Roar: The Story of the Most Dangerous Film Ever Made

In this episode of The Compendium, we explore the chaotic legacy of Roar, the most dangerous movie ever made. Find out how Tippi Hedren, Noel Marshall, and a young Melanie Griffith risked life and limb filming a "ferocious comedy" starring 150 “untamed” lions and tigers. From real injuries on set to an 11-year production nightmare, we uncover the shocking truth behind a cult classic that redefined Hollywood disaster. If you’ve ever wondered how Roar became the most dangerous film ever made, this is the story you’ve been waiting for.

We give you the Compendium, but if you want more, then check out these great resources:

1. Shambala Preserve - Tippi Hedren’s Big Cat Sanctuary
2. Interview with John Marshall on the making of Roar - Grantland
3. Roar: The most Dangerous Movie Ever Made - YouTube
4. Roar Production details - IMDB

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Credits:

• Hosts: Kyle Risi & Adam Cox
• Intro and Outro Music: Alice in dark Wonderland by Aleksey Chistilin
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Chapters

• 0:00 Sneak Peak
• 1:11 Welcome to the Compendium
• 3:46 Topic of the week
• 1:06:45 Outro

Transcript

[00:00:00] Kyle Risi: During a scene, Cherries mistook Tippi's head for a toy ball. she bit down on it so hard that the fang pierced through the skin curled under Tippi's scalp. And Tippi vividly recalls the sound it made as the fang scraped against her skull. 

[00:00:18] And this was all caught on camera, which they then used in the sizzle reel to attract investors.

[00:00:25] Adam Cox: I can't believe they did that. To have her head being bitten in the sizzle reel, and then for an investor to go, is she okay? 

[00:00:36] Kyle Risi: No, she died, Steve. She died. 

[00:00:38] Adam Cox: No, maybe she's there. 

[00:00:39] Kyle Risi: Do you want her vest? 

[00:00:40] Adam Cox: Or she's there at the sizzle reel with like bandages around her head. 

[00:00:45] Kyle Risi: Poor Tippi.

[00:00:47] [00:01:00] Welcome to the Compendium, an assembly of fascinating and intriguing things. A weekly variety podcast that gives you just enough information to stand your ground at any social gathering.

[00:01:23] We explore stories from the darker corners of true crime, the annuls of your old unread history books, and the who's who of extraordinary people. 

[00:01:31] I'm, of course, your ringmaster for this episode, Kyle Reesey. 

[00:01:35] And I'm your dolphin swimmer person. Like a, on a show, didn't you have the dolphins that would like lift you up out of the water? Or is it a whale? 

[00:01:43] No, it's probably a dolphin. I understand what you're trying to get at. What I'm having difficulty with is the, the struggling. To come up with an interesting or an exciting character. 

[00:01:52] Is that not exciting? If I saw that in real life, that'd be exciting. And that's what I'm doing today.

[00:01:57] You're hovering around the whole kind of like, [00:02:00] aquatic center right now. 

[00:02:01] Adam Cox: I go through phases, I keep getting shipped around the different departments. I was in finance, I was in the toilets, now I'm by the You're everywhere, 

[00:02:08] Kyle Risi: man.

[00:02:09] You're Mr. Dog's body. Yeah. 

[00:02:10] welcome, 

[00:02:11] Adam Cox: Adam. Welcome, Kyle. 

[00:02:13] Kyle Risi: Before we kick off today's 

[00:02:15] Adam Cox: little saga, 

[00:02:16] Kyle Risi: I think it's just time for a bit of housekeeping, because we've changed things up a bit recently, haven't we? 

[00:02:20] Adam Cox: You change things up. 

[00:02:22] Kyle Risi: Well you don't appreciate the changes. 

[00:02:23] Adam Cox: No I'm kidding. 

[00:02:24] Kyle Risi: So if you've listened to our last few episodes you might be wondering where all the latest things is and the answer to that is that all the latest things is now its own separate episode. 

[00:02:36] Over the last few months all the latest things has slowly been encroaching more and more on the main topic of the week. 

[00:02:44] Because it's gone from like, traditionally 5 minutes to like 18 minutes, and that's just too much. And also, we have so much to say, so it needs to be its own episode. 

[00:02:53] And so, We've packaged these up as our own separate episode, which you can now listen to completely free of charge on [00:03:00] Patreon at The Compendium Podcast.

