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Roar: The Most Dangerous Movie Ever Made? · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too. And this is a good
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: old Stuff you Should Know movie edition, which usually I
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: have to say, have generally been pretty good.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Had you ever heard of this movie? No?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I haven't, had you.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's legendary.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, you had. I didn't know if that was right
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: or not. I looked up to see if anybody had
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: written in, and I guess somebody named Ian Tindall had recently.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Oh really, right, So in case that happened. Sometimes people
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: write in and be like, oh, thanks for doing the
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: episode I suggested, and it's something that had been on
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: our list already, So that happened.
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: Sometimes that just happened.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Somebody wrote in and was like, hey, you didn't thank
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: me for this one, and I was like, oh, sorry,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: I didn't.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: You know, Well, that is what happens. So if we
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: don't thank you, there's a ninety eight percent chance that
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: we didn't.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: We already had it, that's right. But I already had
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: this one.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This is a legendary movie known as the most dangerous
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: film ever made from nineteen eighty one. This you know,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: big budget movie that was terrible and never shown in
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: the United States much so it's no wonder that you
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard of it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: No, but I guess yeah, being a movie dude, this
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: is the kind of thing. It's like a legendary movie
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: for sure. Yeah, especially have you have you seen it?
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: That's a guest. Oh no, no, no, no, Yeah, it's
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: almost impossible to find. You could shell out I think
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: one hundred bucks on Amazon to buy a DVD of it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Don't do that.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Alamo draft House re released it in twenty fifteen, which
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: generated a lot of buzz and interest in it. But
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: they did it in such a way that people used
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: to show the room kind of yeah, and then it's
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: just not anywhere. It's nowhere. You can see some trailers
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: and clips and stuff like that, but the movie itself
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: is nowhere. That's kind of a shame, because from what
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: I can tell from researching it, it would be something
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: to see at least once.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I don't feel like I'm missing out
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: having never seen it all because I've seen tons of
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: clips and read about it and stuff, and it's kind
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of one of those that to suffer through the entire thing.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that's the thing you should do
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: with the room, sure, but not necessarily with roar.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Okay, fair enough, good, Well then I feel a lot better.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just my dumb opinion.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: So all right, Charles, let's tell everybody what we're talking about.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: It's a nineteen eighty one movie.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Roar.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Like you said, a lot of people consider it the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: most dangerous film ever made. Why is it the most
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: dangerous film ever made? Especially considering there's been plenty of
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: movies where people have died making the movie, like Noah's
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Ark from I think the twenties. Three people drowned during
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: the real deluge that they filmed. You know, there was
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: the Twilight movie, Like people have died. No one died
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: on this movie, So why do people call it the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: most dangerous film ever go?
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, in other cases, there have been
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: accidents on films that were all, you know, top quality productions,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: where just something happened that was a big mistake. But
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: in this case, the actors were purposefully put in peril
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: because of just the whole idea of the film to
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: begin with. And there's really no way to talk about
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: it without just sort of telling the story. I guess
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: from inception, which was a married couple in Hollywood, the
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: great Tippy Hedron from You probably know her from Alfred
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Hitchcock's The Birds most famously, Yeah, and her hubby, Noel Marshall,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: who was her agent and a movie producer. He was
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: best known, probably still best known for the Exorcists and
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: unfortunately roar. Yeah, he kind of rewrote his legacy after
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the Exorcists. But they were married couple who thought of
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: this idea because of a trip they took.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So roar is essentially like it's meant to
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: generate like good will and stuff among humans toward wild animals,
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  Speaker 2: right to show them that wild animals are nothing to
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: be afraid of. And Tippy Hedron and Noel Marshall had
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: a shared love of animals and wildlife that dated all
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: the way back to Marshall's youth, I think his teenage
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: yeers when he volunteered at the Saint Louis Zoo. And
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I guess as he and Tippy Hedron got together, he
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: kind of influenced her. She was already a champion of
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: certain social causes, but she hadn't taken up animal welfare yet.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know she had an activist heart.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I guess always did. And they were in Africa. They
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: were in Zimbabwe filming. She was filming a movie. This
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: was in nineteen sixty nine. It was a movie called
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: Satan's harvest YEP. So you know, her career wasn't at
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: his zenith after the Birds. But while they were there,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: they went to Mozambique and went to a game preserve there,
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and a couple of sort of key things came out
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of that game reserve. I guess preserve visit. I guess
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: it's the reserve and a preserve.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: Huh.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, the PA is in parentheses before this, right.
