WHAT WENT WRONG - ROAR!

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Why waste money on fake blood when you can use the real thing? This week Lizzie gets gruesome with the details: a DP gets scalped, Melanie Griffith nearly loses an eye and Tippi Hedren goes from being terrorized by Hitchcock's birds to mauled by lions.Go Ad-Free - Join Our Patreon!Check Out Our Merch!Follow Us on Instagram!What Movie's Next? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've always wanted to be able to say that I trained an elephant. Finally, my chance to get into the elephant training business. Okay. Hello, and welcome back to what went wrong, and boy, do we have a whopper of wrongs for you today. I'm Lizzie Bassett. I'm here with Chris Winterbauer. That's me. And, uh...

Yeah. This was a stressful movie to watch on a Sunday morning. Yes. let's just jump right in. We got a lot to cover here. The movie that we are talking about today is one that has been recommended to us by several people who I do want to call out. John P. on email sent us this suggestion, as did Nick P. on Instagram. So, I mean, I guess thank you. I hope your brothers and you suffer from the same genetic disease that kills you both. Hey, it's not their fault. It's Noel Marshall's fault. So let's jump into the movie we are covering

today, which is roar. You're going to hear me roar. I can't believe it took us this long to cover this movie. It's horrible. This should have been the first movie we ever did. It literally should. Like, Cats was the wrong cats. This is what we should have done.

Mold. Because all that happens in this movie, it's like watching actors try to act a movie. while getting ripped to shreds by jungle cats. No, it's not like that, Chris. That's what it is. No, but it's like, it's so weird. It's like, we're doing this new play at the regional theater. Like, what's your play?

Well, it's like this normal play, except also there's rabid dogs on stage that it's going to chew through our legs while we're doing this play. It makes no sense. It's a one-woman show where I just get waterboarded for two hours. This is so miserable to watch. I didn't hate it

I'm not saying that I hated it What I'm saying is like it is deeply uncomfortable Oh yes It's going to get a lot more uncomfortable When you learn what happened I want to set up what this movie is for people that don't know Roar is a movie that came out in 1981 It is written and directed by Noel Marshall

You're not going to believe this Chris It is his first and only writing, directing or acting credits Triple Threat. One and done. One and done. With additional writing credits by Ted Cassidy, aka Lurch from the Adams family. So we're off to a good start. Starring Noel as Hank,

his real-life wife, Tippy Hedron, who we will get to as Madeline, as well as a pretty young Melanie Griffith, who is Tippy's real-life daughter. Yep. Chalo Mativo, and then Robbie, Togar, and Gary the Lions, as well as two of Noel's sons. Two out of three.

There was a third who said, fuck you dad, I'm not going anywhere near the cats and we will get to him at one point. I love how while they were filming it, they were probably like, what's up with the weird son who's not a part of the movie? Yes. Meanwhile, Joel is like, absolutely not. I will

be the set decorator and I will shoot the birds. That's it. The synopsis, according to IMDB, is a naturalist living with big cats in East Africa, expects a visit by his family of four from Chicago. A mix-up leaves him searching for his family,

who have been left in the clutches of wild lions. That's generous for the plot of this movie. This movie has no plot. It has no plot. It's just them being mauled and hunted for 90 minutes. Yes. This movie is just people trying to get in a room to the other room, onto a motorcycle, as tigers and lions attack them while one man's sex.

No, don't let them do that. You can't let them get on top of you like that. Just knock them out. Son of a bitch. They bit through my hand. It is absolutely so unhinged. I fundamentally, I, like, how they made it through one day of this movie and didn't just all huddle up and say, you know what, guys, this wasn't a good idea. Well, you're going to understand why, I think.

Mass psychosis? Kind of. Just so you know, the main source that I'm using for today is Tippy Hadron's memoir, which is called Tippy a Memoir. It's a really fun read. And I know I'm going to use quite a lot of it for an episode on The Birds, which I also want to do pretty soon because a wowser's Tippy had a bad time. She didn't get along great with animals or Alfred Hitchcock. The original animal. Seriously. So that is the source that I'm using because it was the only thing that started to give me some of the original animal. understanding about how the hell this happened and how they let their children in this. That is the thing that blows my mind. The idea of putting my child... This is like the Bible story of Abraham, except God wasn't going telling you. Except no one asked them to serve their children up to the lions. They're like, you got it.

Just give them to the lions. You got this. So despite predicting that Roar would gross between 120 million and 150 million, it was a box office. Who predicted that? Oh, Noel Marshall. The director. We'll get to that.

It was a box office bomb, grossing just $2 million against at least a $17 million budget. It also took over 11 years to make. 11 years? Oh, yeah, buddy. Now, the opening credit state, it is with great pride that we display the seal of the American Humane Society. Although some scenes appear to show animals being injured, they were never actually hurt. While that is mostly true, it is not 100% true. which we will get to.

And of course, if you count humans as animals, it is zero percent true. All of the blood looks real in this movie. You know how in some decades? Most of it is. Most of it is. Like the blood in like the 70s and 80s like looks a little wonky now. Yeah, this is not jaw's blood. No, this is actual blood. You see this and you're just like, oh my God, that guy's bleeding from his face.

Yeah, that man was bit through the hand. You will also note that the animals receive writing and directing credits on this movie. I'm just going to leave that there. Okay. This was billed as a comedy I mean, maybe for lions It's terrifying It is not funny

It is not funny There's very few Quote unquote jokes in it And they land so badly The one funny character is his Like African friend Yeah, we'll get to him He smartly hates the lions

Yeah, he's like anytime he sees the lion He's just like fuck that I'm going the other way He just refuses to engage And you can tell it's like, is that his character? Or is that just this guy saying, I am not going near those lions? It's that guy. And good for him. Upon its 2015 re-release with Draft House films, which is, by the way, I think it's basically its first release in the U.S.

