Great White | |
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Directed by | Enzo G. Castellari |
Screenplay by | Marc Princi [1] |
Produced by |
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Starring |
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Cinematography | Alberto Spagnoli [1] |
Edited by | Gianfranco Amicucci [1] |
Music by | Guido & Maurizio De Angelis [1] |
Production company |
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Distributed by | Variety Distribution |
Release dates |
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Running time | 87 minutes [1] |
Country | Italy [1] |
Box office | $18 million (USA) or $3 million [2] |
Great White (a.k.a. The Last Shark; Italian : L'ultimo squalo) is a 1981 Italian horror film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, having originally been assigned to Ruggero Deodato. In the film James Franciscus and Vic Morrow attempt to save hundreds of swimmers in a coastal resort after a large great white shark starts terrorizing the area and eating tourists.
The film did well at the box office, grossing over $18 million in its first month in the United States; however, its North American release was later blocked after the filmmakers were accused of plagiarizing Jaws (1975).
While wind-surfing near the seaside community of Port Harbor, a young man is killed by a giant great white shark. Horror author Peter Benton and professional shark hunter Ron Hamer realize the truth, but ambitious mayor William Wells refuses to accept that a shark threat exists, fearing that a cancelled wind-surfing regatta would derail his campaign to become state governor. Wells has shark nets installed, but the sounds of teenagers splashing in the surf leads the shark to rip through the nets. The next day, the shark plows through the wind surfers, knocking them off their boards, before targeting the mayor's aide and eating him.
Wells can no longer hide the truth and Benton and Hamer head out to sea, planning to feed the shark dynamite and cause it to explode. However, the shark traps them in a cave and the men have to use their dynamite just to escape. Meanwhile, Benton's daughter Jenny and some of her friends head out on a yacht, armed with some steak and a shotgun, intending to shoot the shark. Instead, its powerful bites on the bait knock Jenny into the water. Her friends pull her back on board, but the shark bites off one of her legs in the process. Mayor Wells' son was one of the friends she went out with and Benton blames him for her injury. Determined to do something right, Wells sets out in a helicopter armed with a steak, apparently intending to hoist the shark into the air and suffocate it, but the shark is too powerful; when it bites into the steak dangling from a winch, it shakes the copter and knocks Wells into the sea. The shark then bites him in half before lunging into the helicopter, dragging it into the sea.
Benton and Hamer go back out to blow up the shark. After an argument, Benton agrees to allow Hamer to be the one to go down with the dynamite strapped into a belt around his waist. Thinking the shark might be hiding in the downed helicopter, Hamer investigates it. The shark sneaks up on him and attacks and, despite Benton's attempts to save him, Hamer becomes wrapped up in a line and is towed to his death by the shark.
Meanwhile, a shark hunter chains some spare ribs to the side of a dock. The hunter, a TV news cameraman and some spectators go stand on the dock when the shark takes the ribs, towing the dock out into the ocean. Suddenly, the shark begins to attack the dock, knocking the people into the water and eating the shark hunter and TV cameraman. Benton arrives and rescues the other people but gets trapped on the dock when the shark arrives to drag it further out to sea. Hamer's corpse floats by and Benton feeds it to the shark. Realizing he has the detonator in his hand, Benton leaps into the ocean and flips the switch, detonating the dynamite and blowing the shark's head off.
Back on shore, Benton is approached by TV reporter Bob Martin for comment. Benton then punches Martin, gets in a car and drives away.
Universal Pictures attempted to block the distribution by Film Ventures before its U.S. premiere on 5 March 1982, but the request was denied in U.S. District Court. [3] However, about a month into release, federal judge David V. Kenyon ruled the film was too similar to Jaws, and The Last Shark was subsequently pulled from American theaters. [4]
The film was released as Great White in the United States (before it was pulled from theatres there) and as Shark in the United Kingdom. [1] The film also enjoyed a good response in Italy, where it became the 72nd highest-grossing film of the 1980–1981 season. [5]
On March 5, 2013, RetroVision Entertainment released the film on DVD, marking the film's first ever official home release in the United States. The film featured a restored print and the DVD's bonus features included the short documentary Great White: The Legacy – 30 Years Later and rare theatrical trailers. The DVD was Region 0, limited to only 500 copies, and could only be purchased online. [6]
A version of the movie with a RiffTrax commentary was made available on 17 June 2016. [7]
On 15 October 2019, both Beat Records Company and Edizioni Cabum released the film's soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis and Yvonne Wilkins on compact disc and vinyl for the first time in 38 years. The CD version includes a 12-page booklet and tracks that were never used in the film and the vinyl version was pressed on 180-gram vinyl and includes an illustrated internal sleeve. The release was limited to 500 copies on CD, 400 on standard vinyl and 100 on colored vinyl.