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  Speaker 1: They saw an abandoned house that had a pride of
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: thirty lions living in this home sort of in and out,
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  Speaker 1: and they were like, huh, Like, what an interesting concept,
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  Speaker 1: you know, to be put on film. This looks really
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  Speaker 1: kind of strange seeing these big cats roaming around a home.
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  Speaker 1: And then the second thing is that their guide there
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  Speaker 1: kind of educated them on what was going on with
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  Speaker 1: the poaching conditions back then, and that really inspired them
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  Speaker 1: to do something to drive some sort of awareness about
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  Speaker 1: these beautiful big cats.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was kind of in the air at
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the time too, Like there was a big like jungle
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: adventure in Africa like theme going on in a lot
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: of movies and TV. There's a very popular TV show
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: called Duct about a father and daughter veterinary team who
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: worked with wildlife in East Africa. And get this, Chuck Daktari,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: which is if a drama was based on a movie
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: called Clarence the Cross Eyed Lion.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: Oh, poor Clarence, I know, But how do you.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Get Clarence the Cross Eyed Lion to the serious like
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: animal medical drama Doctari. That's a strange transition.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think probably a pretty smart one because Doctari
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: was on for a few seasons. Yeah, you know, other
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: stuff like Mutual Omaha's Wild Kingdom was big.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: And I think you're right.
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  Speaker 1: I think there was a general fascination with Africa in
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: the United States at the time, so they were bitten
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: by that bug. They get back to Hollywood and they said, hey,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: what if we do this movie? What if we do
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: a movie about these big cats? And they pushed the
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: idea to some animal trainers and they said, that's a
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: really bad eye. It's not practical and it's like super
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: dangerous and but caveat.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: I suppose if you raise.
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  Speaker 1: Them together and they all knew each other and they
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: were raised with humans, then it might not be as
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  Speaker 1: dangerous or dumb of an idea.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so this is the first step that is
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: actually a step backward, because I get the impression they
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: came back from Africa and just assumed they were going
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: to get a bunch of like rent a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: lions and tigers and stuff putting together, you know, knock
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: this movie out in a year or something at the most. Yeah,
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: that's not the case. This so they actually started from scratch.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: They got their hands on a lion cub named Neil,
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: and they started raising him around the family in the
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  Speaker 2: house with their teenage children, one of whom was Melanie Griffith.
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  Speaker 2: She is Tippy Hedron's daughter, and she was like thirteen
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  Speaker 2: or fourteen when Neil came into the picture and they
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  Speaker 2: raised him from a cub into this four hundred pound
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  Speaker 2: family pet, fully grown male African lion Maine and all
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  Speaker 2: like sleeping in bed with Melanie Griffith at the time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean this wasn't they didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: ranch out in the middle of nowhere, right, This was
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: in the valley. This is in Sherman Oaks, in their
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Spanish home in Sherman Oaks. So I'm not sure about
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: the laws at the time. We'll see that they were
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: ordered to get rid of them about a year later.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, it was about a year after Life magazine
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one ran a big photographic feature that
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  Speaker 1: it was, you know, the very sensational thing. It showed
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  Speaker 1: all these amazing pictures of life with this four hundred
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  Speaker 1: pound lion living in the home, like you were saying,
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  Speaker 1: you know, hanging out.
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  Speaker 3: By the pool, the kids playing with them.
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  Speaker 1: And so about a year after that, I guess the
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: city stepped in and said, you can't do that in
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  Speaker 1: Los Angeles even.
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  Speaker 2: No, and in retrospect, I think in her autobiography, Tippy
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  Speaker 2: Hedrin later wrote that she realized that this was stupid
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  Speaker 2: on belief to keep a four hundred pound male lion
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  Speaker 2: in the house around her family. And like there's pictures
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  Speaker 2: of her like lounging around with her head on the
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  Speaker 2: lions like chests and everything. They're both laying on the
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: ground together. It is. It's quite a photo spread. And
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  Speaker 2: it's also got that perfect like late sixties early seventies photo. Lookye,
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: you just could not possibly recreate it looks like that.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: It's really cool. Yeah, but yeah, so they were ordered
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to get rid of the animals. By this time, they'd
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: started collecting other lions and started raising them together again,
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: with the ultimate goal of filming them all together in
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: this movie that they wanted to make. Right, So, instead
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: of getting rid of their actors and pets, they bought
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: like a ranch in Actin, which is in Solidad Canyon.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I guess a little north of Los Angeles. I'm sure
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: you know where that is, right.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I had never heard of Actin. Actually it said it
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: is forty miles north, but I think I'd heard of
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: solid Ad Canyon.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: But and it's new to me. I guess that's where
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: you go when you want to raise lions, right.