It earned this tagline. No animals were harmed in the making of this film. 70 cast and crew members were. Wow. Buckle up, Chris. I can't believe they got 70 people to work on this movie. Oh, they had more than that. And also the estimated number of people who were hurt is likely closer to 100.

Now, just brief reactions to this movie. The first five minutes, the first five minutes are kind of gorgeous. Like I was like, okay, this is interesting. Yeah, like I'm sort of on board. After the first five minutes, it got an audible what the fuck from me for at least, like at least once every 10 minutes from there on out. It is insane. But in the first five minutes, like he's surrounded by jungle cats.

They're jumping on him. And I was just like, What is happening right now? These animals weigh 800, 900 pounds. Closer to 400 and 500, but yes. They weigh 10,000 pounds. They do not weigh 10,000 pounds. The elephant weighs 10,000 pounds.

If you have not seen this movie, the only place it is available to watch, it is, it is illegally on YouTube right now. I honestly, I recommend you stop the podcast and watch just 10 minutes of this. That is all you need to watch. You do not need to watch. whole thing. Any 10 minutes that you watch, any. It doesn't really, seriously scrub anywhere in the movie and watch for 10 minutes.

Yeah, you'll get the idea. Because it's the same 10 minutes over and over again. And yet, it doesn't get less horrifying. It's hard to explain how upsetting this movie is. That's why I'm saying, just go watch a little bit of it because it's just, it's hard to express the panic that sets in when you see humans screaming in the face of 15, lions and tigers in a small room. So you know how like you go to the beach and you pull up a rock and there's like 50 crabs

under there and it's like really freaky and nasty or like you pull some like you pull up rock and there's a bunch of bugs? Yeah. Imagine that's you walking into a room. But instead of bugs, it's lions. Like that is how many lions like it's they walk into a room. There's like five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten full grown lions. Oh yeah.

Then the camera pounds around. And there's like jaguars walking on the ceiling beams. Cheetahs. There's a cougar. Poking their head in. There's an elephant outside. There's a combo lion tiger at some point. Like it's absolutely unhinged.

Yeah, buddy, there's a Liger. So who were Tippy Hedron and Noel Marshall? Because they are really the key players in this absolutely bat-shit crazy movie. So let's start with Tippy. Tippy Hedrin got her start as a model in the 50s, getting her first big magazine cover of Life magazine in 1952. By her early 30s, however, she was divorced with a young daughter, that daughter being Melanie Griffith, when she got a call asking if she was the girl in the commercial. She was the girl in the commercial, and despite having zero acting experience, she had caught

the eye of none other than Alfred Hitchcock. As I said, I am not going to go into detail about her time with Alfred Hitchcock because I want to save that for an episode on the birds, but let's just say it was traumatic. Can I also just jump in really quick, if you guys don't know, Melanie Griffith, co-lead, Bruce Willis, and Tom Hanks and Bonfire of the Vanities. We have an episode on that. She should check it out. And she is Dakota Johnson's mom. Nepotism, alive and well in Hollywood.

Although I will say, I think they're all really talented. So, you know, they also earned it. But also nepotism. But they're also great. Anyway, continue, Lizzie. So shortly after her second and I think final film with Hitchcock had released, she married Noel Marshall in 1964. He was her agent and manager at the time, as well as acting as sort of

of a real estate agent. According to Tippy, quote, Noel was incredibly impulsive and he was ambitious, always full of plans and ideas, always busy, always on the move, always a great salesman. Now, Noel Marshall had a wild resume. He was the oldest of 12 children, and as a young child, he'd worked at the St. Louis Zoo. Despite that, not a big animal lover, which is sort of surprising. Okay. He had run a commercial agency with his first wife, lost it in the divorce, and then said, I'm going into construction with zero experience. He was extremely impulsive. Apparently when they were discussing where to have their wedding while sitting in Tippy's backyard, he was like, let's do it here. And while she was like, I don't know if this is big enough for,

she looks over, and he is running back with a sledgehammer and begins demolishing their porch. Tippy was not in a good headspace when she agreed to marry Noel. Quote, wanting to escape someone you don't want to deal with is a really lame reason to get married. I was putting another barrier between Hitchcock and me. I wasn't in love with Noel Marshall, but I'm not sure I admitted that to myself when I made the commitment to marry him. Not a guy you want to go make a movie with Lions with necessarily. Oh, poor tippy. She inherited three step-sons, John, Jerry, and Joel. John and Jerry, you see in the movie, Joel is the one who said, absolutely not. I hate you all. So before we jump into sort of the genesis

of the idea for Roar, it's worth calling out that the movie Born Free was released in 1966. This was a relatively big hit. If you've never seen it, the song Born Free is from this movie. It is about, it does heavily feature a lion. It's not a hundred lions, but it is sort of set in Africa. It's very like wildlife friendly. Also, Idris Elba's Beast released probably two months ago at this point.

Got pretty good reviews. only one lion, CGI. Yeah, there's a really good reason for that. But the reason that I'm calling out Born Free is it being a box office success, I think, kind of planted a seed in Noel Marshall's head, that if you have a lion, it equals money. So, Roar begins in 1969 when Tippy Headroom was starring in a movie called Satan's Harvest that was filming in Zimbabwe. It's here that she sees her first lion, dandy lion, a highly true.

trained cat. One interesting tidbit she learns on this set is that it's best for humans to always be higher than the lions, i.e. standing up. You'll notice they do not pay attention to that rule in Roar. They're frequently on the ground, underneath the lions. So that's a big no-no. Hiding under a shelf that has fallen over as the lions stop on their faces. Sure. Yeah. The trainer on this film was named Ozzie Bristow. One day she saw the cats greet him, hugging him, so excited to see him. and he said to her, quote, under certain circumstances, dandelion could easily kill me tomorrow and never feel an instant of guilt. They should have just listened to that because that is 100% right.

