This one is going to require some set up so bare with me.
This is the tale of Noel Marshall and of
Roar (1981). In 2015, Drafthouse films re-released the film and I saw it last year. It truly is one of a kind.
>writer Jason Bailey saw Roar as "a cross between a nature special, a home movie, a snuff film, and a key exhibit at a sanity hearing" with animals inflicting "horrifying bloodshed" before abruptly becoming "cuddly kittens, accompanied by a sappy string score" and said much of the film consisted of "odd, semi-improvised" dialogue.
Short story is in 1968, Noel went on Safari with his wife Tippi Hedren. Tippi being famous for having the birds thrown at her by hitchcock. They fell in love with tigers and wanted to do a nature documentary with them. Noel got an executive producer credit on The Exorcist which means he started filming in 1973. Spending 5 years filming and 17 million dollars, they built a safari park in LA which is now called the Shambala Preserve and
acted with the lions while on set. Wikipedia reports that half of the 150 crew while filming suffered some kind of injury while on set, his son interviewed in 2015, who as also mauled in production, says it was closer to 100.
This is a massive list of the people injured on set:
>Due to the large number of untrained animals on set, there were a reported 48 injuries within two years of the start of filming. It has been estimated that, of Roar's 140-person crew, at least 70 were injured during production. In a 2015 interview, John Marshall said that he believed the number of people injured was over 100.
>Noel Marshall, Director and Husband of Tippi, was bitten through the hand when he interacted with male lions during a fight scene; doctors initially feared that he might lose his arm. By the time he suffered eight puncture wounds on his leg caused by a lion which was curious about his anti-reflection makeup, Marshall had already been bitten around eleven times. He was hospitalized when his face and chest were injured and was diagnosed with blood poisoning. Marshall was also diagnosed with gangrene after being attacked many times.
>Tippi Hedren, famous for spurring Hitchcock so he threw live birds at her, Hedren was bitten in the head by a lion, Cherries, whose teeth scraped against her skull. She was taken to Sherman Oaks Hospital, where her wounds were treated and she was given a tetanus shot. She was admitted to Antelope Valley Hospital after Tembo, the five-ton elephant, picked her up by and fractured her ankle with his trunk before bucking her off his back; Hedren said that Tembo had been trying to keep her from falling and was not at fault. She was left with phlebitis and gangrene, in addition to a fractured hand and abrasions on her leg. Hedren was also scratched on the arm by a leopard and bitten on the chest by a cougar.
>Melanie Griffith, Co-Star, received 50 sutures after being attacked by a lioness. It was feared that she would lose an eye, but she eventually recovered without being disfigured, although she did require some facial reconstruction.
>John Marshall, son of Noel and Co-Star, a lion jumped and bit the back of his head, inflicting a wound that required 56 sutures.
>Jerry Marshall, son of Noel and Co-Star, was bitten in the thigh by a lion while he was in a cage on set, and he was in hospital alongside Hedren for a month.
>Jan de Bont, famous Cinemotographer who would go on to do films like Speed, Twister, Hunt for Red October, Lethal Weapon 3, Black Rain and Die Hard was scalped by Cherries while he was filming under a tarpaulin; he received 220 sutures, but resumed his duties after recovering.
>Doron Kauper, Assistant Director, was bitten by Togar, one of the lead lions, in the throat and jaw and tried to pull off one of his ears after Kauper unintentionally cued an attack; Kauper also received injuries to his scalp, chest and thigh, and he was admitted to Palmdale General Hospital where he had to undergo four and a half hours of surgery. Although the attack was reported as nearly fatal, a nurse told a Santa Cruz Sentinel reporter that Kauper's injuries were acute (sudden and traumatic), but that he was conscious and in fair condition after the surgery. >After witnessing the attacks, twenty crew members left the set en masse; turnover was high, and many did not want to return.
>Because of Marshall's financial proceeds from his producer credit on The Exorcist, rumors spread that the set of Roar was plagued by the "curse of The Exorcist".
>Pipes and berms from Aliso Canyon became flooded with water and burst on February 9, 1978, after a night of heavy rain. Both were pointed towards the Marshall property to redirect water from the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks. The property was destroyed by a 10-foot (3.0 m) flood, from which four sound-crew members had to be rescued.
> Fifteen lions and tigers escaped from the set after fences and cages collapsed; the sheriff and local law enforcement killed three lions, including Robbie the lead lion, who was replaced with another lion, Zuru, when filming resumed.
>A broken dam and several floods also caused the surrounding lake to fill with sediment, adding six feet to its height. Most of the set, ranch, editing equipment and film stock were destroyed; over $3 million of damage was caused, though the negative had already been sent to be edited in a Hollywood studio.
> It took eight months to rebuild the set, and 700 replacement trees were purchased. After most of the issues resulting from the flood had been resolved, twelve wildfires in an Acton, California area broke out in September, though the animals remained unharmed.
I have clips from the film. You can see the cats excited here:
Noel's description of him almost losing his left hand referred to this scene here, he charges the Lions as they're fighting. This was maul No.7 of 11 that he would receive while filming.
You can see blood on his left hand and him shaking it off. There's a later scene where he has a bandage.
There's also Kyalo Mativo as Mativo, his only movie credit as he was an animal handler from Niger. He was one of the only people not to get mauled by the lions and that's because Noel ran away, twice, telling him to stay and distract them.
Noel running away while he leaves his black friend behind is highlights of the movie for me.
But to answer, why post this. Look at Noel's face when he's charging the Lions fighting.
Look at that Maniac grin. You see Noel lacks two things when it comes to lions. First, he's been around them so long that he no longer fears them. That fear is what a reasonable human has towards something dangerous, it's instinctual. Not having that fear means he can do things like this. The second is imprinting emotions onto the Lions. Noticed how he called the lions "your Uncles" in the video? He has an emotional attachment to an animal. People form it with dogs, horses and the like all the time. But it's a one sided connection because the human only thinks what the animal wants. That is the core lesson of
Kemono no Souja Erin, humans imprint emotions onto animals but animals don't imprint back, not in the way humans expect them too. It's why rottweiler owners are shocked then they find their toddler mauled for instance.
So Noel has no fear and treats the Lions like his family, enough to drag his actual family into the film and to also get mauled.
>After production of Roar, Marshall and Hedren divorced in 1982, with Hedren saying Marshall would constantly become aggressive when they fought, leading her to secure a restraining order against him, stating he could not physically abuse her or come within 20 feet of their home, and for him to also seek psychiatric care.
>Marshall's son John would confirm that the divorce was due to the events that happened during production. He reflected on numerous incidents, including Marshall's treatment of Griffith. He recalled that the cast had safewords when the scene became too risky, but when Griffith used hers, Marshall did not listen and kept filming.
>In a 2015 interview with Xfinity, he made a link between the treatment of the family during filming as the reason behind the divorce. John also said that behind the scenes, Marshall once struck John for standing up to him, and would tell Griffith to forget about her anxiety around the lions instead of taking action to protect her. Marshall was labeled "intense" by John, as he would often get angry on-set of the film and would shout at the cast, crew, and animal handlers when a take was ruined. John explained that Marshall's temper was aggravated by the hours it took to film scenes of the big cats that relied on waiting for the animals to do something that could be included in the film.
The film would cost Noel his marriage and he became a broken person afterwards. I wholly recommend this movie though, Noel wanted it to be a hippie documentary about lions like something Attenborough would do but instead it's 90 minutes of Noel and his family getting mauled by Lions. It's great.
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