L'ultimo squalo

Plot synopsis:
While wind surfing near an unnamed seaside community, a young man is killed by a giant great white shark with the power to make the sea explode. Author Peter Benton (James Franciscus) and occasionally Irish-accented professional shark hater Ron Hamer (Vic Morrow) realize the truth but ambitious mayor William Wells (Joshua Sinclair) refuses to accept that a shark threatens their community. Fearing that a canceled wind-surfing regatta would derail his gubernatorial campaign, 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. But rather than eat the scattered teenagers, the shark targets the mayor's aide. Using its sea-exploding power, it flips the aide's boat then eats him.The mayor can no longer hide the truth. Benton and Hamer head out on the sea, planning to stuff dynamite down the shark's throat and cause it to explode. But the crafty, suspiciously wooden looking shark traps them in a cave; the men have to use their dynamite just to escape. Meanwhile, Benton's daughter Jenny (Stefania Girolami Goodwin) 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 aboard but not until the shark bites off one of her legs. Mayor Wells's son was one of the friends she went out with, and Benton blames him for her injury. Determined to do something right, Wells goes 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 then lunges 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. But the shark sneaks up on him and attacks. Benton dives in to save him, but Hamer becomes wrapped up in a line and is towed to his death by the shark, just like Ahab in Moby Dick.Meanwhile, someone gets the wise idea to chain some spare ribs to the side of the dock. Then some yahoo in a cowboy hat and denim jacket with majestic embroidered wings shows up. He has a shotgun that shoots special bullets that can blow up a tank. Cowboy Hat, a TV cameraman and some spectators go stand on the dock. The shark takes the spare ribs, towing the surprisingly seaworthy dock out into the ocean. Apparently needing fiber, or perhaps a toothpick, the shark begins to eat the dock. Then it uses its sea-exploding power to knock a hole in the dock and people into the water. It eats Cowboy Hat and TV Cameraman but the others clamber back onto the shockingly still surprisingly seaworthy dock. Benton arrives and rescues the others but for some reason gets trapped on the dock when the shark arrives to drag it further out to sea. Hamer's corpse floats by. Benton cuddles with it, but the shark rips it from his arms. Benton realizes he has the detonator in his hand. Dramatically leaping into the ocean, he flips the switch, detonating the dynamite and knocking the shark's head off.Back on shore, Benton punches a TV reporter then gets in a car and drives away.

Tags: cult, murder, violence

Review:
Released in the U.S. under the title, "Great White," in 1982, the movie went as quckly as it had come into theatres at the time due to Steven Spielberg and Universal Studios having the film barred from distribution due to the blaring similarities to JAWS and JAWS 2.
The stock footage of real sharks sometimes helps but there is one where the silhouette is of a nurse shark and not a great white.The late James Franciscus and Vic Morrow do as much as they can with their roles and do bring something to a film with no shortage of bad lines and wooden acting co-stars.
As history states, this film was notoriously crowbarred out of its cinema release by Universal for being *too* like the Spielberg film (and also its sequel).In its own right, 'L'Ultimo Squalo' is an entertaining - if not trashy - killer shark movie which throws in some of the typical Italian touches of humour and ambitious technical trials.
Also, the stock footage of real fish is used to better effect here and shows the savagery of the shark attacking the many pieces of meat that varying characters attempt to lure the creature with.Unfortunately, the evident budget used here hampers some moments: underwater and night shots are hard to make out and the toy helicopter that crashes into the water is pretty obvious.
Vic Morrow (god rest his soul) shows up as the obvious Robert Shaw Cap'n Quint character but Morrow (who appears good and soused) does one of the worst accents I've ever heard - sometimes it's Irish, other times it is a thick Scottish brogue, other times, who knows what it is - the mayor of the town - sorry the Governor in this version - is this fey, badly dressed guy who looks like more of a fashion designer than a powerful politico.
However, this is still an enjoyable Italian rip-off of Jaws (and Jaws 2, for that matter), featuring some decent attack sequences and gory moments, not to mention Vic Morrow as a hilarious ersatz Captain Quint.One great thing about the shark in this film is that it appears to be jet-propelled (at least that's what it sounds like when its conical head breaks the surface) and has the ability to blast watercrafts fifteen feet into the air.