Tippy and Noel decide to head to Mozambique during a break to take a tour of one of the largest wildlife preserves. They stumble across an abandoned plantation that a pride of lions had moved into, and they're kind of informed that this is sort of a result of poaching and like driving lions out of their natural habitats. And as they're standing there looking at this, Noel Marshall is like, we should make a movie about this. And Tippy Hedron's kind of like, yeah, whatever. And meanwhile, he's grabbing the sledgehammer. Yes, literally.

The whole thing is like, you know, she's kind of rolling her eyes, sort of enjoying the moment, and he is 50 steps ahead, just sprinting forward. Because I think to her, she saw something beautiful. She truly, truly has a connection to these animals and to the big cats in particular, which we'll see as continued throughout the rest of her life. I think Noel Marshall sees a paycheck.

Yeah. So keep that in mind. He sees $150 million. Yes, he does. They want to make a film that shows humans and wild animals cohabitating in harmony to encourage conservation. Chris, do you feel like that's what this did? I will be honest.

This movie made me realize there's no future or man and animal will coexist. And I'm a vegan conservationist. Yeah, this movie makes me never want to go on a safari ever. No, this movie, I mean, I want to create a. fenced off 100-foot-wall preserves between us and all creatures. I think that's part of the problem. It's like weird. It's like they're trying to make the lions seem personable and friendly, but like...

They're not. They're lions. They're just lions. It's like, I'm not saying they're bad. They just, they're instincts. They don't give a shit about us. Exactly. So they start visiting wildlife preserves, but they're told pretty much right away that you

need to film this in the U.S. because you are not going to find tame lions in Africa. They told Ozzie their plan, and he lulled pretty hard. He was like, one lion, sure, but 30 lions, there's absolutely no way. You need trainers dedicated to each animal, not just to keep the cast safe, but also to keep the animals safe, which, like, of course that makes sense. That was a big thing on a, if you guys remember, our Dr. Doolittle episode. Oh, God.

It was about keeping the animals away from the other animals. Yes, which is the most shocking thing about this movie is that, like Chris said, these cats are piled on top of each other and it does cause problems as we will see. Also, I appreciate that everybody in Africa is like, ah, no, because they know. Yeah, the only place they can shoot this is Los Angeles. Yes. And back to L.A., they go. They meet with a bunch of trainers there who all tell them that their plan up to 40 big cats on screen together is completely bonkers and that they should not do it.

Except for one trainer who was like, well, I guess... So you're saying there's a chance. I don't even think this guy was saying they should do it. But he basically said, the only way I could see this working is if you buy your own cats and slowly introduce them to each other over the period of years, I think he's thinking there's no way that they'll say yes to this. Meanwhile, Noel Marshall's like already sprinting to the lion's store. Mm-hmm.

So he begins writing the script in 1970. working title what do you think the working title is chris lions yes no that was just i was like there's a lot of lines in it yeah i feel like that's the charlie day of script ideas right there this is called lion this is honestly this movie might as well be written by charlie day's character from it's always sunny in philadelphia you gotta smack him on the face you got to get him down you got to get him down yeah god oh god it's awful so the next title after line is lions, lions and more lions. Now, you may notice this movie does not contain exclusively lions.

We'll get to that in a little bit. It's got a lot of shit. On New Year's Eve in 1971, Noel and Tippy spend the evening at a writer's house. He asks them what they're working on. They say, naturally, lions, lions, and more lions. They ask the writer, and he says, The Exorcist. Enter William Peter Blatty. I bet you weren't expecting.

The exorcist to show up in roar, but here it comes. Oh, Jesus. Yep. So at the same time, he and Tippy start keeping some lion cubs they've acquired from circuses and zoos around the country at their house in Sherman Oaks. In case you're wondering, yes, this is 100% illegal. Now, this begins with Neil the lion, who is a very well-trained and very old lion, who a local trainer would bring by their house for them to get used to.

They wanted to use Neal to train the lion cubs that they had begun acquiring. Chris, have you ever seen the very famous, I believe it's Life magazine, photo essay of Tippy Hadron and Melanie Griffith with their quote unquote pet lion? I think so. Yeah, I think I've seen a couple photos from that. Okay, so Chris, I've just sent you this photo essay of Tippy Hadron and Melanie Griffith at home with what is sort of purported to be their pet lion. I want you to take a look at these.

Oh, this image seems dangerous. Uh-huh. So describe for the listeners what you're seeing. Okay, so first image is tippyhedrin erotically squirting water from her mouth into the lion's mouth. Indeed. Gross. The second one is Melanie Griffith kind of touching the lion's mouth while the lion seems to be either rubbing her hair or about to dunk her head in the water. Yep, yep. And the third one is the lion attempting to take a giant bite out of Melanie Griffith's calf muscle as she falls into the pool.

How cute. I like the next one where a young child has almost its entire head in the lion's mouth. The fifth one is tippy head run, sunbathing next to the lion. So I want you to scroll down. You will find a picture, which is probably the most famous of this shoot. It's the last one in this, of Melanie Griffith in bed with the lion. It's sweet, except that it is a lion that is looking at her. So despite what the internet may tell you, these pictures were 100.

percent staged. They did not, this was not a pet lion that lived with them. This was in fact Neil, and Neil's trainer, Ron, was always just off camera. Neil never lived with them or slept with them in their beds. Tippy Hedron did not let a lion sleep with Melanie Griffith. This was to drum up some publicity for the idea that they had for Lions, Lions and More Lions. On these photos, Tipy said, I will always regret that we made it look as if Wildcats can be trained and to be predictable and harmless. Yeah, not a great look. You know, it's like being like, Black Widows, they're your best friends. Put them in your shoes. It's fine. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And also, like, to me, that was kind of a big shock because I had seen these pictures and I was, I've seen, you know,

there's like a Joe Rogan video that pops up on YouTube that's like, Melanie Griffith had a pet lion. And it's like, she did not. This was completely a publicity stunt. Oh, let's just let Joe believe it. Maybe he'll get one and it'll eat him. Yeah, that would be nice. They obviously spent a lot of time with them later, but I think it's interesting that this sort of idea of like them living with a lion in perfect harmony like this has persisted because it is completely inaccurate. No, I had heard of that too. Like, oh yeah, they just had this lion that was the, you know, it was like a full house, but lions. Well, they do end up having the lions in the house shortly, but they're babies and it is certainly not easy, breezy. Now, they even try

loaning out one of their new baby lions, whose name is trans, to Luann and Frank Wells, who are big-wig execs at Warner Brothers, or Frank is an executive at Warner Brothers, thinking, surely, they will love this, and they'll give them all the money they need for lions, lions, and more lions. Now, this backfires massively when the lion shreds their house and terrifies them and they return the lion almost immediately. So already, not off to a great start. Nope, if you guys haven't seen it, just a good...

