in the swampland. Ben Bracken and Deputy Billy Boy find Desiree trapping alligators and chase her, looking to rape her. Desiree outsmarts the two men. During the chase, however, Billy Boy accidentally shoots Ben. Billy Boy tells his father, Sheriff Joe Bob Thomas, that Desiree was the shooter. Sheriff Thomas and his son join a search party who is also looking for Desiree and attack her family. Desiree exacts her revenge against the attackers.
Ferd Sebastian said the film was written as a vehicle for Claudia Jennings, with whom they had worked on The Single Girls. "She wanted to do a film with not a lot of dialog, so Gator Bait was it," said Sebastian. "As I really like to work with the Cajun people. We all piled into our motorhome and left LA... We were headed for the swamps, Myself, Bev, Claudia, our two boys a dog and a pregnamt cat. It was by far the most fun shoot I have ever been on." [4]
According to a contemporary article, the Sebastians wrote the film for Jennings but she was unavailable for filming. They shot the movie for a week on location trying to find another actress, but then Jennings became available. "I would never have been satisfied with anyone else," said Beverly Sebastian. [5]
The film was shot over three months mostly in Uncertain, Texas, near Caddo Lake and off the bayous at Red River between Shreveport and Natichotes. [6] "We were down there with all the floods and had our locations wiped out every day," said Jennings. [7]
The film made its world debut at the Rose Garden Drive In in Tyler. [6]
According to a co producer on the film "Within a couple of weeks, we made a half million dollars on it. After 18 months, we made $15 million." [8]
"We know our audience," said Ferd. "Our movies have a plot that goes A-B-C. Nothing complicated just a lot of action and a story I can understand, that you can understand and that the guy who dropped out of school in the ninth grade can get something out of." [1]
Filmink called the movie "A wonderfully tawdry, action-packed and highly entertaining wade in the kind of swamp first introduced to world audiences in the previous year’s groundbreaking hit Deliverance." [9]
Louis Burton Lindley Jr., better known by his stage name Slim Pickens, was an American actor and rodeo performer. Starting off in the rodeo, Pickens took up acting, and appeared in dozens of movies and TV shows. For much of his career, Pickens played cowboy roles. He played comic roles in Dr. Strangelove, Blazing Saddles, 1941, and his villainous turn in One-Eyed Jacks with Marlon Brando.
Ned Kelly is a 1970 British-Australian biographical bushranger film. It was the seventh Australian feature film version of the story of 19th-century Australian bushranger Ned Kelly, and is notable for being the first Kelly film to be shot in colour.
Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, popularly known as "The Swamp", is a football stadium in Gainesville, Florida, United States. it is located on the campus of the University of Florida and is the home field of the Florida Gators football team. It was originally known as Florida Field when it opened as a 22,000-seat facility in 1930, and it has been expanded and renovated many times over the ensuing decades. Most of the university's athletic administrative offices, along with most football-related offices and training areas, have been located in the stadium since the 1960s. Most of the football program's facilities are slated to move to a nearby $60 million building that began construction in 2020.
Scott Brady was an American film and television actor best known for his roles in Western films and as a ubiquitous television presence. He played the title role in the television series Shotgun Slade (1959-1961).
Southern Comfort is a 1981 American action-war drama- thriller film directed by Walter Hill and written by Michael Kane, Hill and his longtime collaborator David Giler. It stars Keith Carradine, Powers Boothe, Fred Ward, T. K. Carter, Franklyn Seales and Peter Coyote. The film, set in 1973, features a Louisiana Army National Guard squad of nine from an infantry unit on weekend maneuvers in rural bayou country as they antagonize some local Cajun people and become hunted.
Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian are American film directors, producers and writers, whose independent films in the 1970s and 1980s were predominantly exploitation pictures similar to the work of Roger Corman and other directors in the 1960s at independent studios like American International Pictures. They were a working couple who collaborated on most aspects of filmmaking together..
'Gator Bait II: Cajun Justice is a 1988 sequel to the 1974 film 'Gator Bait, written, produced and directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian. Largely ignored upon release, the film received a second life on cable television and home video.
The Unholy Rollers is a 1972 American action comedy film directed by Vernon Zimmerman and starring Claudia Jennings.
The Single Girls is a 1973 American exploitation film directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian, and starring Claudia Jennings, Jean Marie Ingels and Greg Mullavey.
Rocktober Blood is a 1984 horror film, directed by Beverly Sebastian and starring Tray Loren, Donna Scoggins and Cana Cockrell. It features the band Sorcery as actors and on the soundtrack.
Moonshine County Express is a 1977 action film from New World Pictures.
Bill Thurman was an American film and television actor. From the early 1960s until his death in 1995, he frequently appeared in B movies and independent films, often playing "redneck types" or sheriffs. He worked with low-budget-director Larry Buchanan on numerous films, for example In the Year 2889 and It's Alive!. Thurman was one of those Southern actors who specialized in "regional" pictures, films made exclusively for distribution in the Southern States.
Depicting African-American children as alligator bait was a common trope in American popular culture in the 19th and 20th centuries. The motif was present in a wide array of media, including newspaper reports, songs, sheet music, and visual art. There is an urban legend claiming that black children or infants were in fact used as bait to lure alligators, although there is no meaningful evidence that children of any race were ever used for this purpose. In American slang, alligator bait is a racial slur for African-Americans.
The Hitchhikers is a 1972 film written, produced, and directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian.
Red, White and Blue is a 1971 American documentary film written, produced, and directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian. It was about the hearings of President Nixon's Commission on Pornography and Obscenity.
I Need is a 1967 American drama film about a disturbed teenager.
The Love Clinic is a 1969 American sex comedy film written, produced, and directed by Beverly Sebastian and Ferd Sebastian. "It's a great film," said Ferd Sebastian late in his career. However a 1972 article had him refer to it as "strictly drive in" fare.
Flash and the Firecat is a 1975 American action film from Beverly and Ferd Sebastian.
American Angels: Baptism of Blood is a 1990 American film from Beverly and Fred Sebastian about female wrestlers.
Delta Fox is a 1979 American film from Beverly and Fred Sebastian.