Roar: the long-forgotten wildlife movie that injured 70 cast and crew

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This was published 8 years ago

Roar: the long-forgotten wildlife movie that injured 70 cast and crew

By Nicholas Adams-Dzierzba

It is one of cinema's most disastrous shoots. And one of the most fascinating behind-the-scenes stories.

To shoot the long-forgotten 1981 wildlife thriller Roar, producer-director Noel Marshall lived with 150 lions, tigers, cheetahs and jaguars along with his actress wife Tippi Hedren​ (The Birds) and her daughter Melanie Griffith (Working Girl).

Tippi Hedren gets very close to a lion in Roar.

Tippi Hedren gets very close to a lion in Roar.

They played his on screen family in a story about a scientist whose home is over-run by wild animals.

Filmed over 11 years at the family's Californian animal sanctuary, the Shambala Preserve, it turned into a hazardous experience for the actors and filmmakers.

Tippi Hedren with a cheetah at Shambala Preserve in California.

Tippi Hedren with a cheetah at Shambala Preserve in California.

Then 19, Griffith needed needed 50 stitches and underwent facial reconstructive surgery after being attacked by a lioness. It was initially feared she would lose an eye.

Hedren suffered a fractured leg falling off an elephant and multiple scalp wounds in different incidents on set.

Marshall was wounded by animals so many times that he was hospitalised with gangrene.

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Cinematographer Jan de Bont​, who later directed Speed, needed 220 stitches after being scalped.

Remarkable photos of the their day-to-day eating, sleeping and frolicking with the big cats were uncovered as Drafthouse Films prepared to re-release Roar in the US this year.

These playful pictures belie the danger of the shoot that played out like a deranged Disney movie.

The folly took 11 years to complete and cost a substantial $US17 million but was never released in the United States.

The movie had a brief overseas release in 1981. Marshall and Hedren divorced the following year.

Roar now has a cult reputation for the number of cast and crew injured during filming. The tagline for the US re-release was: "No animals were harmed in the making of this movie. 70 members of the cast and crew were."

Drafthouse's Christian Parkes told the movie website Indiewire that unlike the set of Jaws, the cast and crew were not in cages.

"They were holding cameras and boom mics, getting caught up in the action and being attacked," he said.

Originally intended as big cat advocacy, Roar is closer to Werner Herzog's documentary Grizzly Man, a cautionary tale about not getting too close to nature.

It could almost be the original version of the GoPro promotional video Lions - The New Endangered Species?, which has 27.5 million views on YouTube.

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According to Indiewire, Roar is much more nerve-racking and the cast deliver lines with palpable fear. Scenes that show the cast playing with lions turn into them being preyed upon.

"It actually is the most dangerous movie ever made," said Drafthouse's James Shapiro​. "This movie just lends itself to hyperbole because it's impossible to sit down and watch it and not have your mouth open in complete astonishment."

When it comes to a now infamous scene that shows Griffith's face being mauled, Parkes said audiences do not know whether to laugh or scream. "In most cases, they end up doing both."

Roar is screening at Sydney's Golden Age Cinema and Bar on July 10 and 12.

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