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  Speaker 2: The locals leave you alone when you show up with
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: a bunch of lions, right, And they did. They bought
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a bunch of acreage and created a compound. And even
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the compound was bought with an eye toward the ultimate
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: goal of making this movie.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they wanted to film it like, you know,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: as lions who lived in a house. And so they
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: created everything was kind of built as a movie set
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: to be, so they landscaped it with you know, it
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be an Africa set in Africa, so
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: they landscaped it with plants and architectural styles that might
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: have mimicked southern Africa. They put in an artificial pond,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: and then eventually they would move there a few years
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: later in nineteen seventy six and live on the property
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: and kind of get to work on that movie.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was about the year that they started with
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: seventy six. I say we take a break and we'll
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: get into actually making the film, because this is about
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: the point where things start to get a little bonkers.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: That's right, we'll be right back, Chuck.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Before we get back into it, I have a tippy
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  Speaker 2: hedron fact that I found. She is the only actress
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: to be directed by Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, and Edward Jr.
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  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's quite a career.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that Ben diagram.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, so we're at the filming, the beginning
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: of filming. The cameras are rolling, and the cameras just
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: kept rolling.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they kept rolling.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: You know, by this point they had more animals, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: believe you mentioned they started collecting more, but specifically they
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: had tigers by that point, they had leopards, they had panthers,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: they had cougars. Notably, they had I mean, this was
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: self described by Tippy Hedron.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Those were just sort of the big cats.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: They also had flamingos and ostriches and storks and swans
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and sheep, and they even had an elephant which made
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: an appearance in the movie. And these are all pets
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: living there together, again with the aim that they would
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: all know one another by that point and be docile
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: enough to be you know, animal actors.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: But as you would imagine, they had a hard time
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: raising money for the project because mainly they didn't have
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: much of a project except for a loose idea.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I guess no they had a bunch of real estate.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: They ended up self financing this thing mostly so they
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: sold a bunch of their real estate to put the
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: cash into this film. I think Noel was one of
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: the producers on The Exorcists, and he made a bunch
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: of money off of that. He was essentially an investor
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: in it, so we got an executive producer credit. And
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: I guess some of the back plum is that what
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: it's called back plumb, Yeah, the back end. Sure, the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: back end, but it's plummy.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: Anyway, he had a bunch of money from the Exorcists.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: They threw that into and they're like, Okay, this is
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: gonna be such a cool movie that no one's ever
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: done anything like this before. We're just gonna make our
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: money back a million times over. And initially the whole idea,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: remember they had seen that pride of lions living in
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: this and that was kind of what kicked this off.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: So the whole thing was very lion centric. But I
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: think the working titles were Lions or Lions, Lions and
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: more Lions. Those are definitely working titles. I think.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes ror look pretty great by comparison it
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: a title it does.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could see Noel like dropping his gin and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Tonic thinking like I got it.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you said.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: They collected a bunch of other animals, some of which
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: do not live in Africa, like Siberian tigers do not
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: live in Africa. But that didn't stop them, so they
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: expanded the scope even more because they wanted their whole
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: face of big cats and animals to be able to
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: star in this movie. So they ended up kind of
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: expanding the focus of the whole thing.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. They didn't even have a script.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: And you know, Marshall was not a writer, like you know,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: like you said he invested in The Exorcist. I don't
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: think anyone ever confused him with a creative in Hollywood, huh.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: But he did write the script. He got some ideas
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: from Tippy. He wrote the script, said he was going
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: to direct the film and it was a family adventure,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: so he was going to have all of his family
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in it, which was you know, young Melanie, and then
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: he had two sons from a previous marriage, Jerry and.