I've no idea why a guy like Enzo Castellari would stoop to such a wholesale rip-off of the Jaws movies, but we're talking about the wacky world of Italian cinema, so who knows?
Castellari never ceases to amaze me with his action-packed, stylistic films like Street Law and the Big Racket, and although folks say that he lost it a bit during the eighties, the Last Shark is the only film I've seen by him that's less than great (c'mon - Bronx Warriors and The New Barbarians are still a hoot, despite their limitations).The plot is a bit of Jaws and a bit of Jaws two mixed together.
We've got an Italian b-movie cast from heaven - James Franciscus (Cat o Nine Tails) is our hero, with Vic Morrow (Bronx Warriors) as the pseudo Scottish Robert Shaw facsimile, Joshua Sinclair as the troubled mayor torn between his polls and the safety of his folks, Romano Puppo as a shark hit-man (or something like that), with Giancarlo Prete and Massimo Vanni turning up as a ruthless film crew.Basically: it's Jaws.
It never come near the original's level of tension, and there's not much by way of shocks (the 'head popping out from under the boat bit' in Jaws is a classic), but I'd say that the Last Shark is mainly interesting for fans of Castellari himself, as well as his perpetually recurring actors.
There's a ton of style injected into these proceedings, plus plenty of Castellari slow motion, and the usual gore (though not so much as Jaws).The Last Shark starts off well, slumps slightly in the middle, and picks up again towards the end when Joshua Sinclair tries his hand at fishing the shark out the water using a helicopter.
Plus, any film that has Massimo Vanni being bitten in half earns extra points.At the end of the day though, it's still a blatant rip-off of Jaws, and the low budget rears its head whenever shark footage appears, with some dodgy models and terrible stock footage.
I can understand the film studio that made 'JAWS' suing the makers of this effort because SO MANY of the events in the original and best shark film made were copied in this.When the only 2 actors I had heard of were heading the cast in this I immediately knew it was certain to be bad as both James Franciscus and Vic Morrow were only ever 'B' movie fodder and the remainder of the cast were akin to amateurs.
But at the very least it is exceptionally entertaining -but for all the wrong reasons.With my recent discovery of this Italian-made JAWS rip-off from the early-80's, (thanks to the guys at Rifftrax) all of the sudden the last two JAWS sequels, don't seem all that bad in comparison and that's really saying a lot, as those two movies suck badly.
Well it's based around JAWS and it's familiar plot scheme's, so there's an Italian Amity Island equivalent, that's being terrorized by a big fake-looking robotic shark (and they show that thing a lot too), there's a political figure in there to complicate and obstruct the flow of things, various people on boats, wind surfers and in helicopters, that all fall prey to the shark, usually because of their own massive stupidity and poor/ illogical planning.
And in the end this epic slice of aqua-shlock comes to a head in an explosive finale - poorly done, of course, just like the rest of the movie.Once you've seen this bogus, Italian-made, stinking pile of sh** JAWS rip-off - I think you'll arrive at the only conclusion possible, which is "Yep, movie's don't get much worse than The Last Shark".Flash-forward: For those of you who got a kick out The Last Shark, I strongly recommended that you track down a copy of "Orca", (that's right, killer whales this time around) this movie, just like The Last Shark, has incredibly bad effects and reaches unhinged levels of highly illogical lunacy.
In fact truth be told it looks about on par with Jaws itself and almost managed to spawn a sequel.Telling the story of a coastal resort that comes under attack from a great white shark during a wind surfing contest it's pretty generic stuff but not all that awful.The effects are considerably better than I expected, the performances are okay and if it weren't for the fact it was so unoriginal it might be considered a passable film.In a world awash with terrible shark movies, this isn't actually one of them.The Good:SFX are great for its timeThe Bad:No originalitySoundtrack keeps sounding like Dolly Parton is about to regale us with 9 to 5Things I Learnt From This Movie:The confederates were big wind surfing enthusiastsBy walk out of the hospital I'm pretty sure he meant that she'd hopHelicopters can't land on water.
Italian shark film that took a big bite of the Jaws movie.
Then there were several shark films that tried to emulate Jaws to a degree; however, none would be as flagrant a rip off as this film that was titled The Great White when it was initially released in American theaters and subsequently yanked when Speliberg's company threatened a lawsuit.
