FROGS (1972) Blu-ray Review

Frogs (1972) d. George McCowan (USA)

From American International’s executive-producing team of Samuel Z. Arkoff and James H. Nicholson comes this highly entertaining low-budget schlockfest, raiding the entire reptile house (in addition to the titular croakers) to provide the creepy crawly chills. Riding on the earth-friendly movement of the early ’70s, screenwriters Robert Blees and Robert Hutchison whip up a tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale of embittered critters rising up against grouchy millionaire Jason Crockett’s (Ray Milland) pesticide-ridden swampy island estate. When rugged environmentalist photographer Pickett Smith (Sam Elliott, in an early, mustache-free film appearance) stumbles into Grampa Crockett’s annual Fourth of July family celebration, the stage is set for a muggy, buggy good time.

THE LAST DINOSAUR (1977) movie review

Last Dinosaur, The (1977) d. Kotani, Tom / Grasshoff, Alex (USA)

“His time has passed; there are no more. He is the last dinosaur.” From jazz vocalist Nancy Wilson’s warbling theme over the opening credits, we are assured that subtlety will not be the order of the day. Top-billed Richard Boone behaves as though he just crawled out of a whiskey bottle to assay the role of great white hunter and oil tycoon Masten Thrust, and his full-throttle performance elevates what could have been a C-grade Lost World retread into camp classic gold.