Notorious movies, notorious histories

[sobaditsgood]

Hi everyone!

I'm a long time reader of the site, I recently registered because I'm working on a series of video reviews for a blog on the theme of notoriously bad movies or movies with troubled production histories.

I think I've worked through the standard list of well-known entries but I was curious about people's personal favourites, whether in terms of particularly egregious content and execution or movies that were made under bizarre circumstances. I'd love to hear about either.

Thanks!

[Chainsawmidget]

How about The Conqueror (1956)?

In this movie, John Wayne is Genghis Khan.  Really do you need to know more about it?  

If that isn't enough for you, here a few fun facts.  

It was shot on a site where nuclear bombs had been tested just ten years before.  
Out of 220 people involved in making this film, 91 of them would die of cancer, including John Wayne himself.  

This doesn't include numerous extras that also ended up dying of cancer, or John Wayne's son, who visited him on the set.  

After principal filming, around 50 or 60 tons of radioactive dirt from the location was shipped to Hollywood so they could finish filming on sound stages.  There's no record as to what happened to this radioactive dirt after filming was complete.  

Once the movie was proven to be a flop, Howard Hughes, the producer ended up buying every copy of the film and kept them in his home for twenty years so nobody could see it.  

Supposedly in his later years, he watched the movie almost every night regretting he ever made it.  

According to John Wayne, the moral of the movie was, "not to make an @$$ of yourself trying to play parts you're not suited for."

In a 1980 People Magazine article, A scientist from the Pentagon Defense Nuclear Agency was quoted as saying “Please, God, don’t let us have killed John Wayne.”

[claws]

Doris Wishman's A Night to Dismember (1983)

According to an unverified claim by director Doris Wishman, much of the negative for the movie was destroyed by a disgruntled lab employee. Wishman then spent the next few years re-writing and re-editing the film, mixing new and existing footage, adding a voice-over narration to the soundtrack and dubbed in dialogue and sound effects. Except most of the sound effects were done by mouth.
For example, when a car drives over the head of a person you'll hear a person saying "sssquiiiissssh". The barking of a dog in another scene was also badly imitated by a person.

[Trevor]

The film that has the most troubled production history for me is Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate: an $8 million movie which ended up costing close to $100 million, the ruination of a fine studio (United Artists) and also a promising director's career. I saw it when it was first released and I couldn't make head or tail of it and I later saw it on DVD almost thirty years later: beautiful to look at - impossible to watch.

It's original running time was 5 hours, 25 minutes: Cimino said that the final edit would be (wait for it) 15 minutes shorter! 

[RCMerchant]

Ed Woods NIGHT OF THE GHOULS (1959)-a semi sequel to BRIDE OF THE MONSTER (1955) sat on unreleased for 23 years (!) because Ed Wood could't afford to pay the film lab for processing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ5Wk7Z1pI0
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[sobaditsgood]

These are all fantastic! Thank you!

I have never heard of 'A Night To Dismember', that sounds amazing. I love picking out the glaringly obvious quick fixes that made it into the final cut of movies.

I'm curious about The Conqueror, especially the rumours surrounding the radiation aftermath. Has there ever been definitive proof one way or another? I mean, those numbers are pretty damning in and of themselves but has anyone ever made a focused effort to lay the facts down?

[Chainsawmidget]

I'm curious about The Conqueror, especially the rumours surrounding the radiation aftermath. Has there ever been definitive proof one way or another? I mean, those numbers are pretty damning in and of themselves but has anyone ever made a focused effort to lay the facts down?

This bit I stole from wikipedia.

Dr. Robert Pendleton, professor of biology at the University of Utah, stated, "With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic. The connection between fallout radiation and cancer in individual cases has been practically impossible to prove conclusively. But in a group this size you'd expect only 30-some cancers to develop. With 91, I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law."

[Flick James]

Caligula. It's certainly not a favorite movie of mine, good or bad, but if you're looking for a notorious film with troubled production issues, that's a great example.

[sobaditsgood]

Ooh, yeah, I tried to sit through Caligula once, I couldn't do it. And I love Malcom McDowell.

Or maybe because I love Malcom McDowell...

So eerie about The Conqueror and the radiation stuff.

[crackers]

Doris Wishman's A Night to Dismember (1983)

According to an unverified claim by director Doris Wishman, much of the negative for the movie was destroyed by a disgruntled lab employee. Wishman then spent the next few years re-writing and re-editing the film, mixing new and existing footage, adding a voice-over narration to the soundtrack and dubbed in dialogue and sound effects. Except most of the sound effects were done by mouth.
For example, when a car drives over the head of a person you'll hear a person saying "sssquiiiissssh". The barking of a dog in another scene was also badly imitated by a person.

I have heard about this film, but never watched it. Going by your description I will have seen this in the next week or so. I'm dying to hear the human dog.

[Dubal]

I would also add Twilight Zone-The Movie.

That has a fairly notorious history with the death of Vic Morrow. A helicopter crashed on top of him while filming a scene.

[Pacman000]

I must risk sounding obvious and list...

JAWS- The shark wouldn't work until the end of the movie.  It actually made the movie better.  They had trouble filming in the ocean. JAWS II had some of the same problems. 

Star Wars- Rain destroyed their Tatooine set; George Lucas nearly had an hear attack, and the FX crew burned through a million dollars to film two unusable shots.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea- The famous squid scene was almost a complete disaster.  They had to completely rewrite it, build a new squid, go way over budget.  They also had trouble filming in the ocean.

Ben-Hur (20's version)- Extras died trying to film the sea battle and chariot race.  Oh, If I remember correctly, the sea battle was filmed on the ocean.

Water World- Note to self: If you ever get to make a movie, Don't film it on the ocean!

[Allhallowsday]

Great way to get your school work done. 

[Derf]

How about Casino Royale (1967)? Filmed in six parts with six different directors and meshed together into a psychedelic mess. A fun mess (at least to me), but a mess.

[claws]

Wes Craven's Cursed (2005). Half of the movie was re-shot and caused a one year delay. According to rumors the studio didn't like Craven's first version, according to IMDb script issues and "production problems" were the reason.