There were parts in this that had me laughing because it was so incredibly goofy, such as the shark using rocks to block the guys trying to kill it in a cave and the scene where these people are acting like a windsurfing race was incredibly exciting when it clearly was not.
This is just a great laugh-out loud comedy, there is one scene of someone dying and getting catapulted into the air which they show again later as someone in the movie filmed that moment, it's like the director knew how terrible and hilarious it was and wanted to give us another chance to see it, God bless him.
Movies like "The Last Shark" (which is also known as "The Great White" and "The Last Jaws," among others) can sometimes be hard to sit through because they're rarely as good as their poster art promise, but the Rifftrax treatment here is a perfect companion and redefines the experience of watching these types of movies.
Aside from having the balls to openly rip off a big blockbuster, Castellari also manages to do a really good job with the underwater scenes, and despite the silly looking monster; many of the attack sequences are well executed and surprisingly suspenseful.
Overall, this is a much better movie than it looks on paper; the film is lots of fun and is many times better than all of the official "Jaws" sequels..
When it was released, The Last Shark (aka Great White) got quickly pulled from theaters due to threats of a lawsuit from Universal Studios, producers of the Jaws movies.
The writers of The Last Shark basically watched the first two Jaws movies and stole every good scene from them, even going so far as to clone characters.All the main elements from Jaws are here.
I've seen plenty of movies that have ripped off Jaws (and its subsequent sequels) but none have been quite as blatant in doing so as The Last Shark, directed by Italian schlockmeister Enzo G.
Castellari: the film follows Spielberg's hit so closely that it's little wonder that the film was pulled from theatres after a lawsuit was filed by Universal Studios.Just like Jaws, The Last Shark sees a coastal community come under attack from a man-eating Great White.
And just like Jaws, a trio of brave marine experts—Peter Benton (James Franciscus), his wife Gloria (Micaela Pignatelli) and ageing sea-dog Ron Hamer (Vic Morrow)—put out to sea on a fishing boat to try and kill the shark.
Even the film's poster copies that of Jaws 2.Rather unsurprisingly, Castellari's film comes nowhere near Spielberg's classic blockbuster in terms of style, performances or special effects: Castellari fails to generate any tension whatsoever and uses copious use of unconvincing stock shark footage, the acting is atrocious (Morrow's shameless impersonation of Quint by way of Groundskeeper Willie is hilarious), and if you thought Bruce in Jaws was lifeless, wait till you get a load of the immobile fish models used here, especially the pathetic toy sharks employed in the underwater shots.It might not be great movie-making, but it's certainly good for a laugh or two, with ridiculous highlights including the shark displaying above normal intelligence for a fish by deliberately trapping Peter and Ron in an underwater cave, a shark victim being pulled out of the water minus his lower half, and another getting his legs bitten off while suspended from the skis of a helicopter (closely followed by the whole helicopter—another unconvincing model—being pulled completely under the water!)..
the last shark(aka;great white)is an Italian made jaws ripoff that is pretty good not bad like most of the killer shark movies made after jaws, its James Franciscus in the Chief Brody role although he's not a police- man.and the late great;Vic Morrow in his next to last roles as the shark hunter.the shark is sort of like a cheaper version of the jaws shark,looks kind of rubbery but not too fake looking.as compared to the original jaws it pales in comparison,but its enjoyable.the one thing i found annoying is the soundtrack,i think they could have used a better score.i think the Goblins would of been good.(suspiria,deep red)but all in all its not bad.
i was a little confused about the ending but maybe i missed something,i did see it on google video since i cant find it on DVD or even VHS.i guess universal is fighting that.the title last shark makes no sense.i think a better title would have been killer jaws,but that would really irritate Spielberg and universal,anyway its worth a look.like i said one of the better jaws ripoffs,the bad ones were jaws of death,tintotera,and up from the depths.now those are bad..
Romano Puppo makes an uncredited appearance near the film's end as an ill-fated bounty hunter.The star squalis in this movie isn't any worse than that seen in "Jaws", and certainly less laughable than those constructed for the ill-fated second and third sequels in that movie family, but the use of infantile miniatures and cheap special effects seriously diminish the impact of the action sequences.
but even then I knew it was an Italian ripoff of "Jaws" - even the opening credits of the English-language version had "The Last Jaws" as the title for a split second before changing ON SCREEN to "The Last Shark." Apparently they thought nobody would notice (true, lots of people don't read the credits, but...).That Universal took umbrage of the legal variety against this movie doesn't surprise me (and in addition to borrowing huge chunks of "Jaws"'s plot it also finds time to swipe bits of "Orca," not least the scene where a woman has a leg chewed off.
the "Jaws" sequels) but they're still preferable to seeing this again.In all respects, notably the shark effects, it makes you feel for the late James Franciscus and Vic Morrow for getting involved in this.
