By SUZANNE C. NAGY (GBGB International; 2020)
This book offers conclusive proof that every movie, no matter how worthless, has a story behind it. The movie in this case is a Hungarian made sequel to the 1976 JAWS wannabe GRIZZLY; GRIZZLY II was fairly modest in conception, but wound up becoming one of the most monumental film shoots in its nation’s history. It featured Louise Fletcher, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK’S John Rhys-Davis and (in their screen debuts) George Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern, and boasted special effects by THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK’S Nick Maley, but the production flamed out spectacularly.
The unmaking of this mess-terpiece has been chronicled by Brian Raftery in a 2020 article for The Ringer. This book, published around the same time as Raftery’s article, relates the same account, but from the point of view of GRIZZLY II’s producer Suzanne C. Nagy. It’s a worthwhile perusal given that Nagy was the driving force behind the film, and her 37 year odyssey to get GRIZZLY II completed makes for hilarious and inspiring reading.
How unfortunate, then, that the book is so crudely written. That English is not Nagy’s native language is evident in prose that appears to have been the result of Google translate (sample: “Contrary from the past when the American editor from 1987 wanted to bring in a new line in the story”). It’s worth slogging through (the book only runs around 90 pages), but it certainly could have been better.
It all began in 1982, when Nagy, who was charged with international deal-making for Hungarofilm, received an out-of-the-blue phone call from the American producer Joseph Ford Proctor. He offered her the script for GRIZZLY II and she (unwisely) accepted.
Things went downhill almost immediately, with Proctor forcing an inexperienced director, one André Szöts, upon the production. Further trouble occurred in the form of a vast outdoor rock concert to be filmed in Budapest (apparently the first such concert ever held in Eastern Europe) under the too-watchful eyes of paranoid Soviet authorities, and a script that Proctor insisted be constantly rewritten. There was also a Nick Maley created mechanical bear that never seemed to be finished in time, and the fact that the plug was pulled on the production before principal photography even started, allegedly due to a lack of capitol. In a stroke of near-inexplicable luck a wealthy investor called and supplied the needed funds, but that didn’t stop the production from spiraling hellishly out of control, topped off by a fire that destroyed the mechanical bear so integral to the story before any of its footage was shot.
This was the start of a postproduction even more fraught than the filming. This process saw Nagy subjected to fraud, backstabbing, malicious gossip, an incompetent editor and expulsion from the socialist-run Hungarian film industry, who were chagrined by the project and, according to Nagy, prejudiced because of her gender. It certainly didn’t help matters that the footage shot by André Szöts was total crap, and got Nagy thrown out of the screening room of a prominent Hollywood sales representative.
The “good” news is that in 2020 the film was finally completed and unleashed upon an all-too-suspecting public, under the title GRIZZLY II: REVENGE — despite the fact that the footage hasn’t gotten any better in the years since it was initially shot (although it has accrued a nostalgic sheen). Nagy also boasts of having created a product line of GRIZZLY II toys, shirts, jewelry and more, and learned an important lesson: “we all have to stick to important things in our life, which is the highest level of achievement.” That depends, obviously, on one’s definition of “important.”