Customer Reviews

The Legend of Bigfoot (1976)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

"The Legend of Bigfoot" is a hilarious look at the tracking of the elusive creature during an epic trek across the great white north. The film features footage by Ivan Marx (and his wife), a wildlife tracker who seeks to find bigfoot, and presents this laughable spectacle as incontrovertible proof of the Sasquatch. The entire film is narrated by Marx, and largely consists of wildlife footage of animals like deer, bears, skunks, and chipmunks, with a few alleged bandy-legged bigfoot shots slipped in for good measure. He even illustrates his home life with footage of a coyote cub versus kitten versus chicken versus skunk confrontation in his front yard.

Marx specializes in finding "renegade animals," and after an Indian folklore subplot, he shows us tracks and hair of a bigfoot. He solicits bigfoot information from the locals and receives some hilarious photos of "bigfoot" complete with red glowing eyes. He goes into the woods and promptly sights a bigfoot and notes that "a nauseating, musky odor made it difficult to breathe." After seeing this film you'll understand how he felt. There are countless shots of Marx running through the woods to find the creature, then to get away from it. I cannot imagine why scientists rejected this "evidence" that he gathered.

Since Marx saw a bigfoot close to his home, he, logically, decides to go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the coast of Oregon, and to the arctic circle (where Marx assures us that bigfoot breeds) seeking bigfoot, because he believes that bigfoot is a migratory creature. Early in his trek (about 30 minutes into the film) Marx tastelessly shows the majesty of nature by showing a mating pair of squirrels, one of which gets squashed by a car. Why Marx put this into the film I have no clue, but it's genuinely disturbing as the surviving mate is shown dragging the corpse back across the road toward its nest. This scene goes on for a long, long time and I was genuinely repulsed by it. It was too bad the animal was killed; that Marx thought he needed to show it so graphically and extensively is tasteless and abhorrent.

During the remainder of the movie we learn a lot of interesting facts about bigfoot. For instance, did you know that when a migrating bigfoot passes a flock of goats the goats "commit ritual suicide" by eating cement? (I am not making this up.) Did you know that bigfoot will carry other dead bigfoots (bigfeet?) thousands of miles to above the arctic circle to dump the bodies in crevasses where the movement of the glaciers crush the remains or dump them into the sea? (My first reaction to that information was to ponder that if bigfoot was a solitary creature, how did another bigfoot know when and where a fellow bigfoot died so as to retrieve the body?) Did you know that if you died in the arctic a bigfoot patrol would recover your body and dump it on the outskirts of the nearest town to afford you a proper burial? Did you know that bigfoot is immune to tuberculosis and measles? (No information is provided about mange, I'm sorry to report.) All these and other facts are presented here for your consideration and laughter.

Marx certainly has rigorous standards for accepting evidence: for example, we meet "Yukon Frieda" who paints pictures of bigfoot as described to her. Surely that must withstand the scientific method! Marx then goes on to describe how the mother of an old Indian died and that night they awakened to find a bigfoot at the front door chanting in his mother's voice telling them to leave the cabin. They did and later a glacier changed the course of a river, flooding the village. Thank goodness that bigfoot is so easily to channel. Another Indian tells a wholly lucid (not!) story of how he was out with his sled dogs and the angry bigfoot tribe turned the sky red with blood, while a good bigfoot spirit became the "legendary white raven" and protected him. (Apparently the peyote is very strong in that area.) Just then the Indian and Marx see the "legendary white raven", which Marx helpfully shows us. (It appears to be a blurry Polaroid of a seagull.) The Indian says that the appearance of the good raven means that the bigfoot likes Marx, and he teaches Marx a chant with drum accompaniment that will summon bigfoot during a full moon if Marx is in the wilderness. Marx said "I felt as if I was coming apart at the seams." I believe that he was, though not perhaps in the manner intended, as he said that after he did the chant he saw two glowing lights in the distance that at first looked like car lights, but must have been bigfoot's glowing eyes! To illustrate this, we see what appear to actually be car lights about two miles distant. Unfortunately, when he went to investigate, dawn broke and the lights disappeared behind a rainbow (!) making him feel quite disappointed. He then decided to go for a walk by himself (though someone else filmed it), and he saw some caribou. He then deduced that (get ready for a good one...) the lights he saw were actually caribou scraping velvet off their antlers, releasing swamp gas from the tundra which glowed in the night.(So bigfoot is actually glowing swamp gas?) It's a strange but hilarious ending to the glowing eyes story.

