Trailer
Plot summary
Pickett Smith, a freelance photographer shooting a layout about pollution for an ecology magazine, is canoeing a swamp off the Florida coast when Clint Crockett's speedboat nearly collides with his canoe. Clint's sister Karen helps tow the canoe to the island estate of their father, Jason, who has gathered the family for a Fourth of July celebration that also marks several family birthdays. Jason, who uses a wheelchair, hates nature and spreads pesticides and poisons over his property to curb the frogs and toads overrunning it. Pickett respects the natural world instead. Karen and Pickett are drawn to each other, and Jason asks Pickett to hike the island and report on how the poisons have affected it.
Cast
- Nicholas Cortlandas Kenneth Martindale
- Lance Taylor Sr.as Charles
- Hollis Irvingas Iris Martindale
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Frogs (1972)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Ray Milland disliked working on Frogs; he wore a toupee that fell off at times because of sweat, and he left three days before production ended, so a body double was used for Jason Crockett's death scene.SPOILER
In pre-release prints and the trailer, Iris Martindale died pulled into quicksand by a giant butterfly rather than from snakebite, and a bedroom scene shot with Bella Garrington and Kenneth Martindale was cut.SPOILER
For Michael Martindale's death scene, the tarantulas were refrigerated so they would move more slowly as they crawled across actor David Gilliam.- Director George McCowan made his cast feel comfortable, but producer Peter Thomas deliberately kept them ignorant of how their characters would die so their frightened reactions to the animals would be genuine.
- Frogs gave Sam Elliott his first leading role and gave both Joan Van Ark and David Gilliam their first film roles.
- The production used 500 Florida frogs and 100 cane toads, alongside scorpions, tarantulas, Argentine black and white tegus, geckos, iguanas, rattlesnakes, alligators, Florida cottonmouths, crabs and alligator snapping turtles.
- The shot of Pickett Smith shooting an alligator was not filmed for Frogs; it was reused from the 1970 film Bloody Mama.