Yep. Nope. A little cautionary tale, Jordan Peel made about thinking that you can coexist with an unpredictable apex predator. Yeah, you know what? Nope is really the antidote to roar. Yeah, I watched them in the same week. It felt very prescient. So Tippy at this point, however, gets a call from William Peter Blatty asking her to read his manuscript.

She does. And obviously, it's great. She immediately tells Noel that he needs to sign Bladdy ASAP because this is a goldmine. So Tippy Hedron, like, kudos to her. She knew something good when she saw it. Noel strikes a deal where if the Exorcist ever gets made into a movie, he would get 15% of the profits. Woo!

Oh, cha-ch-ching! Took a sledgehammer to that deal. Jesus. Yeah, that's pretty good. In 1972, the police find out after one of their lions escaped and casually made a break for it down Beverly Glen that they're keeping lions in their house and tell them they have to remove the animals.

insane. That's not the first time that a lion is going to escape from one of their properties. Humanity's doomed. Yeah. I also like that the first time one of their neighbors called complaining about what she thought was a lion roaring. Tippy Hadron was like, oh no, I heard it too.

It sounded like a motorcycle revving. Okay, bye. That's our in-home motorcycle. We just put it inside the house and rat it around. So, they begin building their own compound slash set, movie studio out in Soledad Canyon. Okay.

They build the African architecture-inspired house that you see in the film, based on some drawings by Neil's trainer, Ron Oxley. They sink 14 telephone poles into the ground so that the structure could support the weight of, as Chris pointed out, an enormous amount of big cats that you see at any given moment. After an incident with one of their cubs almost being killed by a member of the group that they call the Wild Bunch, side note, I saw a lot of sources saying that some of these lions and the wild,

bunch actually previously belonged to Anton LeVay, founder of the Church of Satan. Interesting. They immediately realize that they need way more trainers than they have, and they bring on an expert trainer, Frank Tom, who agrees to live on site and work with them if he could also board his cougar. This seems like a good plan. This is just like, you got that one friend that comes to stay, I just got, you know, I got to bring my dog, and then it is a wolf that comes into it.

home. It's a cougar. Oh, God. So it's worth noting that the staff was composed of entirely non-union workers for,

uh, I'm going to say obvious reasons. I don't know how you could get union workers to do this. Chris is now rubbing his face. He's in pain.

So they're managing okay at this point. Uh, Tippy is cleaning up one mess after the next when suddenly Noel Marshall brings home a pair of tiger cubs. You may have caught this line in the movie,

but There are no tigers in Africa. There are no tigers in Africa. It makes no sense from a story perspective. And on top of that, also made the set exponentially more dangerous. You do not fuck with tigers. They learn that, in fact, not all big cats are alike. Tigers do not like to snuggle or be held the way that lions actually do.

They're significantly harder to disengage from as well. Apparently once a tiger starts a fight, they finish it. So that's terrifying. Oh, God. Allegedly the only animal Noel ever turned down was a hippo, and even that he almost took. Those are unbelievably dangerous. Hippos kill a lot of people. Yes.

Every single year, people think they're slow. No, they're really fast. They can run up 35 miles an hour on land. And they're faster than humans in the water, too. Yeah, they're really, really scary. and also, like, I think significantly more difficult to train than the lions are. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. So, Noel also decides they need more atmosphere.

And it's here that he acquires a 10,000-pound African bull elephant named Timbo. A veteran animal trainer, Steve Martin, different one, who had been helping them all along offers to train Timbo. But it's worth noting that Steve had zero experience with elephants. But Steve's like, but I got to bring my piranhas for the lake if I'm going to trade Timbo. Well, he wanted the experience. He was like, I'll always. do it because I've always wanted to be able to say that I trained an elephant. Finally, my chance to get into the elephant training business.

I just like, what cast of people? It's just remarkable what you can find in L.A. Wild. Now, keep in mind, they are seeing the success of the Exorcist at this point and they're thinking, well, we can afford all of this. We've got a massive payday rolling in. 15% of the profits of the Exorcist. 15%. As you can imagine, operating this kind of place would be pretty expensive. In fact, it was over $4,000 a week in the 70s. That is equivalent to about $28,000 a week in today's money. I honestly thought it would be more. It's not more because they're doing the jobs themselves. Right. They're not paying anyone. It's $28,000 a week in meat. Like that's what they're spending on.

Yeah. Now, this might have been manageable but tight given Null's 15% cut of the Exorcist film proceeds because it made one $193 million in its initial run. So, Noel's take, do a little bit of math, should be around $29 million, which the internet tells me would be around $200 million in today's money. Well, half of that. Profits. Sure, sure, sure. But still, a lot of money.

So remember that contract that Noel struck up with William Peter Blatty, which promised him 15% of the film proceeds? I do remember that contract. Yeah. While Blatty had very much verbally agreed to it, he never signed it. So. No. You need to set one of those lines loose in Bladdy's house.

Yeah. Because he completely screws Tippyhedron and Noel Marshall. And they never see a scent from the Exorcist film prophets. That is wild. It could have been the best thing that happened, but then somehow they still made the movie. Yeah. It's not the best thing that happened because. they did it on a shoestring budget.