After a huge amount time spent on the technicalities of moose breeding (which Marx claims nobody had ever witnessed before him) and salmon spawning, Marx decides to rent a plane. Almost immediately they spot a "young bigfoot" by a river, though when they land, he's gone. (Isn't that always the way it goes?) Marx then has a brilliant insight. Given the coordinates of this bigfoot, he can predict that the next destination for the bigfoot will be a beaver swamp, so Marx goes to one and sets up a bigfoot blind to hide in. It doesn't take long, of course, until a couple of bigfoots show up. He claims that it was before dawn, but from the lighting appears to have been around noon. He remarks "His odor was overwhelming!" (make your own joke here), and launches into pontification on how bigfoot is a nocturnal "benevolent creature" who eats "tender swamp grass", and he is definitely not a carnivore. He concludes with the thought that he now had incontrovertible proof and that "now we can begin to understand the place this creature holds in nature."

Never mind that the creatures look more like George Barrows in a gorilla costume or even Teen Ape than a Sasquatch, this movie is captivating in it's own peculiar way. It has long stretches of extreme boredom while listening to Marx bring forth homespun homilies about nature and such, but it has moments of inspired, though unintentional, hilarity. Unfortunately it also has the squirrel crushing scene, which made me remove a full two stars from its rating for tastelessness; otherwise this film would have scored a perfect five stars for camp value. It will definitely not make a believer out of a skeptic, and probably won't even reinforce the opinions of genuine believers for that matter, but for pure pretentiousness, ludicrous plotpoints, and sheer camp value "The Legend of Bigfoot" is a must see for any fan of grade-Z cinema.

This is perhaps the worst "movie" I have seen. It looks and sounds like one of those really bad old Disney shows about some kid's cat that gets lost or something along those lines. If you like to see cats chase rabbits and other embarrassingly obvious filler-clips, you'll like this. The narrator adopts (hopefully) a corn-pone accent that is supposed to be homey and trustworthy. But, by golly, I jes' cain't brung my ownself to finish up on watchin' this ole feller.

"The Legend of Bigfoot" is a hilarious look at the tracking of the elusive creature during an epic trek across the great white north. The film features footage by Ivan Marx (and his wife), a wildlife tracker who seeks to find bigfoot, and presents this laughable spectacle as incontrovertible proof of the Sasquatch. The entire film is narrated by Marx, and largely consists of wildlife footage of animals like deer, bears, skunks, and chipmunks, with a few alleged bandy-legged bigfoot shots slipped in for good measure. He even illustrates his home life with footage of a coyote cub versus kitten versus chicken versus skunk confrontation in his front yard.

Marx specializes in finding "renegade animals," and after an Indian folklore subplot, he shows us tracks and hair of a bigfoot. He solicits bigfoot information from the locals and receives some hilarious photos of "bigfoot" complete with red glowing eyes. He goes into the woods and promptly sights a bigfoot and notes that "a nauseating, musky odor made it difficult to breathe." After seeing this film you'll understand how he felt. There are countless shots of Marx running through the woods to find the creature, then to get away from it. I cannot imagine why scientists rejected this "evidence" that he gathered.

Since Marx saw a bigfoot close to his home, he, logically, decides to go to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, the coast of Oregon, and to the arctic circle (where Marx assures us that bigfoot breeds) seeking bigfoot, because he believes that bigfoot is a migratory creature. Early in his trek (about 30 minutes into the film) Marx tastelessly shows the majesty of nature by showing a mating pair of squirrels, one of which gets squashed by a car. Why Marx put this into the film I have no clue, but it's genuinely disturbing as the surviving mate is shown dragging the corpse back across the road toward its nest. This scene goes on for a long, long time and I was genuinely repulsed by it. It was too bad the animal was killed; that Marx thought he needed to show it so graphically and extensively is tasteless and abhorrent.

