The Day of the Dolphin is a 1973 American science fiction thriller film directed by Mike Nichols and starring George C. Scott.

A brilliant and driven scientist, Jake Terrell, and his wife, Maggie, along with their small team, are training dolphins to communicate with humans at their remote island research facility.

An undercover government agent for hire, Curtis Mahoney (Paul Sorvino), blackmails DeMilo to allow him access to Terrell's facility under the guise of a freelance journalist writing about dolphin research.

To prevent this, Terrell agrees with DeMilo to reveal his progress to the Foundation board of directors, and travels to the mainland for a press conference.

One of Terrell's team, David, is revealed to have been an undercover operative of the institute, and is helping them train the dolphins for the assassination attempt.

[4] However, while Polanski was in London, England, scouting locations in August 1969, his pregnant wife, the actress Sharon Tate, was murdered in their Beverly Hills home by disciples of Charles Manson.

Pauline Kael, the film critic for The New Yorker, suggested that if the best subject that Nichols and Henry could think of was talking dolphins, then they should quit making movies altogether.

[12] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune penned a positive review commenting that, "Ultimately, The Day of the Dolphin works because of the values it celebrates and Scott communicates.

In spite of their material, Nichols and Scott have given us a film that reminds us what love and care can do not so much for the object of affection, but for the person who tenders it.

[14] The film was not successful commercially, though it was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Best Original Score (Georges Delerue) and Best Sound (Richard Portman and Larry Jost).

[15] Levine also claimed the movie had guaranteed pre-sales of $8,450,000 to cover costs, including a sale to NBC, which had expressed interest in turning the story into a TV series.