L'abominable homme des cavernes

The good: There is precious little but the ultra professionalism of Joan Crawford even in dreck like this is impressive indeed. She was aware what she was involved in and while many actors would have just phoned in a blank wall of a performance Miss Crawford would never allow herself to lower her standards to that level. At least by providing her own wardrobe, a budget necessity, she at least guaranteed that although matronly she was at least stylishly dressed amongst the mess that was surrounding her. A pity that this was her cinematic swan song after such a fabled career. She was offered a few more parts, albeit supporting roles in both Airport '75 and Airport '77 which are hardly masterpieces but at least more distinguished than this, but had lost her confidence and totally withdrawn from public view.

Beside Joan keeping a stiff upper lip while encircled by junk there are some pretty views of an English village and the surrounding countryside and some very buff actors in the first sequence who strip down to their undies and take a dip to go exploring a cave. Those are the sum total of worthwhile elements in this clunker.

The bad:everything else in this terrible movie. Only for completist fans of Joan or extremely bad movies.

Joan Crawford's infamously bad swan song, the story of an anthropologist (Crawford) who makes a study of a missing link, whom she dubs "Trog" (short for "troglodyte"). The film is extremely cheap and cheesy. Hey, I like extremely cheap and cheesy. If it were only that, I probably would love the movie. But what makes the movie bad is its slow pace. People talk interminably about stupid things, and the boredom sets in and never leaves. The scenes where Trog and Crawford play ball are the very definition of camp, and I would have much preferred Trog's final rampage to last 80% of the film's run. So, due to boredom, this truly is a terrible movie. It may be bad, but I still liked it more than Love Story, which was released the same year.

No doubt about it - Trog is a bad, bad film. yet, I think it is better than most give it credit for and wholly entertaining for its camp. The story is inane: some troglodyte had been frozen in nearby caves somewhere in England for centuries, found by exploring men, kills the exploring men, and then is taken alive to go to the Brockton Scientific Research Center run by a high-coiffed Joan Crawdford. Crawford plays the scientist out to get a name for herself, her institute, and for added measure, science itself. But she is not the cold, dispassionate stereotype of a scientist. No, here she plays ball outside with what she affectionately calls Trog. She plays games with him. Gives him toys. Beams when he learns a new trick and mothers him in general. The trog, while in no way could I argue it was good make-up - what little there really is - is better than it could be. And at the very least, the trog costume/make-up is able to convey feeling and emotion to some degree. The rest of the story is preposterous as some local decides to let trog out - for reasons I never fully found convincing - so trog could go out and do his obligatory rampage through a small English village. Don't look for much in this movie. Freddie Francis, the old Hammer stalwart himself, directed this muddle and it is sub-par for a man with his talent that directed The Creeping Flesh and so many other great horror films of the 70s. From a directorial perspective, Trog is a major disappointment. But, if it is high camp you want and entertaining camp - I was never bored - then Trog might just be to your taste. What can be all bad about seeing a sixty-plus Joan Crawford don neon lab coats, throw rubber fish and lizards into a cage, throw a ball to a man in a troglodyte costume,or tote a hypo gun acting with all the seriousness of a Robert Stack. Those scenes were well-worth the pain one might incur during the "talky" scenes so many seem to have mentioned. I found the film to be surprisingly short at 93 minutes. The last two "major" films Crawford made were for legendary B producer Herman Cohen - Berserk! and Trog. Yes, they were dramatic departures for a legend such as Crawford, but they were acting jobs that still were mainstream cinema to some extent. And I am sure no one - including Crawford most of all, would have thought these two films would be her last(least if you will). Michael Gough is also in the picture in what I can only term as a completely throw-away role meant to make a plot that shouldn't move - move.

It is said Bette Davis commented that if she had found herself starring in "Trog," she'd commit suicide. Alas, poor Joan Crawford, who obviously felt she couldn't be fussy if she wanted the work, descended to this cut-rate, Herman Cohen-produced monster movie. Ironically released in the States by Warner Brothers (on the bottom half of a double-bill with "The Torture Garden"), the studio for which Ms Crawford made several of her hits including "Mildred Pierce", the only scary thing about "Trog" is the sight of a once-glamorous, legendary leading lady schlepping around in a lab coat (she plays an anthropologist), obviously tipsy as she slurs inane lines like "Trog lives on a diet of fish and lishardsh." Let's face it: under the circumstances, you'd drink, too.