During the remainder of the movie we learn a lot of interesting facts about bigfoot. For instance, did you know that when a migrating bigfoot passes a flock of goats the goats "commit ritual suicide" by eating cement? (I am not making this up.) Did you know that bigfoot will carry other dead bigfoots (bigfeet?) thousands of miles to above the arctic circle to dump the bodies in crevasses where the movement of the glaciers crush the remains or dump them into the sea? (My first reaction to that information was to ponder that if bigfoot was a solitary creature, how did another bigfoot know when and where a fellow bigfoot died so as to retrieve the body?) Did you know that if you died in the arctic a bigfoot patrol would recover your body and dump it on the outskirts of the nearest town to afford you a proper burial? Did you know that bigfoot is immune to tuberculosis and measles? (No information is provided about mange, I'm sorry to report.) All these and other facts are presented here for your consideration and laughter.

Marx certainly has rigorous standards for accepting evidence: for example, we meet "Yukon Frieda" who paints pictures of bigfoot as described to her. Surely that must withstand the scientific method! Marx then goes on to describe how the mother of an old Indian died and that night they awakened to find a bigfoot at the front door chanting in his mother's voice telling them to leave the cabin. They did and later a glacier changed the course of a river, flooding the village. Thank goodness that bigfoot is so easily to channel. Another Indian tells a wholly lucid (not!) story of how he was out with his sled dogs and the angry bigfoot tribe turned the sky red with blood, while a good bigfoot spirit became the "legendary white raven" and protected him. (Apparently the peyote is very strong in that area.) Just then the Indian and Marx see the "legendary white raven", which Marx helpfully shows us. (It appears to be a blurry Polaroid of a seagull.) The Indian says that the appearance of the good raven means that the bigfoot likes Marx, and he teaches Marx a chant with drum accompaniment that will summon bigfoot during a full moon if Marx is in the wilderness. Marx said "I felt as if I was coming apart at the seams." I believe that he was, though not perhaps in the manner intended, as he said that after he did the chant he saw two glowing lights in the distance that at first looked like car lights, but must have been bigfoot's glowing eyes! To illustrate this, we see what appear to actually be car lights about two miles distant. Unfortunately, when he went to investigate, dawn broke and the lights disappeared behind a rainbow (!) making him feel quite disappointed. He then decided to go for a walk by himself (though someone else filmed it), and he saw some caribou. He then deduced that (get ready for a good one...) the lights he saw were actually caribou scraping velvet off their antlers, releasing swamp gas from the tundra which glowed in the night.(So bigfoot is actually glowing swamp gas?) It's a strange but hilarious ending to the glowing eyes story.

After a huge amount time spent on the technicalities of moose breeding (which Marx claims nobody had ever witnessed before him) and salmon spawning, Marx decides to rent a plane. Almost immediately they spot a "young bigfoot" by a river, though when they land, he's gone. (Isn't that always the way it goes?) Marx then has a brilliant insight. Given the coordinates of this bigfoot, he can predict that the next destination for the bigfoot will be a beaver swamp, so Marx goes to one and sets up a bigfoot blind to hide in. It doesn't take long, of course, until a couple of bigfoots show up. He claims that it was before dawn, but from the lighting appears to have been around noon. He remarks "His odor was overwhelming!" (make your own joke here), and launches into pontification on how bigfoot is a nocturnal "benevolent creature" who eats "tender swamp grass", and he is definitely not a carnivore. He concludes with the thought that he now had incontrovertible proof and that "now we can begin to understand the place this creature holds in nature."

Never mind that the creatures look more like George Barrows in a gorilla costume or even Teen Ape than a Sasquatch, this movie is captivating in it's own peculiar way. It has long stretches of extreme boredom while listening to Marx bring forth homespun homilies about nature and such, but it has moments of inspired, though unintentional, hilarity. Unfortunately it also has the squirrel crushing scene, which made me remove a full two stars from its rating for tastelessness; otherwise this film would have scored a perfect five stars for camp value. It will definitely not make a believer out of a skeptic, and probably won't even reinforce the opinions of genuine believers for that matter, but for pure pretentiousness, ludicrous plotpoints, and sheer camp value "The Legend of Bigfoot" is a must see for any fan of grade-Z cinema.

