Great White Death (1981)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Legendary actor Glenn Ford had a rather unique and unexpected 1981 as he appeared (for some reason) in the slasher film HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and he also did the narration for this film, a documentary on the ocean. I say an ocean and not great white sharks because while there's some footage of the sharks the documentary also goes into other territories including seals, various forms of fish and other items you might find in the ocean. Rating documentaries from long ago is rather difficult because I'm sure many would watch this and say it's old-fashioned and they'd be correct. I'm sure many people would also see this and be bored because they've seen so much better on Shark Week and various other programs. With that being said, I think it's only fair to judge a project for when it was released and when you consider this was 1981 the thing actually looks pretty good. The best moments in the film are when we actually get to see the sharks in action and this includes many scenes where people are in a cage and the shark comes up to them. There's also a rather stunning scene where a shark is caught up in a rope and another one comes up and appears to be trying to help it. Ford does a pretty good job with his hosting and narrating duties even though this was probably just a few hours of work for the actor.
