Roar 1981 Full Movie

[Jennifer Kovachick]

Roaris a 1981 American adventure comedy film film[3][4] written and directed by Noel Marshall. Its plot follows Hank, a naturalist who lives on a nature preserve in Africa with lions, tigers, and other big cats. When his family visits him, they are instead confronted by the group of animals. The film stars Marshall as Hank, his real-life wife Tippi Hedren as his wife Madeleine, with Hedren's daughter Melanie Griffith and Marshall's sons John and Jerry Marshall in supporting roles.

In 1969, while Hedren was filming Satan's Harvest in Mozambique, she and Marshall had occasion to observe a pride of lions move into a recently vacated house, driven by increased poaching. They decided to make a film centered around that theme, with production starting when the first script was completed in 1970. They began bringing rescued big cats into their homes in California and living with them. Filming began in 1976; it was finished after five years. The film was fully completed after 11 years in production.

Roar was not initially released in North America. Instead, in 1981, Noel and John Marshall released it internationally. It was also acquired by Filmways Pictures and Alpha Films. Despite performing well in Germany and Japan, Roar was a box office failure, grossing $2 million worldwide against a $17 million budget. In 2015, 34 years after the film's original release, it was released in theaters in the United States by Drafthouse Films. Roar's message of protection for African wildlife as well as its animal interactions were praised by critics, but its plot, story, inconsistent tone, dialogue, and editing were criticized.

During production, the cast and crew members faced dangerous situations; seventy people, including the film's stars, were injured in attacks from the untrained animals on set. Flooding from a dam destroyed much of the set and equipment, dramatically increasing the film's budget. In 1983, Hedren founded the Roar Foundation and established the Shambala Preserve sanctuary, to house the animals appearing in the film. She also wrote a book, The Cats of Shambala (1985), about the events that took place during its production. The film has been described as "the most dangerous film ever made" and "the most expensive home movie ever made", and has gained a cult following.

American naturalist Hank (Noel Marshall) lives on a nature preserve in Tanzania with a collection of big cats to study their behavior. Although he is due to pick up his wife Madeleine (Tippi Hedren) and their children John, Jerry, and Melanie (Melanie Griffith) from the airport to bring them to his home, he is delayed by his friend Mativo (Kyalo Mativo) warning him that a committee is coming to review his grant. As he shows Mativo around his ranch and the rest of the preserve while they wait, Hank explains the nature of the lion pride and their fear of Togar, a rogue lion who often quarrels with the pride's leader, Robbie. Hank asks Mativo to help keep the pride safe.

The grant committee arrives. One of its members, Prentiss (Steve Miller), disapproves of the big cats and threatens to shoot them. A fight between two lions distracts Hank; he breaks it up despite having his hand bitten. While Hank is bandaging his hand, the tigers attack members of the committee and injure some of them, and, although Hank offers assistance, they leave in fear. Mativo expresses his concerns over another attack when Hank brings his family to the ranch. As they leave for the airport on Mativo's boat, two tigers jump aboard, traveling with them. Mativo steers into a log in the water, causing the craft to sink. The two men swim to safety.

Madeleine, John, Jerry, and Melanie are advised by an airport attendant, Lenord (Lenord Bokwa), to board a bus. They arrive at the ranch and enter the house, realizing that it has been left unattended. When Madeleine and Jerry open the windows and doors, they are shocked to see the lions eating a zebra carcass in front of the house. The family are frightened when animals enter the house and try to escape but Togar pursues them. Jerry finds a rifle and tries to shoot Togar while he is fighting Robbie. Melanie fears that her father has been killed by the animals.

The following morning, the family board Hank's boat to try to escape, but an elephant pulls the craft back to shore and destroys it. John goes for help on Hank's motorcycle, but he is chased by the big cats, and drives into the lake. After escaping another elephant, the family swims across the lake and find another house that they use to sleep in. When they awake, they find themselves surrounded by the pride and conclude that, since they are still alive, the animals do not intend to hurt them.

Prentiss tries to persuade the committee to hunt down and kill Hank's lions. Though he is unsuccessful, he and Rick (Rick Glassey), another committee member, shoot many of the big cats anyway. Eventually Togar attacks them and although Hank sees the assault and tries to intervene, the lion kills Prentiss and Rick before returning to the house to battle Robbie. Robbie stands up to Togar and the fight ends. Hank arrives at the ranch to find his family waiting for him. Mativo arrives, and Hank asks him not to mention Prentiss or Rick's death; he is introduced to Hank's family, who agree to stay for the week.