Ivan Marx and his 1976 film The Legend of Bigfoot hold a unique place in the annals of Bigfoot history. You will find this film somewhere in the land between mockumentary and documentary; personally, I would categorize it as a documentary begging to be mocked. With his down-home colloquialisms, self-deprecating manner, and apparent earnestness in his pursuit of Bigfoot, Marx almost sounds credible early on - kooky, but credible. Then you get a look at some of the Bigfoot footage he shot - let's just say it's not hard to see why those dadgummed scientists and other experts he's always going on about didn't exactly line up in support of his claims. He fails to mention the fact that this central piece of 16mm film, lasting about thirty seconds and dating back to 1971, had long been proven a hoax already - but, of course, you don't really need anyone to tell you it's fake, what with the creature apparently doing an exaggerated imitation of the gait of Gunsmoke's Festus (which also reportedly bears a strong resemblance to Marx's own bowlegged walking style).

Marx leads the viewer on a semi-epic journey, venturing farther and farther north in pursuit of undeniable evidence of Bigfoot's existence. He boasts early and often about having figured out the migratory patterns of Bigfoot, and that knowledge leads him way up into the Yukon, above the Arctic Circle, to the mating grounds of the moose (and Bigfoot, or so says Marx). And wouldn't you know it, after a series of hits and misses, frustrations and doubts, he ultimately finds what he is after, yielding more film of the elusive Bigfoot carousing by a stream and strolling through another field. The creature is always far away and immersed in shadow, but Marx seems satisfied that his film will provide his many doubters with the undeniable proof they seem to demand.

Apart from a lot of nature footage that looks every bit its age (especially with it having been taken on 16mm film), there's virtually nothing of substance to be found here. The film can be entertaining at times, with Marx's many colloquialisms regarding the foolishness of his search, his passionate self-praise for his own endeavors, and his snide attitude toward scientists and other experts who don't accept the least little bit of his theories and evidence - but the only useful bit of information you can glean from this mess is some insight into the wrong way to hoax a Bigfoot film.

Animal lovers should know that there are scenes of violence in this story, and I'm not just talking along the lines of predator and prey. About a half hour into the film, you'll find one of the most heart-breaking scenes I've ever suffered through. You start off with two squirrels, supposedly mates, chasing each other and generally having the time of their lives; then (and you see it coming from a mile away), you watch one of them get run over. Everything then stops; there's no music, all the surrounding animals are shown staring at the scene, and you watch the other squirrel try to help her mate up before slowly dragging him off to the side. Marx claims to experience a Bigfoot-related epiphany from this tragic scene that seems to last forever, but it's a piece of insight everyone else on earth had as a young child. The whole scene is just gratuitous, which makes it even harder to watch. I almost stopped watching the film then and there, but I ultimately forged ahead to see what kind of lame evidence this guy would string together at the very end. Needless to say, Ivan Marx isn't fooling anybody.

There is really no reason whatsoever to watch The Legend of Bigfoot. Thanks to that tragic scene with the squirrels, I can't even say the film is good for a laugh.

I saw this on CET Channel 5 - Comcast,in Denver . It is real. If you don't want to believe , you won't. If you do, you will. [...] will show you what is real...that is, if you feel the need to know what is real. [...] is some good music too.

Is the legend of Bigfoot true?Does Sasquatch really walk among us?This fascinating 1976 docu-drama explores these questions and much more as expert tracker Ivan Marx investigates sightings of the creature from one end of North America to the other.Don't miss it!

I must have lost my mind ordering this DVD. Recently I have become mildly obsessed with Yetis which led to this disaster of a purchase. Surely silly is as good as this stink bomb gets.

A few things this movie taught me:

- the wolf is Bigfoot's only known traveling companion
- Mountain goats commit ritual suicide by eating cement
- There are no remains of dead Bigfoots because the dead are carried thousands of miles to be dumped into glaciers.
- dying people can channel mental messages from Bigfoot
- if you die in the arctic, Bigfoot will find your body and carry it to the nearest town

This film is overly long, usually boring, but occasionally very amusing.

This 'movie' is a collection of bad wildlife footage while some unscene narrator says things like "The mighty deer senses Bigfoot is near..." Meanwhile bigfoot never shows up, except he's in the movie for 5 minutes 100 feet from the camera so you can't tell it's a cheap monkey suit. Sucks...not even good for camp purposes.