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Mainly
considered a B-movie sub-genre, cinematic monsters from the deep
blue sea proved to be very popular with drive-in audiences of the
1950's. This type of story received first-class treatment in 1975
with Jaws. People flocked to the theatres and soon Hollywood
producers were scrambling to make their own tales of waterlogged
terror. Dino De Laurentiis was no exception.
But
De Laurentiis would out-do them all. Not only would his creature
be smarter, faster and more deadly; but he'd push the dramatic conflict
of man vs. beast to operatic heights. The final result is so over-the-top
that Orca (1977), a pop psychology update of Moby Dick,
is a delicious slice of bad movie heaven.
"My
Love, We Are One", the haunting instrumental by Ennio Morricone,
accompanies the opening scene of two killer whales frolicking, splashing
and procreating in the waters off the coast of Newfoundland. In
actuality they're only in a holding tank at Marine World, but more
on that later.
Marine
biologist Charlotte Rampling and her assistant Robert Carradine
are doing some underwater research when they are threatened by a
Great White Shark. Luckily the shark is distracted by the sound
of an approaching boat. At the helm is fisherman and shark hunter
Captain Nolan, played by Richard Harris with an Irish baroque accent.
Carradine,
like the disposable character he is, rather stupidly falls out of
his rubber dinghy. Just when he is about to become shark food, Carradine
is saved by a killer whale that roars in like the cavalry. The impact
of being struck by the giant whale sends the shark flying several
feet into the air, landing in the water a bloody, whimpering mess.
Our
glacial biologist calmly asses the situation, "There's only
one creature in the world that can do that…a killer whale."
Rampling
is giving a lecture that is jam packed with info, the gist of which
is that we're comparatively stupid to whales. Her lecture serves
three purposes. The first is to show how smart she is. The second
is to give the audience background information on the movies main
antagonist. And the third is to set up the movies premise. Rampling
unsubtly foreshadows the main plot point when she unleashes this
hum-dinger of a whale fact, "…like human beings, they
have a profound instinct for vengeance." Huh?
In
voice over Rampling tells us that Nolan has been coming to her lectures
and that she has formed a crush on the salty old Sea Dog. That afternoon
she finds the captain rigging a holding pen in the bay. His focus
has shifted from shark hunting to whale hunting.
Even when she's furious, Rampling never looks more than slightly
annoyed. "Nolan, there's a word for you." She frostily
deadpans.
"I
know, and I've been called it many times."
Their
love/hate verbal sparring is full of flirty double entendre when
she warns Nolan not to fool with Mother Nature. "It's hardly
something to screw around with."
"That's
a very dangerous word to use around a fellow like me…I might
get a notion or two."
Nolan
and his crew (Bo Derek, Keenan Wynn, and Peter Hooten) head out
to sea and find a pod of frolicking whales. In an attempt to capture
one of the creatures, Nolan misfires his harpoon gun and mortally
wounds one of the whales.
Bo,
apparently an amateur whaleologist, informs Nolan, "You nicked
the male, you hit the female."
The
whale becomes tangled in the line and swims underneath the boat
where she gouges herself against the boat propeller. The real reason
that Bo is part of the crew becomes readily apparent. She has ESWP
(Extra Sensory Whale Perception). "She's trying to kill herself!"
Bo shouts.
First,
since the whale is underwater and underneath the boat, how does
Bo know that the female Orca is purposefully trying to do herself
harm? Second, how can she vouch for the whale's mental state? Bo
must have a psychic link with sea mammals.
Inexplicably,
they bring the injured whale onboard while her mate observes from
the water. Bleeding, traumatized, and hoisted high above the floor,
the pregnant female has a miscarriage. The fetus plops down onto
the deck while the father lets out an anguished roar. Nolan quickly
washes baby Shamu overboard.
As
the crew heads back to port, Orca repeatedly rams the boat. Guessing
he wants his mate back, Keenan Wynn climbs out on the yard arm and
cuts the female loose. Orca leaps out of the water and plucks Wynn
off the boat.
With
his wife returned, Orca and friends swim towards land in a water
bound funeral procession. Orca then beaches her corpse to remind
Nolan of the pain he has caused, and that for his crime, he will
pay.
The
next morning Nolan is surprised to see that the whale made it to
shore. "She didn't swim," Rampling tells him, "her
mate pushed her. He followed you."
Enter
Will Sampson as Umilak, the wise native. "She speaks you the
truth. She knows it from the University, I know it from my ancestors."
He continues with hokier mumbo-jumbo and restates Ramplings asscertation
that the whale will hunt Nolan down.
A
fin, with a recognizable nick in it, breaks the surface of the water
with a familiar shark-like menace. Duh-dum, duh-dum. Orca smashes
through the hull of every boat in the harbor, except Nolan's.
That
night a representative of the local fishermen tells Nolan that he'd
better take care of his whale. "An hour ago a kid saw a fin
off the North point. A fin with a nick in it. Stationary. Just waiting."
Sure
enough when Nolan goes to the jetty Orca is waiting for him. People
must constantly explain everything to Nolan, proving that whales
are indeed smarter than man, or at least this man.
