Films can be hard to make. Sometimes they don’t get off the ground, sometimes they
flop and sometimes they take longer than expected, like way longer. There are a few films however,
where the lives of the cast and crew have been put on the line in the name of entertainment.
Think Jackass or that time two other Jackasses nearly started a war over a film. The subject
of this video however is arguably the most dangerous film ever made, and you’ve probably
never heard of it before.
There’s a very famous saying in show business that you shouldn’t work with kids or animals.
Well 1981’s Roar had both, and to make it a little more complicated the kids were the
children of the director and the animals were over 100 untrained killing machines.
Our story starts back in the 1960’s when Tippi Hendren was in Mozambique filming a
suitably cheerily named film ‘Satan’s Harvest’. There she saw various cases of
endangered animals and decided that she could do her bit to make a film highlighting their
plight? Nice person right? Well, this film would actually put her entire family and the
cast and crew firmly on the endangered list.
Knowing that the animals would never work together unless they were raised together.
Tippi and her husband Noel Marshall of very slight fame for being an Executive Producer
on ‘The Exorcist’, decided to turn their California mansion into a wildlife park. Eventually
the authorities found out that they were collecting dangerous animals in the middle of Los Angeles
and were like ‘can you not?’. So they moved to a more rural area, they then proceeded
to collect 71 lions, 26 tigers, a tigon, nine black panthers, ten pumas, two jaguars, four
leopards, two elephants, four cranes, and seven flamingos. They did however decide to
pass on the one hippo they were offered. Because, you know, that would be dangerous.
After living with the animals for several years, with their now adult children, Melanie
from Tippi’s first marriage and John and Jerry from Noel’s, they finally embarked
on shooting in 1976. The cast and crew were made mostly from Noel and Tippi’s family
and friends which meant there was little regulation on set. Instead of the 260 animal handlers
that would have been legally required on a unionised set, Roar had just a handful, most
of whom are also used as extras. The shoot was scheduled to last 6 months but would end
up taking five years to finish. Most of the delays were due to the fact they were filming
with unsurprisingly uncooperative wild animals and the financiers of the project realised
just how nuts the whole thing was and pulled their funding. This meant Noel and Tipi had
to sell their assets like houses, of which they had four so you know don’t feel too
bad for them, and land to continue making the film. Tippi even eventually sold the jacket
that she wore when she starred in Alfred Hitchcocks ‘The Birds’ incidentally another dangerous
film as she had to be hospitalised for a week when she was viciously attacked by ravens.
Aside from the funding issues, the film is your standard lion-family comedy film. But
here’s the quick rundown. Guy has ranch in Africa, his family come to see him, some
guys with European accents are all like “I hate cats”, there’s a confrontation and
the man has to leave the ranch. His family get on a bus from the airport, the mother
and daughter have a really weird conversation about the parents sex life. The man goes to
the airport to collect his family. Meanwhile the family have arrived and are doing the
dumbest thing possible on a ranch filled with wild animals and opening every window and
door not realising there are big cats out there. The cats come in and do some benny
hill routines. The Europeans come back and start shooting cats. The guy comes back and
saves the family, watches the two poachers get eaten by the lions and everyone’s happy.
A couple of other highlights are when the mother is fearing for her life but still has
time to bang in a few zingers like “look what the cat dragged in”. And other inspired
dialogue like this. But to be fair you can’t expect much when the film gives credit to
the wild animals for writing and directing.
Tippi’s teenage daughter Melanie backed out right before shooting started. They managed
to replace her with her best friend but she later decided that she wanted back in, a decision
she later massively regretted. The replacement was fired and they reshot parts with Melanie
in.
During the total 11 years of production there were at least 70 major injuries on set, some
of which managed to make their way into the final cut. From Tippi breaking her leg after
being crushed by an elephant, Noel getting a hole bitten through his hand on the very
first day of shooting and even Melanie needing facial reconstruction surgery after one attack.
Cinematographer Jan de Bont, in his first appearance in American cinema and would go
on to direct Speed, got scalped by one of the lions and needed 220 stitches. Doron Kauper,
assistant director, was nearly killed when a bite landed just inches away from his jugular.
John Marshall tells one story where his father was shooting a scene where he is bathing with
a lion and it ends up dragging him out of the bath by his neck. Wanting to make sure
the lion was disciplined for this behaviour Noel gave chase, entirely naked and bleeding
seriously from the neck. Unfortunately, this also happened to be the day when several forigen
investors were on set, they were apparently less than pleased.
Despite all of the literal blood, sweat and tears that went into the making of this movie,
it ended up being a monumental flop. And I’m talking RIPD level flop. Once the investors
had pulled out and it was being self funded, costs soared to 17 million dollars. It might
have had a chance of making this sum back if only it had secured a release in US cinemas.
Instead it was only released internationally and ended up grossing just 2 million dollars.
However, the physical and monetary cost wasn’t the last of it. John recounts that his father
wasn’t very fair on poor Melanie, they each had safewords to get themselves out of a scene
but Noel apparently would ignore them when said my Melanie. This meant that in 1982 just
a year after the film got it’s limited release, Tippi and Noel divorced citing the film as
one of the reasons for the split
There is a somewhat happy ending though. By 2015, 34 years later, the film had become
infamous and finally achieved is theatrical release in America. Unfortunately this was
five years after Noel had died from surprisingly lion unrelated causes.
So if you want to check out the film one critic called ‘like watching a live-action Lion
King while Mufassa holds a switch blade to your throat’ then go ahead, just be aware
you might see some blood. Let me know what you think of the film if you do watch it in
the comments below. And as always, if you have been, thanks for watching.