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: John, and they were all going to be in it.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: But they were like, we need a real deal, like
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: regular lead actor for the male role to play like
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the patriarch of this family. But they could not get
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: any actor to sign on because again I don't think
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: even people thought it would be that dangerous. Yet they
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: just knew it was not a good idea and it
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: was bad. The script was terrible.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: So Marshall was like, you know what, I'll just do
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: that too, right.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: I'm sure they were like what is wrong with everybody?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Between not raising financing or getting a star yeah, so
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Noel wrote, directed, and starred in this movie, like you
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: were saying, and that, from all of my experience, any
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: movie that is written, directed, and starred in is essentially
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: going to be not as good as it would be
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: if any one of those were taken out of that equation.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Oh you think, yeah, because there's no one there to
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: tell the director or the writer or the lead actor
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: don't do this. Like those things are supposed to be
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: checks and balances, like the three branches of government in
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: the United States. So if you have all of them
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: together as one, you got a big problem.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: All Right, I disagree, but we'll just walk right past it.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: All right, that's fine.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: I mean I think if you're terrible, then it's a
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: bad idea. But there have been plenty of examples of
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: great writer, director, actors, and great films.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, name one besides Herbie the Lovebug.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: I like most anything clinice Wood's ever been in.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: Okay, I don't fully agree with that, but okay.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I mean that's fine. You can nitpick
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: clinice Wood anyway. Like I said, we don't need to
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: debate this point, man.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: It's just similar. Like the pot is just simmering almost over,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: but we're gonna walk past it, like you said.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the point why this is bad is
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: because he was not a talented human being. Early on, though,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Melanie Griffith is like, I don't want to be in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: this movie. I think the direct quote was to her
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: mom was I don't want to come out of here
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: with half a face. So she backed out. They got
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: her friend to star instead, or friend who was an actor.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: But eventually she was like, you know what, I guess
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I will be in the movie. So she came back
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: on board and they completely reshot all the scenes. They're
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: just burning through money at this point, ye, but reshot
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: the scene so Melanie could be back in the film.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that friend ned who went on to become an
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: award winning Folly artist. And that's right. It's like you said,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: they're burning through money. Because there's something to remember here
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: that I didn't think about until pretty far down the research,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: Like they were not shooting video, they were not using
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: SD cards. They were using actual film stock over and over,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: like all sorts of film stock. And that stuff was expensive,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: wasn't it.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they you know at one point because
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: they had to essentially just keep cameras rolling and wait
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: for the animals to do something interesting. Yeah, they were
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: shooting you know, six seven, eight cameras at a time
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: sometimes and this was I mean, this is something you
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: routinely see now, but back then you didn't. You know,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you maybe had three or four cameras max on like
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a huge, huge stunt, but rolling that many cameras just
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't what you did typically back then on films, especially
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: films of the size, so that they were just burning
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: money on film stock.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like you said, the reason why they were
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: just running all the times because the cats had zero training,
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: Like you could not tell them like, okay, we need
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: you to jump at this person because in this scene
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: it calls for that. The cats would just look at
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: you like I hear like man b bae bit and
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: that's it, Like I don't know what you're saying. So
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: occasionally they would do something interesting enough to use in
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: the film, and then they reverse engineered it and wrote
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: the plot around the stuff that they had filmed the
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: cats doing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and all the animals.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: There was a scene where the elephant destroys a boat,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and that scene is in there because the elephant destroyed
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: a boat, right. It was not planned, but they were like, hey,
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: we got a little bit of production value out of
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the elephant wrecking that boat, right, so we got to.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Put it in the movie.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: The other thing was is these animals were you know,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: they were raised in captivity and were used to laying
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: around by the pool and laying in bed in a
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: fairly sedate scene. So while they were pretty calm and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: chill as far as big cats go in the movie,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: when the real human actors are instructed to like yell
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: and scream or to run away or something that would
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: incite or excite, rather these animals in ways you know
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: that they weren't prepared for either.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: I know, I felt bad about that confused them, and
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: that's said. They were like, why are friends you know yelling?