Exactly. What's worse than making this movie? Making this movie for no money. So, as you just called out, immediately, the money doesn't just start to dry up. It has dried up because they thought they had money that they do not have. Tippies the birds money gone to the point that she actually had to sell the fur coat she wore in the movie, which is a gift from Hitchcock. They sell their four houses. And most importantly, the family has to start taking on the majority of the animal wrangling duties that

they definitely should have been paying other people to do. John Marshall, Noel's son, added the following duties to his resume, animal wrangler, set mechanic, boom operator, camera operator, and large animal vet, sometimes giving the cats vaccines and drawing their blood. Now, there's another problem. Chris, do you think it might be difficult to cast the lead role in this movie? I mean, there's only one person that I can think of that would do it, but he wasn't born then. so like Leonardo DiCaprio would have done this movie if he thought it would win him an Oscar

because it's basically what he did in the revenue. If Leo, if you put an Oscar at one end of a room and you put 15 lines in the middle of it and you put Leo at the other, I'm just saying, I think he'd go for it. I think even he is smart enough to know that he needs his face and both eyeballs to continue his career. Yeah, you can't cast it. No, no one in their right mind would take this job. You can't cast it. this movie, it can't be made, yet somehow it was made.

Oh, it's made. So it's here that we get Noel Marshall's one and only acting credit because he was the only person, that shit crazy enough to do it. They fill out the rest of the cast with surprise, surprise, Tippy's 19-year-old daughter, Melanie Griffith and Noel's sons, Jerry and John. God. At this point, they're in way too deep and they figure they have to make the movie because they'll need the profits to help pay for the animal's care and maintenance.

This is, I think, why Tippyhedron continued down this path, because she really did love these animals. And in her mind, she wanted to be able to continue to care for them. And what was kind of being presented to her was, like, the path forward and the path to that is we make this movie. It's a box office success. It pays for you to have this sort of reserve for these animals from here on out. All I'm going to say is I thought it was Chris Christofferson in the lead for a total of 17 seconds at the very beginning of the movie. He also does this weird like Christopher Walken,

wow sound to the lions like every 30 seconds. It is really weird. Let's just say Noel Marshall not made to be in front of the camera. And I get what you're saying about TV Hedron, but like presumably these animals could have gone to zoos and preserves. I mean, I think it's important to remember. I get if her heart's in the right place, but like this is the most misguided. And she knows that as well. I had a lot more respect for her after reading her memoir. I also think it does bear remembering she had just come from a very traumatic experience. And she was mentally not in a good place during this. And I think just it was a situation where she kind of just kept saying yes, even though she knew she should be saying no.

in order to drum up some interest, they decided to shoot a promo where the lions would chase Tippy along a log and dump her into the water. This would be so exciting and they'd show it to all the investors and they get all the money. It's going fine until Cherries, one of the lions, charges at Tippy, pins her down and bites the back of her head scraping her skull with its teeth. Tipy Hadron said, I don't have words to describe the sound echoing inside my head as her teeth scraped against my skull, but it haunted me for a long time. I had a conversation with an actor about an onset incident with a dog. Oh, God.

I can't review. I don't want to say what production. Yeah, that's okay. I will say well-known actor, and it was like a big movie for a big studio. There was a dog that was supposed to chew on a, you know, a specific part of his leg. And a dog bit through the skin on his arm was a big thing. Like that's a huge problem. If something goes wrong with an animal or another actor, you know, on set.

Sure. But I mean, a lion scraping your skull with its teeth, NBD, just keep on gone. For sure. That's why the skull is there so that it doesn't scrape your brain. I mean, it's hard because I will say Noel Marshall, he's passed away. So it's not available to defend himself. But the impression that I got was very much that she was being sort of gaslit for a large portion of this. The fact that this happened to her and she didn't really feel that she had the availability to say,

no, I'm not doing this anymore, like, is nuts. They all must have been gaslit or collectively gaslighting each other or I don't know what. Yeah, I think it is sort of a level of mass hysteria where they just kept convincing themselves that the only way out was through. No, you get 30 frames into the first shot with all the lions and you're just like, no, this can't, any reasonable person watching this. It's very clear. It should not be happening.

shut it down. Yeah. So before they even start filming, they'd actually lost 14 lions to a mysterious virus that ran through their compound. This was obviously heartbreaking since they'd raised almost all of them since they were babies. This stuff was hard to read about because, again, Tippyhedron really did love these animals. And stuff like this was awful. Finally, some good news, though.

Noel manages to get EMI to put up 500,000 and a Tokyo producer named Banjiro Umyra to put up another 500,000. So they have $1 million to make this movie. To be clear, also, we'll cover Milo and Otis at some point. But Japan has wildly different standards for how animals can be treated on set. By standards, I mean, how many puppies you're allowed to throw off a cliff to get the right take? Yeah.

That's not an exaggeration. So I'm not surprised that there was a Japanese investor. I might be being unfair, but like Japan's... This actually did decently well in Japan and Germany, but it's worth point. pointing out that it was marketed as a horror in those countries. So I can't fault them for that because it is horrifying. Filming begins October 1, 1976, and they expected to last about six months. It ends up taking around five years.

Which is insane. This movie is one scene extended across 90 minutes. Sorry, continue. Yeah, except the amount that must have been cut from this is also horrifying to think about. Now, Hedron claims that principal photography ended in 1979, but there were tons of pickup shots over the next two to three years, so I think five years is probably more accurate. They hire an electrician, who happens to also be a paramedic. They also hire a young Dutch cinematographer, Jan de Bont, a name that you might recognize,

onto what would be his first Hollywood film. This might have also been a marriage of convenience since he actually lived in a trailer with his wife just up the road from their compound. Now, remember, this is a non-union crew, and with few notable exceptions, the vast majority of them had never been within miles of a big cat before, as Tippy Hedron said. At the beginning of filming, their animal cast consisted of 132 big cats. No. Yep.

