Welcome Back to My Dark Corner of this Sick World.
'Are you hiding here?
You know when your DVR keeps making weird noises?
‘Tivo, shut up!’
Anybody reviewing 1981’s Roar has to address the elephant in the room.
The film was conceived by and starred husband and wife Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren,
who you’d think would have had enough of tangling with nature in Hitchcock’s The Birds.
And the idea was to just let the many animals involved behave naturally and work around them.
‘The cats get a little excited…’
This does slow down the action...
and if you’re acting alongside 100 untrained big cats there will be the occasional injury.
According to Hedren, between 70 and 100 of the cast and crew were injured,
she herself breaking a leg...
and needing 38 stitches after a lion bit her.
‘Oh my goodness’
Cinematographer Jan de Bont, who later directed Speed, needed 220 stitches to put his scalp back.
'The lion scaped him.'
While Melanie Griffith required reconstructive surgery and came close to losing an eye.
‘Noel’
Roar She’s not saying no, she’s saying ‘Noel’ the safe word which was meant to halt filming.
‘Noel’
You’ll note filming continued.
'Melanie come here.'
‘What the hell’s wrong with you, all you got’s a few scratches’
All the more horrifying since, Marshall and Hedren were her parents,
in fact all three kids in the movie were their real kids.
‘Do you know what you friends are doing to your family right now?'
'They’re making dinner of them.’
Marshall himself sustained so many injuries he developed gangrene…
so you’ve got to love this title at the start.
"Although some scenes appear to show animals being injured they were never actually hurt"
If only the humans had been so lucky.
And the bad luck didn’t end there.
A flood destroyed sets, equipment and much of the footage,
and led to several animals, including the hero lion Robbie, being shot.
‘Sooner later he is going to get killed’
This was followed by a bush fire, and these various disasters meant principal photography dragged on for four years.
‘Boy have we got troubles’
Roar’s status as the most dangerous movie ever made is secure but we can’t let that influence the critical analysis,
so; was it worth it?
‘What is that supposed to mean?’
Naturalist Hank has set up a colony of big cats
‘Hank’s original idea was a comparative study of the great cats of the world’
and is fighting to keep it open in the face of big game hunters.
‘You are not going to kill those cats’
and people who just think he’s nuts.
‘This is madness’
Now by putting together lions from Africa, tigers Asia and jaguars from south America,
'Say hello to Henry the Jaguar will ya?'
and making them live with humans, the film instantly undermines its own, back to nature premise…
This is not valid scientifically or useful ecologically.
‘what are you trying to prove?’
At the same time, Hank’s family are coming to visit for the first time.
'Hello? Dad?'
But he isn’t home when they arrive so...
the film becomes a lengthy series of horrifying near misses.
‘If we stay here we’re going to end up getting eaten alive’
Some faked for the camera,
others not so much…
until they find a place to sleep.
’I just have to sleep for a while.’
and they leave the door open.
But it’s okay, cos next morning...
‘I don’t think they’re trying to hurt us at all’
And when Hank finally arrives back...
‘Isn’t this fantastic’
No recriminations, because big cats aren’t really dangerous.
‘You’re really friendly’
unless you’re a hunter.
I’m fine with hunters being eaten, I’m just not convinced lions make that moral distinction.
Do they only they eat the bad zebras?
'Oh God, look what the cat dragged in.'
That one cheated on its wife.
‘You simple minded jerk’
So, the heroes are apparently never in danger and the bad guys aren’t stopped by the heroes.
Plus the message of the film is; wild animals are perfectly harmless,
but every moment screams the opposite…
or at least adds the caveat; if you don’t piss about with them.
They may just be playing but you’ll still be maimed.
'Help!'
It’s impossible to separate the story of Roar from its making,
or to separate Marshall from the character he’s playing,
this imbecile putting his family in real danger for the sake of some ridiculous fantasy.
‘You’re okay, don’t worry’
‘Don’t worry?!’
In a film, the fantasy can be real and all it takes is a song to put things right.
#Here we are at last, here we are in Eden.#
In real life it’s amazing no one was killed.
'You could of died dummy.'
'Shut up. I almost died.'
Thanks for watching. There's so much more to the story of Roar
And if you'd like to hear us talk about it
And please support us on Patreon.
Roaris a movie defined by the story of its making are there any other films in which the behind the scenes stuff has overshadowed the film itself?
Let us know in the comments below.
'I want to go home.'