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know we're we're going to get to
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: some of the darker stuff later. This isn't all just
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: like funny.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: No good point. So this whole thing, the entire film
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: takes about five years to film, and not just because
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the animals weren't doing what you'd want them to almost
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: all the time. There were some real catastrophes that they
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: ran into that were just totally unavoidable. But this is
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: a very dangerous set, Like that is the through line
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: here if you haven't picked up on that. People are
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: interacting with you know, domesticated to an extent, but there's
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: still very much wild fully grown lions, tigers, leopards, and
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: that's what's going on they're filming that. They're filming like
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: the lions jumping on people and attacking people, and so
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: this is like a really dangerous set at the same
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: time because they were using all this stuff, there's a
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: strange realism to the whole thing, especially the violence that
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: the animals inflict on the humans, because it actually was
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: what was going on.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean they had a hard time
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: sustaining funding because of this. They had a hard time
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: sustaining a crew because of this. I think in total
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: over the five years they had about one hundred and
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: forty different crew members because people, you know, they would
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: get on set, they would work for a little while.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: Either there would be you know, something terrible and horrifying
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: would happen, or they would just realize, like you know,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: you know when you get on one of those shows
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: where you're just like this is not a professional outfit, right,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: So get out of there as quickly as I can
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: get something else going. They're shooting it all at this
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: compound for Africa there sort of deep outside Los Angeles,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and people started getting hurt. I think seventy cast and
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: crew members ended up getting injuries. And in the if
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you look at the Alamo Drafthouse trailer that they put
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: out online, at the end, it'll show as they're announcing
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the cast, it would freeze frame on that cast member
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and in parentheses like give their name and then say
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: kind of what their most major injury was on set.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Right, Probably the biggest one was Yon Debance. You probably
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: recognize him from such films as Heart of a Champion,
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: The ray Mancini Story, or Roar. But he was the
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: cinematographer for this movie and he took it like three
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: weeks after this whole thing started. He got it bad
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: where a lion essentially scalped him from the back half
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: of his head backward.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, two hundred and twenty stitches. But he would complete
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the film and before you start emailing us, I gotta
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: stem the tide, Josh. Unfortunately, Yon Debant is very much
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: known for being a big time action movie director. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I mean you were kidding, right, yeah, okay, just making sure.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: He directed Speed and Twister and some other, you know,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: very big movies later on. But this was his first
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: film in the United States, and I think that's probably
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: why he kept coming back, because it was his first
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: film in the States, and maybe he didn't think it
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: would be such idea to quit his first movie here.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, because that's a really good point. He was
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: a very talented cinematographer by this time. Like that's one
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: of the other things he's very well known for, not
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: just directing. So like this movie, this, like you said,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: completely like unprofessional outfit where the writer, director, and star
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: has no experience in any of those fields, has a
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: world class cinematographer working for it, which makes the whole
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: thing even that much more bizarre when you watch it.
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Apparently, Yeah, for sure.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: So you know, speaking of John Marshall, I believe he
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: was one of the sons. He got bit on the
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: head he tripped and fell during a scene. And of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: course again this you know, I don't think we mentioned
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that not only were the animals not prepared for some
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: of this stuff, but they didn't have a full staff
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: of animal wranglers on hand, like anytime you have a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: I mean it really depends, but if it's like a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: big cat or something like this, you've got a team
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of people there for each one, right, and you know
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: they had some help, but they weren't staff like they
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: needed to be.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: No, And I think those are also the same crew
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: that kind of came and went over time. They were
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: like this, this is nutstude. I don't want to have
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: anything to do with this.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they didn't want their name on this thing
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: because they saw where it was going.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: So Melanie Griffith, who said that she didn't want to
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: come out of this with half a face, came very
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: close to that. Actually, she got clawed by her eye.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: She needed fifty stitches. She also had to undergo cosmetic
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: surgery to kind of reconstruct that part of her face. Yeah,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: that made it into the movie.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that scene, I mean that was a very believable
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: tax scene.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you got a clumsy plot and actors, you
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: have a great cinematographer, and now also you have genuine
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: terror and blood that shows up in this essentially what's
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: supposed to be like a kind of wacky comedy family adventure.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, there were two cases of Gangreen from
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: you know, getting bitten by infected cat mouths. Tippy Hedron
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: was one. She got a lion bite, got Gangreen. I'm
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: not sure where she got it, but she ended up
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: getting skin grass. There was also a scene where she
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: was riding on Timbo the elephant, and this animal wasn't
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: used to being ridden and like have somebody like shouting
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and stuff like she was, so it threw her off,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: fractured her ankle. And then Noel, the star and the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: director and madman behind all this, he got the other
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: case of Gangreen.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Tippy Hedron getting thrown from the elephant and breaking
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: your ankle. That made it into the movie as well.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: I know Noel got a bite on the hand trying
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: to break up a fight between lions and started bleeding.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: That made it into the movie as well. So all
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: of this stuff is just showing up. Two crew members
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: lost digits. Like over a six year period, people kept