Trog is cutesy for troglodyte: a primitive missing-link cave-dweller portrayed by a burly actor in an Alley Oop-like caveman get-up and an over-the-head, dime-store Halloween mask. Discovered by a hunky and shirtless, albeit unfortunate, team of spelunking college students, Trog is captured and put under the observation of Dr Brockton (Joan).

The true villain of this piece is Michael Gough (also slumming it), a representative of the opposing townspeople who, in a public confrontation with Joan, causes her to explode in a moment of impassioned fury. Regrettably, she does not give Gough her trademark slap in the face.

Trog eventually escapes to wreak some customary monster-movie havoc and Joan hunts him down with her "hypo-gun" across the bleak fields of the northern English countryside and down into his cavern, dressed in a smartly tailored tan jacket, slacks and boots ensemble.

Hollywood Royalty? Joan tries to maintain her dignity and poise despite having to deliver lines like, "Put the child down, Trog!" and occasionally looking a little woozy. This sad swan song to a long, brilliant career, amid the preposterous mise en scene, gives "Trog" the feeling of a tragi-comedy. Like one of her memorable screen characters, the real Joan Crawford endeavors to be strong and, ultimately, to triumph against all odds.

This 1970 British flick mingles elements of "Planet of the Apes," "Frankenstein" and various Sasquatch tales. The scenes where Joan studies Trog are like an inversion of the scenes in "Planet of the Apes" where the female doctor chimp (Zira) analyzes Charlton Heston. "Frankenstein" comes to mind because of the fairly sympathetic portrayal of the half-man/half-ape and his gentle treatment of a little girl. Being a low-budget English film directed by Freddie Francis it has a decidedly Hammer-esque look and vibe.

Some have mocked the film as "campy" but this simply isn't true; the story is played completely straight. Nothing about it is consciously artificial, exaggerated or self-parodying, like, say, Alan Rickman's performance in 1991's "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves." THAT's campy.

The ape make-up is similar to that of "Planet of the Apes," albeit with a more protruding maw. In fact, it looks like someone dug the ape mask out of the trash from the set of 1968's "2001: A Space Odyssey" (which they probably did!)

This was Joan Crawford's final film and has been heavily panned. I don't understand this because it's not really THAT bad. As a matter of fact, the material is taken serious by all involved as the story tackles the question: What would it be like if the so-called missing link was actually discovered ALIVE? Of course, you have to take into account that the perspective of the movie is 1969, when it was shot. Given the period and the low budget, the movie has its limitations, which can be witnessed in two glaring ways:

(1) The overlong dinosaur sequence of stock stop-motion footage that I assume are images from Trog's memory; and (2) the appearance of Trog himself. In regards to the latter, the head and facial features of the ape-man look quite good for 1969, it's the rest that leaves much to be desired. Basically, Trog is just a small-ish white dude walking around in a loin cloth and fur "tennis shoes" with what looks like a short fur cape. This is the extent of the Trog costume and it looks lame, which is probably why people mock the film -- the "monster" is more laughable than fearsome.

Upon reflection, though, since Trog is half-human and therefore mostly hairless, it makes sense that he would obtain furs to make rudimentary clothing for warmth warm. This assumes, of course, that he'd have to occasionally leave the caverns to kill animals for furs; and likely food as well (after all, what would he eat in the darkness of the caves?). Since he's half-human he would have the intelligence to do this.

What makes "Trog" an essential purchase, besides being Crawford's last film, is the stunning Kim Braden, who plays Joan's daughter/assistant, Anne. Kim is fully clothed at all times, usually wearing cute short-skirt/dress outfits, proving that attractiveness is more than a matter of showing skin. What a cutie! Interestingly, Kim went on to play Captain Picard's wife in the Nexus in the outstanding 1994 film "Star Trek: Generations."

The film runs 93 minutes and was shot in Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, England.

GRADE: C+