One elephant, three sheep, ostriches, flamingos, Marabu storks, black swans, and more. Joel Marshall, the set decorator, and as mentioned, maybe the only sane member of the Marshall family, hated the big cats and pretty much only the dealt with the birds. He is the only child that does not appear on screen. Tippy also double-dutyed as costume designer because again, they had zero dollars and no one wanted to touch this movie. Chalo Mativo joins as Hank's assistant zoologist. He was a student from Kenya on a film scholarship at UCLA, and he hated the cats, which you can tell from the movie, probably because he was smart enough to know that this is a terrible idea. Yep. Now the opening shot that you'll see of Noel sort of racing that giraffe on a motorcycle, which is also in

but is beautiful. That is filmed in Kenya, as were some of the pickup shots. However, pretty much everything else is on their ranch in Soledad Canyon. Basically, as soon as you see them get to that weird big house, that's all in California. Got it. That's where they built. Yeah. Now, Chris, what have we learned about filming with animals on this show? It takes forever. Bingo, they take forever to film. We're talking seven weeks to just shoot the shot of the tigers in the car, months to shoot Tongaru standing in for Togar, who apparently was not actually ferocious enough, charging at the family. Togar is not even in the movie.

That's the name that they keep. But he like, he keeps yelling, Togar! I know. Togar! Not over here! Togar! Yeah, Togar showed up for his big shot, and apparently just flopped on the ground, yawned, and was like, no. So they had to take Togar out. Side note, Tungaru is also the lion who casually will not let the robo leave. when they're paddling around that pond and just kept grabbing the boat back. He's a star.

Every single scene plays out like an extended Marx Brothers sketch, but you know that the animals aren't in on the joke. They're just trying to kill the people. Yeah. Yon DeBant sometimes had to set up a shot and wait five hours for the cats to do anything, literally anything. They're cats. They are still cats.

They don't do a lot. This is also due to the fact that the script was not. really a script. They were relying heavily on the cat's improv skills, as you might be able to tell from the movie. Just waiting for that cat to yes and you as you keep going.

That one cat on the skateboard? Ooh, genius. They don't always stay in place either. One lion named Luna escaped again. And they had to use the code word perfect location on the CB radios when looking for her so that anyone listening in wouldn't know

when they said, I've found the perfect location. I found the perfect location. She's ripping someone to shreds. Literally, I found a 500 pound killing machine. Yeah, exactly. So the Lions also decided they really loved playing with the sandbags on set and got very possessive of them.

So you couldn't take them back once they took them. And guys, sandbags are used on set to hold down lighting equipment, tripods, dolly track. You don't touch camera department sandbags. Like, that's a big deal. Well, change that to you don't touch the lion's sandbags. Exactly. After witnessing a particularly gnarly fight between lions Casey and Tungaru,

Melanie Griffith sat her mom down and said she did not want to leave this movie with half a face. Very prescient, given what's to come. She backed out before any of her scenes were shot. They replaced her with her friend Patsy Ned. You might notice, however, that Melanie is in the movie. That's because around Christmas, Noel convinced her to come back to set. they reshot most of Patsy's scenes, although there are still some shots where you can tell that it's not Melanie Griffith. Now, Noel had a habit of asking people to do scenes they were uncomfortable with, including the one where a leopard licks honey off of Tippyhead's face, which is bonkers.

The safe word on set was apparently Noel. Not that it meant much as he had a habit of ignoring it. You can actually hear Melanie Griffith saying, no, no, Noel at around an hour and five minutes in. when the lion is starting to put her head in its mouth, but he does not stop rolling. The scene keeps going. That's pretty tough to watch when you realize what you're watching. I mean, that's how I felt about a lot of these scenes was like,

how are they not calling cut? Because he is the one who is in charge of that, and he would put anyone's safety after getting what he thought was going to make him millions of dollars. Crazy. So let's get into the injuries. out of 140 cast members, at least 70 were injured on this film, although John Marshall estimates it's closer to 100. Let's start with Noel Marshall's injuries.

He was bitten through the hand by a lion multiple times. One is actually on camera early in the movie. This is where you referenced this, but he's amongst a bunch of lions and he lifts his hand up and it's covering blood. Yeah, it's covered in blood. And it's like just clearly real blood. Yeah. He's bitten through the leg by a lion who was allegedly curious about the anti-reflection and makeup they'd put on his very, very pale legs.

He got blood poisoning after his face and chest were injured, puncture wounds, and he developed gangrene and was bitten over 11 times total. Jesus. I would like to preface this by saying his injuries are by far not the worst. Oh, God. Tippy Hadron! She was picked up and crushed by Timbo the elephant, fracturing her ankle between its tusk and trunk.

She said it wasn't Timbo's fault as he was trying to stop her from fall. but Timbo allegedly also tossed his trainer into the air and broke her shoulder, so I'm going to go with Timbo was pissed. She was scratched on the arm by a leopard. She was bitten on the chest by a cougar. Here we're going to get into some of the worst ones. Melanie Griffith, despite saying she didn't want to leave the movie with half a face, almost did leave the movie with half a face. She was attacked in the head by a lioness, resulting in 50 stitches. They thought she was going to lose an eye and be permanently disfigured.

Remember, she's around 19 at this point with a burgeoning acting career. Thanks to reconstructive surgery, she was okay. But it's a miracle. Her face was not horrifically fucked up after this. She did not quit, by the way. She came back after that, which is insane. John Marshall was bitten on the back of a head by a lion, requiring 55 stitches. Jerry Marshall was bitten in the thigh by a lion while showing his new girlfriend around the compound.