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: coming back, Like the core, people kept coming back and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: coming back and coming back. There's one other thing to
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: keep in mind. To Charles, this was supposed to take place.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: The action in the movie takes place over what maybe
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: like a few days, weeks, months tops. The actors involved
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: are all aging, like over the course of several years,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: some of them teenagers under Like you really undergo some
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: serious like outward changes over like a few years in
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: your teens, and they had to kind of like deal
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: with that as well. This is like reverse boyhood essentially.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. There was also a flash flood which
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: damaged some fencing. This is nineteen seventy eight, so this
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: is like two and a half years into this thing,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and it damaged some of the fencing such that some
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: of these big cats escaped.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: This is some of the darker stuff as far.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: As the animals are concerned, because they really played up
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the idea that no animals were hurt in the filming
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: of this, like only humans. But they recovered most of
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: those animals, but allegedly the deputies there ended up having
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: to shoot and kill three lions. Yeah, and there was
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: also a situation where I think there was a disease
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: that spread through the.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: Cat community and some of them died.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: It's hard to get like good verification on that, but
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I see plenty of places that claim that happened.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Right, And technically none of this happened during filming. But yeah, yeah,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I think that's just part of a problem. When you
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: have hundreds of like big cats all living together, that's
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: not how they live. That flood you mentioned they had
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: like twenty minutes of filming left. I think when there
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: was a wildfire they were down to like seven minutes
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: something like that. And it just kept getting set back
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: and set back. That flood was so destructive that it
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: destroyed a lot of the vegetation and that made up
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the set, so they had to replant and then wait
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: for it to grow back again. It just kept getting
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: set back and set back. I have the impression, and
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you got the same impression that
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Tippy Heeddron and Noel Marshall were so deep into this
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: financially that they couldn't walk away. They had to finish
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: this because it was it had to be a hit
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: or else they were in serious financial trouble. Did you
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: get that same impression?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, who knows what's going on.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: It's either that or just like the Madman thing takes over, right,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: But I bet I know that. You know, they certainly
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: had no chance of recovering any money if they stopped,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: and they knew that too, and they were close to
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: being done. Like you said, they did finally finish in
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the fall of seventy nine. They had to shoot a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: little bit in Africa, but most everything was taking place
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: there at their ranch, and they spent and this was
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you know, late seventies money, about seventeen million dollars, which
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is almost what Raiders of the Lost Art cost. So
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: they're definitely not getting their production value. And I'm sure
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of that seventeen million was just you know,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: wasted money, like film stock and rebuilding things and just
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: waiting around and waiting around and paying crew while you're
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: waiting around.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I can't imagine that seventeen million
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: dollars worth of production value made it into Roar from
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: everything I've seen, you.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Know, I don't think seven hundred thousand dollars worth of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: production value except I guess Yandubont shooting some nice looking
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: stuff probably for sure.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: So they finally finished filming, they get it edited, it's
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: all ready to go. They've like got their hands together,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: they're rubbing their hands. They're ready to start making some
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: money back. And they cannot find anyone in the United
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: States to sign on as a distributor, which is a
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: huge problem, especially back then you had no streaming services whatsoever.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Like the way you saw a movie was to go
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: to a movie theater, and the way you got your
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: movie in movie theaters was by having a contract with
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: the distributor to get that movie out to movie theaters
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: so that you could have money coming back in. They
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: did not have that in the United States. They never
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: got it in the US.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: No, no release in the US.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: It was a non union production, so that had something
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: to do with it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: But really the deal was it was just a really
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: bad movie, sure, and nobody wanted to release it. I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: think even at the time they didn't think like if
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a distributor doesn't even think they can get it back
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: based on how notorious you can trump up the advertising
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: of like the most dangerous film ever made. Like it
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was really that bad that they couldn't even get like
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: cult B movie status going for it, you know.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: No, And there was a lot of buzz too. I
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: read some of the press tour that Tippy Heedron was
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: doing in nineteen seventy nine to help, you know, pump
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: up the release of the movie, and like it was
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: widely discussed. Apparently it was. It was shown widely in
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the UK and Ireland. But even all that, it was
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: I think it grossed two million dollars worldwide. Yeah, so
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: they lost fifteen million dollars just out of the gate.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: And because it was never shown almost anywhere else, especially
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: after its first run, they had like there's that was it.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: That's all they ever made off of it, Like they
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: haven't slowly been making their money back. It just ended
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: its life right then and there after it limped out
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: of the last theater in the UK.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: That's right, let's stick our second break.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, we'll be right back with a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: little bit more believe it or not about Roar right
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: after this.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: All right, we're back.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: More about Roar, which by the way, was about one
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: hundred minutes long. Livia did the great service of trying
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to break down, even without seeing it, the plot of
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: this whole movie. I don't think we should kind of
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: go over that because maybe spoilers if people want to
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: try and find this thing, but almost certainly more because
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: it's not a very good movie at all.
