Notorious movies, notorious histories

[sobaditsgood]

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.

I've heard about this Casino Royale but I've never seen it. It was originally conceived as a parody, though, right? It's not like they started with what they thought was a legitimate spy movie and then had to make it a comedy by default? Also, I'm assuming the six parts and six directors wasn't some well-intentioned effort at an anthology, right? That was just circumstantial?


And Cursed: I suspected there had to have been something going on behind the scenes with that movie when I saw it. It was shockingly bad. I need to revisit that sometime. I wonder if there are any articles/interviews out there that shed light on the 'production problems'. I hate it when filmmakers are tactful on these issues.

[Pacman000]

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.

The 40's Version of The Thief of Baghdad had similar problems.

[fulci420]

Joel Schumachers recent stinker Trespass has some interesting tidbits:
-The film had a budget of $35 million, the movie grossed $24,094 and was pulled from theaters after only ten days.
-Production was disrupted on August 3, 2010 when it was reported that Nicolas Cage had abandoned the project as he had allegedly insisted on switching roles from Kidman's husband to the kidnapper. The role was then offered to Liev Schreiber. However, the following day Cage resumed his role as the husband.
(from imdb)

Adventures of Pluto Nash (Which i thankfully havent seen)
-Created from a script written in 1985!?!?!
-Shelved for 2 years before release
-In absolute terms, this movie made the largest financial loss of any movie to date, with a budget of $100 million and a total US gross of $4.41 million (total loss, $95.59 million). This will probably be beat by John Carter tho

[Trevor]

Joel Schumachers recent stinker Trespass has some interesting tidbits:
-The film had a budget of $35 million, the movie grossed $24,094 and was pulled from theaters after only ten days.
-Production was disrupted on August 3, 2010 when it was reported that Nicolas Cage had abandoned the project as he had allegedly insisted on switching roles from Kidman's husband to the kidnapper. The role was then offered to Liev Schreiber. However, the following day Cage resumed his role as the husband.
(from imdb)

Looking at the names of some of that film's producers, it doesn't surprise me that it became a box office bomb. 

[LilCerberus]

According to Danny Perry's The Book of Cult Movies, Billy Jack was filmed in 1967, But disputes between Tom Laughlin & various producers over creative controls resulted in the film changing hands between four different production companies, causing the three year delay in post production.
At one point, with principle filming complete, producers tried to kick Laughlin off the project. Laughlin, however, had stolen all the audio recordings, & threatened to destroy one each week unless he was given complete control over post production.

In 1971, a year after Billy Jack's initial release, Laughlin sued universal for improperly marketing his film. Part of an out of court settlement included a one-hundred theater re-release.

[InformationGeek]

Clownhouse has a shady history to it.  During production, director Victor Salva video taped himself molesting the 12 year old actor, Nathan Forrest Winters.  The director got 3 years, but only served 15 months before being released on parole.

[sobaditsgood]

Clownhouse - Oh my god. I don't even know if I could watch the movie, knowing that.

Billy Jack story is great, I never knew any of that. Especially destroying the audio, that is hilarious. I don't think I've ever heard of a hostage situation like that cropping up in post-production.

Trespass is another surreal one. You wish given the on-set antics of some of these people they'd be a little more willing to open up to it after the fact. Instead you hear these rumours and all anyone will say in person is, like 'there were creative differences' and you have to try to infer what actually happened. I can totally see Nicholas Cage pulling that, though. Guy's a loose cannon.

[alandhopewell]

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.  

    There were rumors that the dirt was dumped on the Paramount back lot, and may have accounted for the deaths of most of the principal cast of BONANZA.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."

[alandhopewell]

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.


Here's the original sequence....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l22tsktu8D8


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!

[alandhopewell]

     Just about any Al Adamson movie. Al was notorious for running out of money in mid-shoot, and shelving a picture for months or even years before completing it, often with changes in cast and storyline.

[Frank81]

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

The thing I loved  about  Wood  is he had realistic  sexy women in his movies that didn't look like anorexic models, more like  'bad' girls. 

[Leah]

The Thief and The Cobbler has a history, notably that it came out the same year as Aladdin, but actually TTaTC was drawn thirty figgen years earlier than Alad.

[Menard]

Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo (1982) was plagued with problems including the main actor (Robards) becoming ill and having to scrap the film and start over when he could not return, pairing Kinski and Herzog together who are known for their fights when working together, having the film camp attacked by natives and having the film destroyed in the process...among other problems.

Herzog had enough problems with this film that he even made a documentary, Burden of Dreams, about the making of the movie.

From Wikipedia: Fitzcarraldo

In his autobiographical film Portrait Werner Herzog, Herzog has stated that the film's spectacular production was partly inspired by the engineering feats of ancient standing stones. The film production was an incredible ordeal, and famously involved moving a 320-ton steamship over a hill without the use of special effects. Herzog believed that no one had ever performed a similar feat in history, and likely never will again, calling himself "Conquistador of the Useless".[4] Three similar-looking ships were bought for the production and used in different scenes and locations, including scenes that were shot aboard the ship while it crashed through rapids, injuring three of the six people involved in the filming.

Casting of the film was also quite difficult. Jason Robards was originally cast in the title role, but he became ill with dysentery during early filming and, after leaving for treatment, was forbidden by his doctors to return. Herzog then considered casting Jack Nicholson, and even playing Fitzcarraldo himself, before Klaus Kinski accepted the role. By that point, forty percent of shooting with Robards was complete, and for continuity Herzog was forced to begin a total reshoot with Kinski. Mick Jagger was originally cast as Fitzcarraldo's assistant Wilbur, but due to the delays his shooting schedule expired and he departed to tour with the Rolling Stones. Herzog dropped Jagger's character from the script altogether and reshot the film from the beginning.

Klaus Kinski himself was a major source of tension, as he fought virulently with Herzog and other members of the crew; a scene from the documentary My Best Fiend depicts Kinski raging at production manager Walter Saxer over trivial matters, such as the quality of the food. Herzog notes that the native extras, contrary to Kinski's feeling of closeness to them, were greatly upset by his shows of anger. In My Best Fiend, Herzog says that one of the native chiefs offered, in all seriousness, to murder Kinski for him, but that he declined because he needed Kinski to complete filming. In one scene, when the crew is eating dinner while surrounded by the natives, the clamor the chief incites over Fitzcarraldo was, according to Herzog, his exploiting their hate of Kinski.

In all fairness, Herzog is no angel himself and Kinski is not alive to defend himself, so take what Herzog has to say about Kinski with a grain of salt. A lot of it is apparently true, but this was a unique relationship they had when working together.

[Menard]

And to note that any number of films in the career of Orson Welles, including one that is still in the process of maybe being completed and released in a span of time over 40 years, could fit with notorious histories...hell, Orson Welles himself is a notorious history, in radio and movies, and life.

TCM Overview for Orson Welles

[Derf]

You might also watch Lost in La Mancha, a documentary about Terry Gilliam's ill-fated attempt to film an adaptation of Don Quixote. The adaptation was never finished because everything--the weather, the locals, the producers--seemed to conspire against Gilliam. Gilliam claims there is a curse on any attempted production of Don Quixote and talks about other directors' attempts. He also swears that he will try again.