Expert and experienced animal trainers such as Frank Tom, Steve Miller and Rick Glassey were given acting parts as committee members attacked by tigers.[16] Will Hutchins portrays a man in a rowboat[17] and Zakes Mokae plays a committee member.[18] The untrained lions Robbie, his offspring Gary, and Togar are all credited as actors.[19]

Roar was conceived by husband and wife Noel Marshall and Tippi Hedren in 1969. Marshall was Hedren's talent agent while she starred in Satan's Harvest, which was filmed in Mozambique.[20] Near the film set, they came across an abandoned plantation house in Gorongosa National Park which had been overrun by a pride of lions, and were told by their bus guide and local residents that animal populations were becoming endangered due to poaching; this inspired them to consider making either one[21][22] or a series of films.[23]

It was an amazing thing to see: The lions were sitting in the windows, they were going in and out of the doors, they were sitting on the verandas, they were on the top of the Portuguese house, and they were in the front of the house [...] It was such a unique thing to see and we thought, for a movie, let us use the great cats as our stars.

Marshall wrote the first script for the project in the spring of 1970, and gave it the working title Lions; later, he changed it to Lions, Lions and More Lions.[27][28] He also enlisted the assistance of actor and voice artist Ted Cassidy, with whom he had co-written and produced The Harrad Experiment.[29] The original script allowed for up to thirty or forty trained lions.[20] Marshall was also inspired by Mack Sennett's slapstick routines, and decided to incorporate a mixture of comedy, drama, and moments of "stark terror" in the human and animal encounters, with an underlying message of the need for the preservation of African wildlife.[30] Scenes where animals chase after the characters required that the actors pretend to be scared and scream, in order to trigger a reaction from the animals. The script developed with frequent changes but always allowing for inclusion of spontaneous actions by the animals, such as playing with the family's boat or riding a skateboard. This led some of the lions to be credited as writers.[3][31]

After Marshall took in two infant Siberian tigers and an African bull elephant named Timbo from the Okanagan Game Preserve, he decided to revise the film's script to include different animals, and changed the formerly leo-centric title to Roar.[41] Another addition to the script involved Timbo crushing the family's rowboat, inspired by seeing the elephant destroy a metal camper shell.[42] The family would eventually accumulate, by 1979, 71 lions, 26 tigers, a tigon, nine black panthers, 10 cougars, two jaguars, four leopards, two elephants, six black swans, four Canada geese, four cranes, two peacocks, seven flamingos, and a marabou stork; the only animal they turned down was a hippopotamus.[37][43] Marshall and Hedren had to hire animal trainers when they received more lions; one trainer, Frank Tom, brought his pet cougar that needed re-homing.[16] After six years of production had been completed, the big cats numbered about 100; the total would eventually reach 150.[44][45]

Issues with funding started in 1973, as by then the cost of the crew and feed for the animals was $4,000 per week.[46] The family sold their four houses and 600 acres (240 ha) near Magic Mountain to pay debts, and Marshall's commercial-production company went bankrupt.[47] He had been executive producer of The Exorcist and the proceeds from that film partially funded production.[48][45] The Marshalls also sold some possessions, including Hedren's fur coat, given to her by Alfred Hitchcock for her starring role in The Birds.[49][50] The lack of funds meant that members of the family had to cover crew tasks and take on other work. John Marshall was an animal wrangler, set mechanic, boom operator, and camera operator; he also undertook veterinary work, such as giving vaccines and drawing blood from the animals.[51] In a 1977 interview, Noel Marshall was asked why he took personal risks for the project:

You get into anything slowly. We have been on this project now for five years. Everything we own, everything we have achieved, is tied up in it. Today we're 55 percent complete. We're at a point where we just have to do it.

Principal photography began on October 1, 1976, and was initially scheduled to last for six months,[55] but filming was restricted to five months at a time because the cottonwood trees on set turned brown from November until March.[56] Filming the big cats was difficult and frustrating; cinematographer Jan de Bont often spent hours setting up five cameras and waiting for the cats to do something that could be included in the film.[22] This eventually led to Marshall and the crew recording footage in documentary style with up to eight Panavision 35mm cameras.[48] One scene where Marshall and Mativo drive a 1937 Chevrolet containing two tigers took seven weeks to complete, because Glassey and Miller had to train the animals to ride in a car.[57][58] Marshall often refused to stop filming because he did not want to lose a take; sometimes only one take was usable from a day's filming.[59][51]

3a8082e126