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Sure, but just loosely.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: It was a plot about an eccentric American scientist who
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: spent a few years living in Tanzania's where it was
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: set and then having his family come out there, and
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: you know, it was really about that simple, like these people.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: You know, there's a mistaken communication where the family comes
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: right as the dad has gone to go to the airport,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: so they walk into the scene where all these lions
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: and it's really that bad.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Like that's kind of the plot of the movie.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the overall theme of the movie is that
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: this doctor, in the time that he's been living in Tanzania,
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: started living among the wild animals he's studying and become
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: like a family with them. Now his family who hasn't
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: been living with these animals is showing up, and this
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: is I think what I understand is that you start
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: to see the process of them kind of coming around
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: through all the attacks and hijinks and all that stuff,
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: until the overall message is if you treat wild animals
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: in a friendly manner, they're going to be friendly. If
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: you are scared of them and you treat them hostily,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: they're going to respond as such. The thing about this
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: is I think it was Richard Brody from The New
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: Yorker he points out that just consistently throughout the movie,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: this message is contradicted time after time after time where
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: people are being friendly to these animals and the animals
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: are like drawing blood and attacking them on screen in
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: the movie. So the message itself was flawed out of
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: the gate, even though it was an admirable one.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Another big flaw was that it was sort of a
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: genre less film. Yeah, parts of it seem like home movies,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: parts of it seem like comedy, Like a couple of
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the attacks are played as straight up comedic, parts of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: it are played up for the true terror. And the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: score even is all over the place, So the score
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: sometimes feels like a horror movie and the score sometimes
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: feels like a comedy. I think Tippy Hendrid says they
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: based some of the stuff on old slapstick silent comedies,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: so it was completely rudderless. And that critic that you
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: talked about, Richard Brody, one of his quotes was kind
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: of back this up. He said, Marshall doesn't quite seem
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: aware of the forms he's using.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: So it was just a big mess.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, big mess. I think that should be like the tagline, right,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess if you're like I got to
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: see this, there are stuff, there are things you can
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: see online, but you're just unless you're gonna show out
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: a hundred bucks, you're not gonna see the whole movie.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: One of the cool things about this though, is from
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: the outset, Tippy Heedron and Noel Marshall were not just
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: about like, let's just make a bunch of money exploiting animals.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: They one of their stated purposes of making war was
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: to take some a significant amount of the proceeds and
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: put it toward wild animal welfare. And they put their
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: money where their mouth is, even though they lost a
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: bunch of money, and they basically turned their compound into
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: a place called the Cats of Shambala, which is like
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: they presented as a place of peace between animals and
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: humans where they can come together in harmony. It's still
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: around today, and it's the home of the Roar Foundation,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: which is also still around today, which is still promoting
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: money and lobbying for legislation on behalf of animal welfare.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I mean that is when positive. They
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: would get divorced about a year after this movie, and
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he continued to support the Shambala project even after that,
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: which was a good thing. But I don't want to
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: paint Marshall is like some great dude because you know,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: reading some of the accounts, it seems like he had
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: a definite anger problem, was possibly violent with his own family.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Definitely there were moments where his you know, fourteen fifteen
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: year old stepdaughter is like really upset and crying and
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to continue, and he's forcing her back into
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: these scenes.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: So he was not a good dude.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to portray this as just like
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: sort of a fun family project gone wrong.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was an interview with his son John around
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: the time that this was re released by draft House
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Films in twenty fifteen where John was like, you know,
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: we all had safe words that we could use when
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: we were filming if we were uncomfortable, that we could get,
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: you know, removed from that situation and filming would stop.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: And he said there was at least one time when
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: Melanie used her safe word and Noel just ignored it
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: and made everybody keep filming. So yeah, I think that
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: was that's definitely worth pointing out for sure. But like
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: you said, I mean, he's known for being an executive
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: producer investor on the Exorcist, and he's known for ror
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: and he will always be known for Roor from what
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: I can tell.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, that's his legacy.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, it got a little bit more
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: attention because the Today Show had Tippy Hedron on because
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: she had written a book, her autobiography or at least
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: about this, The Cats of Shambala, So she was on
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: there promoting that, they showed clips from Roor and so
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: it got a little bit of attention in the United
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: States at the time and then was kind of not
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: heard from again until Draft House Films. Yeah, came along,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: like you said, in twenty fifteen, and you know, played
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: it up for what it was, which is a pretty.
