10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Exterminator
Today would have marked Steve James’ 63rd birthday. Most fans know James as one of the stars of The Delta Force and for his frequent collaborations with Michael Dudikoff, but some may not know or remember that he was also in the 1980 film, The Exterminator starring Robert Ginty and Christopher George.
Recently I sat down and watched Synapse’s Blu-Ray release of The Exterminator. Among the special features is commentary from the director and writer of the film, James Glickenhaus. Glickenhaus shares a lot of interesting bits of trivia and I’ll share some of those with you as I present…
10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Exterminator
1. This one may be obvious, but The Exterminator depicted on the Blu-ray cover above is not the actual Exterminator, Robert Ginty. Instead a more muscle bound model donned the motorcycle helmet and carried the flamethrower for the poster art and later the video releases of the film.
2. The special effects guy for the Vietnam sequences on The Exterminator was Paul Stewart. Stewart was also the special effects guy on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie and the tragic helicopter accident that killed Vic Morrow and two child actors.
3. While some have accused Glickenhaus of ripping of Death Wish, he claims he never saw the movie prior to the making and release of his film The Exterminator.
4. Steve James originally auditioned for a smaller role in the film as a bartender. But the decision was made to make him the friend of Robert Ginty’s character John Eastland. The friend character was originally written as a Puerto Rican. Glickenhaus sent out a memo advising the racial slurs in the script needed to be changed.
5. Glickenhaus blames Steve James’ abuse of steroids for his untimely death, saying that steroids destroyed his liver.
6. Dick Bocelli, who plays gangster Gino Pontivini, got his start in show business as the drummer for Bill Haley & The Comets.
7. The news anchor, Roger Grimsby, was an actual newscaster for Channel 7 in New York and the news set featured in The Exterminator was the actual Channel 7 News set.
8. Joseph Bottoms was the original choice to play the John Eastland character, but his agent made negotiations difficult so they went with Robert Ginty.
9. Special effects wizard, Stan Winston, created the dummy for the beheading scene.
10. Taking a page from the book of our own Chad Cruise, Glickenhaus feels that First Blood is the “unofficial sequel” to The Exterminator. There was an actual sequel to The Exterminator produced by Cannon, that saw Robert Ginty reprise his role of John Eastland and also starred Mario Van Peebles.