Of the film, the Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "its only interest (and amusement) is the way it has solemnly transcribed [from Jaws]". [1] The Boston Globe commented negatively on the special effects, stating that the film obviously cuts between Vic Morrow and a shot of a shark in an aquarium and that the shark in question occasionally resembled a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. [8]
Following the financial success of the film, Enzo Castellari considered making a sequel but ultimately demurred after the mechanical shark was damaged following shooting of the first movie. [9]
Scenes from Great White were incorporated into the 1995 Italian shark movie Cruel Jaws , which also utilized footage from Jaws. [10] [11] The movie Deep Blood also used a lot of footage from this movie including the oddly shaped 'balloon' shark model.[ citation needed ]
Jaws is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter, hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography.
Jaws 2 is a 1978 American horror thriller film directed by Jeannot Szwarc and co-written by Carl Gottlieb. It is the sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws (1975), and the second installment in the Jaws franchise. The film stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, with Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton reprising their respective roles as Martin's wife Ellen Brody and mayor Larry Vaughn. It also stars Joseph Mascolo, Jeffrey Kramer, Collin Wilcox, Ann Dusenberry, Mark Gruner, Susan French, Barry Coe, Donna Wilkes, Gary Springer, and Keith Gordon in his first feature film role. The plot concerns Chief Brody suspecting another great white shark is terrorizing the fictional seaside resort of Amity Island, following a series of incidents and disappearances, and his suspicions are eventually proven true.
Jaws: The Revenge is a 1987 American horror film produced and directed by Joseph Sargent. The fourth and final film in the Jaws franchise, it stars Lorraine Gary, who came out of retirement to reprise her role from the first two films, along with new cast members Lance Guest, Mario Van Peebles, Karen Young and Michael Caine. Acting as a sequel to Jaws 2, the film focuses on a now-widowed Ellen Brody (Gary) and her conviction that a great white shark is seeking revenge on her family, particularly when it kills her youngest son, and follows her to the Bahamas.
Hammerhead may refer to:
Jaws 3-D is a 1983 American horror film directed by Joe Alves and starring Dennis Quaid, Bess Armstrong, Simon MacCorkindale and Louis Gossett Jr. As the second sequel to Steven Spielberg's Jaws it was the third installment in the Jaws franchise. The film follows the Brody children from the previous films to SeaWorld, a Florida marine park with underwater tunnels and lagoons. As the park prepares for opening, a young great white shark infiltrates the park from the sea, seemingly attacking and killing the park's employees. Once the shark is captured, it becomes apparent that a second, much larger shark also entered the park and was the real culprit.
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The Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 were a series of shark attacks along the coast of New Jersey, in the United States, between July 1 and 12, 1916, in which four people were killed and one critically injured. The incidents occurred during a deadly summer heat wave and polio epidemic in the United States that drove thousands of people to the seaside resorts of the Jersey Shore. Since 1916, scholars have debated which shark species was responsible and the number of animals involved, with the great white shark and the bull shark most frequently cited.
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Enzo G. Castellari is an Italian film director, screenwriter and actor.
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Keoma is a 1976 Italian spaghetti Western film directed by Enzo G. Castellari and starring Franco Nero. It is frequently regarded as one of the better 'twilight' Spaghetti Westerns, being one of the last films of its genre, and is known for its incorporation of newer cinematic techniques of the time and its vocal soundtrack by Guido & Maurizio De Angelis.
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1990: The Bronx Warriors is a 1982 Italian action-science fiction film directed by Enzo G. Castellari.
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