Titled under America asGREAT WHITE (Listed in other countries as LAST SHARK) it had a large budget but Universal was strait ahead they filed a suit againist the producers saying it was to close to JAWS, and three weeks after it's short release 'GREAT WHITE' Pulled away from theaters in 1980 a year of good horror films.
Interestingly, he even saw fit to steal from himself  since JONATHAN OF THE BEARS (1993) bears {sic} more than a cursory nod to the latter; another thing he was prone to doing was reviving popular mythical figures, such as the disastrous SINBAD OF THE SEVEN SEAS (1989) and the TV mini-series THE RETURN OF SANDOKAN (1996; which I recently acquired but have yet to check out)  though, in all fairness, he did muster a fairly successful re-imagining of Homer's "The Illiad" in gangland terms with the little-known spoof HECTOR THE MIGHTY (1971).However, there's little to say about the crass commercial thinking that went into the making of THE LAST SHARK (by the way, Castellari had already made the even sillier THE SHARK HUNTER [1979]); the greatest insult, though, is that the film-makers couldn't hope to raise the budget (most likely, they didn't even have the inclination!) to attempt a product on the same level as JAWS 2 (1978), let alone the classic original  which is why the thing smacks of blatant rip-off, pure and simple!!
Worse, the film repeats a good many of its incidents and effects twice or more: the idiotic 'explosion' when the shark attacks from below; the heroine  played by the director's own lovely daughter  falling into the sea, where she's not so lucky the second time around; the dives by would-be expert shark-fighter Vic Morrow  complete with heavy Irish brogue a' la Robert Shaw's Quint from the first JAWS  to destroy the creature both fail miserably, the second time getting tangled up in ropes and being dragged Ahab-like by the shark; characters get bitten in halfto say nothing of the ultra-fake blue-eyed[!] shark's head emerging open-mouthed out of the water and always hilariously tilted at the same angle.
What about the sheer excess of stock footage, then (with the shark changing dimension and look from one scene to the next)?; some of these were genuinely unsettling, to be sure  but, while this practice may be forgiven when viewed in excessively dark prints (as some online reviewers have complained), it wasn't in the surprisingly clean edition that I came across only recently James Franciscus has the lead role here; for the record, he had played a villain in another Italian JAWS rip-off  or, more specifically, PIRANHA (1978)  i.e. Antonio Margheriti's KILLER FISH (1979; which is one I'd also love to get a second opinion of after all these years).
Mind you, the film is hugely enjoyable while it's on (albeit unintentionally so for the most part)  right down from the very opening scene, accompanied by the cheesiest song imaginable, of a surfer trying out some impossibly intricate moves until the shark takes a bite out of his board.It's ironic, then, that this movie was itself ripped off by the makers of both JAWS 3-D (1983) and JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987), the vastly inferior concluding episodes in the Universal saga: as in the latter, the shark is depicted as an intelligent animal (such as when it systematically pursues the entire line-up of surfers without killing them only to then vent its anger on the man leading them in a boat and, again, when it tries to bury our two heroes inside a cave by crashing repeatedly into a rock-face and barring its exit with the falling stones!)while the explosive ending was replicated wholesale into the official third JAWS entry (THE LAST SHARK was actually released as part of the series in Spain!).
well it's quite a Jaws Rip off but hey - it's a lot better than some other shark movies for instance - "Tintorera" which was a complete waste of time.
That's when we make our way to the resort town of Amity - I mean, Port Harbor - where Mayor Larry Vaughn - sorry, I meant to say governor William Wells (Joshua Sinclair, Ice from 1990: The Bronx Warriors) - refuses to believe that a shark is attacking his beach.That's when horror writer Peter Benton (James Franciscus, Butterfly and the voice of Jonathan Livingston Seagull ) and shark hunter Ron Hamer (Vic Morrow, who has delighted us in so many movies, such as Message from Space) realize they gotta do something.