Rampling
enlightens Nolan, "Why do you think he sunk the other boats
in the harbor and not yours? He deliberately left you your boat
because he wants to fight you on the sea." But fighting is
the last thing Nolan wants because he understands what the whale
is going through. Nolan lost his wife and unborn child in a car
accident. They are brothers in misery. All Nolan wants to do is
look Orca in the eye and tell him that he's sorry, that it was all
a terrible mistake.
But
Orca doesn't want to talk, he wants vengeance. To prove he means
business, Orca sets the dock and hillside ablaze with the help of
a conveniently located gas line and a precariously perched lantern.
"The
monsters message to us is clear," Will Sampson chimes in again,
"we must send him Nolan or he will torment this village without
mercy." Oh, boy. Orca please kill him, kill him now!
If
torching the village and forcing us to endure Will Sampson weren't
bad enough, the whale with the attitude next attacks Bo Derek. While
nursing a broken leg at Nolan's Cliffside home, Bo senses something.
Her ESWP kicks in.
Orca's
ultra sonic sound vibrations shatter her wine glass. Before she
can escape he strikes the underwater house supports and the cottage
begins to slide into the bay. The back of the house crumbles away
as the whale smashes through the floorboards. Nolan tries to save
Bo but Orca rises out of the water and bites through her cast with
a loud crunch then swims off with her leg.
Enough
is enough. While Orca leaps and splashes in victory, Harris shifts
the historonics into high gear. "You revengeful son of a bitch.
You win. You want revenge? Well you'll have it! I'll come out there
and fight you!"
Harris
and the remaining cast members head out to sea. In voice over, Rampling
reiterates the loopy pop-psychology logic behind the voyage they
are about to embark on.
"At
this point I was sure of only one thing, that his grief had made
the Orca wildly unpredictable and I felt an obligation to protect
both it and Nolan from the consequences of that insanity."
Nolan
intends to use explosives to drive the whale to the surface. Rampling
objects and they idiotically fight over the stick of dynamite. The
fuse is lit and the dynamite is dropped during the scuffle. Rampling
springs into super heroine mode and tosses the dynamite overboard
just as it explodes.
Upset
by all the drama, she leans over the side of the boat with a case
of the dry heaves. Orca swims quickly upward, racing towards the
surface. She pulls her head back just in time as Orca leaps from
the water with a mighty roar. He then waves his flipper at Nolan,
beckoning them to follow him.
Oh,
by the way, Robert Carradine (aka Mr. Disposable Character) finally
dies. He is plucked off the boat by the toothy jaws of Orca. Rampling
doesn't seem overly upset at his demise. In fact, everyone simply
carries on with their business.
Rampling
narrates in her usual pseudo-intellectual style as the boat sails
farther north trough the polar ice. "The creature led, Nolan
followed. If there were any other purpose to what we were doing
only the Orca knew it."
Harris
has been driven to the breaking point and is so delirious that he
gives us this philosophical bon mot, "He loved his family more
than I loved mine."
Silently
Orca nudges an iceberg towards the humans, sandwiching the boat
between huge blocks of ice. Will Sampson is (finally) crushed in
an icy avalanche while Rampling and Harris make it off the boat
as it sinks into the freezing waters. Rampling takes refuge on an
iceberg, but Harris is trapped on a floating sheet of ice. Orca
breaks the surface and gives Harris the evil eye. The final showdown
has begun.
With
a shrieking battle cry, Orca rises out of the water and positions
himself on the edge of the ice and, like a giant see-saw, the ice
tilts up. Nolan looses his footing and slides into the water.
The
whale slowly circles around the helpless Nolan until, finally, with
a flick of his giant tail, Orca sends Nolan flying through the air.
Like a rag doll Harris crashes against the ice. His broken and bloodied
body rests briefly at Ramplings feet before slipping into the cold
depths of the ocean.
A
rescue chopper sweeps over the horizon on its way to rescue the
stranded Rampling. Orca, his quest for vengeance now complete, quietly
swims away.
There
are both good points and bad about how they used trained killer
whales for most of the production. On the plus side, a real whale
is obviously more convincing than a mechanical mock-up. On the negative
side, those whales lived in California and the film was shot in
Newfoundland. You obviously can't set whales loose on location,
so all their scenes were shot in the tank at Marine World. The footage
from the two separate locations rarely match. The sunlight and water
clarity often varies from shot to shot within a single scene.
In
the films frigid finale you can't see the actor's cold breath. That's
because it was shot at the Mediterranean Film Studios in Malta.
The giant outdoor tank that overlooks the sea offers a controlled
production environment while giving the illusion that the action
is taking place in the middle of the ocean. The wood, plaster and
Styrofoam ice formations were built around the edge of the tank
and the shallow water (about five feet deep) made it easier to operate
the mechanical orca in the films ping-pong finale.
As
ridiculous as the vigilante killer whale in Orca might seem,
it wasn't the last time this plot device was used. In Jaws the
Revenge (1987), Bruce the great white hunts down the remaining
members of the Brody family. It's ironic that the fourth and final
installment of the Jaws franchise would heavily borrow from
the same movies that attempted to copy the original Jaws.
Ah…that's showbiz.
CCT
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