Troggie Dearest

TROG-1970-In England three spelunkers go looking for trouble in some underground caves and find it in the form of a prehistoric man/monster who beats one guy to death. Another guy goes crazy and is taken to a hospital where he's questioned by Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford in her last motion picture role) who wants to see exactly what terrified him, so she and the third spelunker go back to the cave and she gets her wish snapping a photograph of the “trog” picking up a boulder. An expedition is mounted and Trog (Joe Cornelius in a monkey suit supposedly leftover from 2001!)) appears on live TV! Some people run but others (mostly the police) just stand around when Trog kills a cameraman. Brockton whips out a tranquilizer gun and Trog is captured and put in a cage for study (“For a senior citizen he certainly has a marvelous appetite”). Brockton's daughter Anne (Kim Braden) assists her when Trog plays with toys and listens to classical music. But when a jazzy rock number is played he goes wild! 

Dr. Selbourne (Jack May), a jealous assistant and Murdoch (Michael Gough), a greedy land developer plot to have Trog destroyed. A famous American surgeon (Robert Hutton) performs an operation that makes the caveman have flashbacks to prehistoric times (scenes from THE ANIMAL WORLD (1956) are used). All seems ok until Murdoch breaks into the institute and taunts Trog who escapes, kills Murdoch and terrorizes the small community (he hangs a local butcher on a meat hook). He kidnaps a little girl and heads for his cave. Brockton convinces Trog to set the girl free but the army kills him anyway. 

 This was the second outing for Joan Crawford working for her friend expatriate American producer Herman Cohen. I wonder if she still considered him a friend after starring in this dumb low budget horror thriller? Their first collaboration was BERSERK in 1967. Both have screenplays by Aben Kandel who in the US had written I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF in 1957 for then AIP producer Cohen. Earlier Kandel had written KID MONK BARONI (1952), Leonard Nimoy's debut film. Co-story credit goes to director John Gilling. 

Director Freddie Francis was also a respected and busy cinematographer though at this time he was directing his own films which were usually competently handled but TROG suffers from lack of budget and a rushed story line. This was the real nadir of Crawford's career (although she was on the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola at the time) and though miscast she plays it straight.

Thanks for reading!