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: Bad, I mean B movie at best.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: I think most B movies usually even have more of
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: a plot than this thing did.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They that's where the tagline the most dangerous film
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: ever made came from, which is very popular these days.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: And they also were the ones that came up with
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: No animals were harmed during the making of Roar, but
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: seventy members of the cast and crew were, and Tippy
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Hedron apparently was not at all happy about the I'm
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: sure this portrayal, and the Roor Foundation asked not to
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: speak publicly about it. Apparently she was that mad about it.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: There is an Animal Planet documentary. I couldn't find that either,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: but it was called Roar, the Most Dangerous Movie ever made.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: It came out in twenty seventeen, and then there's been reviews,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: especially after Alamo or the Draft House released it in
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: twenty fifteen. A lot of like those kind of online
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: reviewers who just love like terrible movies, really sank their
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: teeth into this, if you'll excuse that.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my favorite one is from Under the Radar,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: it said, based on his reputation alone, nineteen eighty one's
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Roar is the citizen Kane of films where actors were
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: mauled by lions. That's pretty good.
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: Drew mcweeney also had a pretty memorable quote. They said
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: that it feels like Walt Disney decided to make a
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: snuff version of Swiss Family Robinson.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: That's kind of on point.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean, if you are like, I don't
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: care about any of this. I just want to help
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: the big cats. Like I said, the Shambala Preserve is
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: still around, The RAR Foundation is around, and they're accepting donations.
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: I think they're down to like nine big cats now.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: They've definitely whittled it down I'm guessing that the other
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: big cats kind of died of natural causes over time, hopefully.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: But yeah, there you go. And Tippy Hedron's still alive.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: She's coming up on her one hundredth birthday in twenty thirty.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: Well, I hope she doesn't listen to this.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: I feel like we did it justice.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is exactly probably what she doesn't want to hear.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's true. Well, if you're listening, Tippy, hats off
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: to you. And since I did our annual hats off
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: to Tippy Hedron, I just unlocked blistener mail.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: For a second, I thought you're gonna say Tippy of
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: the hat to you.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: After all the times we've done that too, I can't
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: believe we've never come up with that before.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I'm going to call this shouting out a good little
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: thing that this company's doing because we heard from Robin
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: about a company.
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, let me just read it.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, So listen to you from the mountains of
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: western North Carolina near Asheville, and I just listened to
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the Mangroves episode, notably one of my favorite trees, and
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I wanted to share information that's me talking about, right.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: I wanted to share information on.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: A company called man mang Gear m A n G Gear.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: They make SPF shirts and for every shirt they sell,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: they plan a mangrove tree.
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Nice.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: It's a nonprofit started by two brothers. And when you
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: do this they send you a certificate the GPS coordinates
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: of the location cool where your mangrove was planted. After
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: listening to the episode, it couldn't help it share in
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: case you wanted to do show some support to their work.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I listen all the time. Every episode is chock full
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of information, facts and history. And let's not forget you
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: both are great hosts and make the show so interesting.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: Nice And that is from Robin maw to lick and
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: just go to mang gear dot com. That would be
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: m A n G g e r dot com and
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: check out those SPF shirts if you want to have
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: a mangrove tree planet in your honor.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: That was smart to add the extra G or else
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: they might not have gotten what they were doing across
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: very well if it was.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a website called mang gear that sells
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: puba care shavers and stuff like that.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: All right, yeah, who was that Robin?
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, thanks a lot, Robin. That was a great shout out,
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: and thanks to the people at mangear who are doing
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: God's work and using GPS which we did an episode
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: on and I guess if you want to get in
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: touch with this like Robin did, you can send us
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: an email to send it off to stuff podcast at
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.