And fun fact, taking Jerry to the hospital is when. When Tippy discovered she had gangrene from her leg being crushed by Timbo, she had to have a skin graft and is lucky she didn't lose the leg completely. Now, the most upsetting injuries, so buckle up, belong to first and foremost, Jan DeBant, the cinematographer. Okay. In order to capture the shot where the family is escaping in the rowboat, he wanted to be at eye level with the water so that he could capture the cats jumping over him. Okay. So they built a pit to dig him down lower so he could be at eye level, which they would cover with a tarp and some greenery. And Noel insisted that they wear football helmets since the cats would be going directly over them.

However, at the last second, Jan realized he couldn't get his eye right up to the camera with the football helmet on. So he took it off. Along came cherries, who apparently loved playing with round objects, such as balls, bowling balls, basketballs, She also, when she was little, apparently really liked biting toes in the bed. Our cat does that. Anyway, cherries proceeded to rip yon's scalp off from the nape of his neck to his forehead. She completely scalped him. Oh, my God.

Yeah. He received 220 stitches and came back to work. Oh, so they literally sewed the top of his head back on. Yep. And he came back to work. came back to work. His assistant, however, did not. Apparently it was his first day on set, and he turned to Tipyhedron and said, please take my pay, buy that poor son of the bitch some flowers. I have to quit. Oh my God. I mean, totally unsurprised. Yeah. Jesus.

Probably the most horrific attack of the entire shoot, however, belongs. That wasn't the worst one? That was not the worst one. Belongs to the assistant director, Doran Cowper, who accidentally and unintentionally signaled Tangaru to attack, causing it to bite him in the face, throat, chest, and thigh, almost severing his jugular and almost completely severing his ear.

He ended up needing 4.5 hours of surgery and is extremely lucky to be alive. After this one, more than 20 crew members said, nope, and quit. I can't believe it wasn't 100% of the crew. I was going to say, yeah, they must, you know, I'm sure A, Noel Marshall was just manipulating

people and just sticking around. But B, you have to imagine it's non-union. Yeah. This seems like a big budget movie. Exactly. It's that whole thing. Like Hollywood, you'll put up with whatever abuse you're handed just for an opportunity. Yeah.

Don't do this. It's not worth it. No, it is not worth it. It's a miracle. No one died on this. I can't believe it. Honestly. I can't believe it either.

Truly, truly, truly a miracle. Honestly, a testament to the lions. Because that just means that those lions were doing their best not to kill them. Their improv. Yeah. They're co-writers. But it wasn't just cherries and Tongaru scalping people on set. They also had floods to contend with.

On February 9th, 1978, pipes from Alyssa Canyon became flooded and burst due to heavy rainfall. It turned out that the railroad that had recently been constructed, unbeknownst to them, had been basically laying pipes that diverted water away from the tracks, and they were all pointing towards their ranch in Soledad Canyon. The Marshall property was destroyed by a 10-foot flood. It also brought down a large number of the fences they had in place for the animals, resulting in 15 big cats blowing that popsicle stand during the flood.

Police tracked down and killed at least three of those, including Robbie, the Star Lion, who had to be replaced, which is really sad, because apparently he was very sweet. to the other 12. I don't know. And I tried to find that out. Are they just in the wild? No, I think they got them.

Roaming the Hollywood Hills? Yeah, they're just out in Soledad Canyon. I think they tracked them down and they brought them back. But I couldn't verify that. So I actually don't know. A dam also broke lifting the level of the man-made lake that they'd made by more than six feet and destroying $3 million worth of camera and editing equipment. Oh my God.

So they're desperate at this point. They send some footage to EMI hoping to get more money, but it backfires when they see it, and EMI wants their money back. Oh, no. Yes. So not only has their entire set and compound been destroyed, they are now at least $500,000 in the hole, probably more. Oh. So despite the fact that they have no money, they now in fact, oh, money to the people that they thought they were going to be getting it from. They just keep going.

They don't stop. And that's something that Tippy Hedring kind of addressed. She was like, the one question nobody ever asked on Roar was like, should we scrap this? How is that the one question that no one ever asked? I truly think there was a level of mass hysteria happening here because they were very isolated. They become more and more isolated over the course of this project because they have to do all the jobs themselves, even from doctors, because they had an experience early on where John Marshall, like, I think the first time he was bit through the hand, they went to the hospital. And the doctors were like, okay, we need to sew this up. And he was like, no, my understanding is with big cat bites, we really shouldn't sew it up because it's going to get infected. But they did it. And it ended up causing a major infection. I think that's where he got blood poisoning. So there's a lot of distrust even for the medical community at a certain point with this, where they're just like treating shit themselves.

Like, you see him wrap his hand up and, like, go on along his way. I think that's what they were doing for a lot of the injuries that were happening on this. The film premiered internationally on October 1st, 1981. It does not come out in America initially. Hedron claimed this was because U.S. distributors wanted the lion's share of the profits. And they wanted those to fund the livelihood of the cats. It is more likely because they used all non-union crew except for Yon. DeBond. Yeah, they got probably blackballed for that. It gets picked up for one week of distribution

in the UK and Australia and they get some deals for Germany and Japan. It doesn't do great. It made around $2 million on at least a $17 million budget. Plus, remember, I'm sure that does not include all of the care for the cats before and after this movie was done. They still have to feed those damn cats. They have 130 of them. Noel Marshall says that $2 million is way off to what. they made in Germany and Japan, but I looked into this a lot. I don't think it's that far off. I think my dude was just mad that half his crew got scalped and all they got was too milly. So after understandable tensions had built throughout this process, Tippy and Noel finally divorce in 1982. Yeah, I was going to say, at what point does that come?

There's stuff I didn't even get into for time where he, I think, in particular, pushed her into a lot of situations she was really uncomfortable with in the movie. There's even, like, lines in this that were so bad, like when they're dragging the zebra chunks, which, by the way, are a painted donkey that they waited a year for a dog, donkey to die of natural causes. So when the cats are, like, dragging it in and you hear Tippy Headroom with just no life in her voice go, oh, look what the cat dragged in. It's because no one else.

I like, perked up for a moment. I was like, there's a pun. I wasn't expecting that. Because no one else would say it. And poor Tippy was just she got stuck with all the stuff that no one else would do. Jan DeBant went on to have a very successful career. He directed Speed. Twister, unfortunately also Speed 2, Cruise Control.

And my favorite of the Laura Croft movies, Laura Croft Tomb Raider, The Cradle of Life, that's the one with Kieran Heinz and Gerard Butler. It's really bad, but really good. he was the DP on diehard, basic instinct, and many, many more. So despite losing his scalp, Jan DeBant did fine. Tippy founds the Roar Foundation and Shambala Preserve Sanctuary to house the big cats, which continues to this day. She's rescued over 230 big cats.

It's interesting to note that she's very supportive of maintaining wild habitats for the animals and not exploiting them. She makes a point of saying that and in the way that they're housed. it doesn't take a lot of imagination to guess that a lot of the tension between her and Noel was probably around the way the animals were being treated. She regrets much of what they did on Roar and particularly that they allowed their children that close to the animals because you cannot control wild animals. Yeah, no shit.

Those are your kids. Guys, watch 10 minutes in this movie and then go see no. That's all. It really is mind-blowing, though, that the people you are watching on screen are their children. and they are letting them just be mauled. Like it's, I can't explain it. I've tried. I can't.

This is where it's really important to remember a concept called sunk cost. And that is that as you invest a lot of capital, emotional, or otherwise, into something, you will be tempted to see it through, even if that's a bad idea, because otherwise, it was a waste to have put all that money in. That money's gone. never coming back, that emotional capital is gone. Yeah, you know what doesn't have to be gone? Your life.

Your face, your eyeballs, your scalp. You can keep all of those if you stop now. It's just upsetting because, again, it's such an abusive. Everyone and everything involved in this was abused to utterly no end. Like, every animal. Because, like, you know, it says no animals were harmed in the filming of this. No, this must have been horrible for all the animals. This is stressful.

I'm a lion. I don't want to be with 15 other lions, let alone with a cougar, tigers. Most humans don't like improv, let alone animals. Like, come on, guys. No, but all kidding aside, they are mistreating the animals. They're mistreating the crew. They're mistreating themselves and the rest of the cast. It's horribly irresponsible.

And again, to what end? I get Tivy Hedron rationalizing it from the perspective of animal rights, etc. But at the end of the day, it's a weird scam. It's like, oh, yeah, we're going to make $150 million. Not because this story's any good. Not because this is an important thing to do or say. He is abusing and manipulating hundreds of animals, hundreds of people, utterly unconcerned with their safety because he sees dollar signs at the end of this,

which, you know, capitalism, it's a really, really dangerous mindset. And a lot of directors that we've covered have taken approaches like this, where the ends justifies the means. You know, we were talking about The Exorcist. Go listen to our episode. William Friedkin absolutely abused Linda Blair in that movie.

And he did it because he thought it would get him a better end result for the movie. And therefore, that justified his behavior and his abuse of her without any consideration for the fact that, she's a child. He got a great movie. And he ruined. her life in large part.

There's also something happening here where I think because Noel Marshall put himself in front of the camera and put himself in so many of these really dangerous situations, there's something very manipulative there where you're saying, look, I'm doing it, I'm doing it, like it's fine. It's not fine. You do not have to do this stuff, even if someone else is saying, I'm doing it, you should too. According to Tippy, quote, the only thing that I am sure of is that Shambala is where I belong. So a bit of a happy ending for her, which is that even through this horrible, horrible nightmare of an experience, she did find a lifelong passion that she continues to this day. Noll, however, never made another movie and died in 2010. He did continue to help fund the Shambala preserve even after he and Tippy had divorced, but he never visited, which I think is interesting. So, Well, that about wraps up.

I think the most insane movie we've ever covered. Yeah, in terms of what you see on screen, it's absolutely the craziest thing I've ever seen. My what went right, the cinematography for stretches of it is very impressive. It's really beautiful. It's shocking, like you said, that the camera keeps rolling in some of these instances. So I will say that the cinematography, Jan, way to keep your head on your shoulders, but not your skin on your head. Sorry. No, he really did do a good job.

Like it is impressive, yeah, that he was able to capture what he did and that he stuck with this project is wild. I guess my what went right for this movie is Melanie Griffith. I like her a lot. I feel like she doesn't get the credit that she deserves for a lot of what she's done. Working Girl is great. She's very fun. And the fact that she was still fun to watch in large portions of this is really impressive because this movie is such a mess. And the other kids, I'm so sorry that they all got mauled.

They're not good actors. Noel Marshall is a horrible actor. Tippy Hadron and Melanie Griffith, watching the two of them on screen together is pretty fun until they get mauled every, you know, five to ten minutes. But that's my what went right. I like Melanie Griffith. Justice for Melanie.

Justice for Tiffany. Justice for Tiffany. Oh, boy. Yeah. Guys, check out Roar if you just want to have your skin crawl as you watch it. It's really hard to watch. And if you're ever in a position of power, do not put the work ahead of the safety, physical, or mental of the people that are working with and for you. Please don't do it.

You can say stop. You can report it. You can stop making it. This did not have to happen. I'd be thrilled if we didn't have this. If it had saved all of those injuries, yes, absolutely. That does it for this week's episode of what went wrong. you so much for listening. We hope that you're enjoying this new run of the podcast. As always,

please leave us a rating and review if you get the chance. Also, you know, feel free to go tell your friends about us. Tell them that we're back. Let them know that we're here so we can start to monetize this bad boy and to make it something that isn't going to create strain in my marriage. That's our request to you. Thank you guys, as always, for listening. We really appreciate it. We'll see you in two weeks. What Went Wrong is a Sad Boom podcast, presented by Lizzie Bassett and Chris Winterbauer.

Editing in music by David Bowman with cover art from Uthano UOS.