[00:03:03] Adam Cox: That's right, we are on Patreon, where we release next week's episodes, including all the latest things, a whole week early. This means there's no need to wait seven days for your next fix.

[00:03:13] Kyle Risi: And after you've listened to next week's early access episode, you can sign up to our Certified Freaks tier to unlock all of our yet to be released episodes. And all the latest things can now be accessed as a standalone episode.

[00:03:24] Adam Cox: Also, if you do sign up, you'll have access to an RSS feed that you can add directly to Spotify. This will give you access to our regular episodes alongside all the latest things, all in the same feed.

[00:03:35] Kyle Risi: Yeah. So if you're one of those people that want to see all the latest things and the feature episodes all in the same feed you can then just add that into Spotify and then bam, you've got it all together.

[00:03:45] So Adam, shall we get on with today's episode,? 

[00:03:48] Let's do it. 

[00:03:49] Today's compendium, we are diving into an assembly of ferocious ambition, feline chaos, and the price of a Hollywood dream gone [00:04:00] wild. 

[00:04:01] Adam Cox: Hang on a minute. I think I know what this is about. Go on then. Weirdly, last night you were like, oh, let's watch this real cult classic movie, and which, never do you want to watch old films. And it was called Roar, about these lions. Are we covering this movie?

[00:04:15] Kyle Risi: We are. We are. That's why you made me watch that awful movie. You've been duped, Adam. Actually, to be fair, it wasn't terrible. It was interesting. It made me feel quite anxious at some points. That's, that is the thing. So, as you know, I always go on and on about how I was born and raised in South Africa, running wild and free on the African plains.

[00:04:36] Well today I'm leaning into this in a big way by telling you a story that is quite literally out of Africa even though it's filmed in the Hollywood Hills. 

[00:04:45] Today is a fun one. It is a story that will have you rolling your eyes so far back in your head due to the sheer stupidity of what these people thought was a good idea. Our story today is going to follow a naive Hollywood couple who [00:05:00] spent 11 years making a Hollywood film starring not only themselves, but also their kids and 150 lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, jaguars, and even a couple of deranged elephants in a film that they coined. A ferocious comedy. 

[00:05:19] Adam Cox: Hang on a minute. The main family, it was them that was making this movie. 

[00:05:24] Kyle Risi: Yeah, that's all them. They're all related. 

[00:05:26] They are husband and wife, and they're three kids. Two of the kids chose not to do it. I think they were adult sons anyway. But yeah, that's the whole family. 

[00:05:33] Adam Cox: And they took 11 years! Mm I had no idea about this.

[00:05:38] Now, the film was meant to come with a message that highlighted the importance of conservation work and the urgent need to protect these wild cats were being poached for their pelts to the extent that conservationists were estimating that they would be completely extinct by the year 2000.

[00:05:54] So this glamorous Hollywood couple inspired by a recent trip to Africa felt that they [00:06:00] needed to do something before it was too late. But what started out as wholesome intentions ended up creating one of the most dangerous films Ever made because throughout the entire filming process, production members were scratched, molded, sculpted, and even mutilated in some cases coming very, very close to death.

[00:06:21] Yeah, there were scenes where you can tell they used fake blood, but then there were other scenes. Where there's like, that was definitely not fake blood. 

[00:06:28] Kyle Risi: So today Adam, I'm 1981 box office disaster Yeah. That was Roar. 

[00:06:37] Adam Cox: So it didn't make money? Or not enough money, clearly. 

[00:06:39] Kyle Risi: Oh, it was a complete failure. . But it is now a classic, but it was a long road to get to this point. In fact, it was deemed so bad that it disappeared for almost 20 years before resurfacing in 2015.

[00:06:52] Adam Cox: That surprises me because watching it, I don't know, I had this anxiety that you would only get when you watch a thriller or something like that because you're like, [00:07:00] shit, there's real lions and this doesn't look safe. 

[00:07:02] Kyle Risi: And it was hectic. A, it felt like we were watching for five hours, and it was only a 90 minute bloody film, everywhere the camera pointed, there was a fight breaking out. 

[00:07:11] Adam Cox: Yeah, it felt like they were sometimes recording dialogue for a conversation, and then because there were lions, fighting in the background, they had to then cut away to squeeze in, a fight during a serious conversation. It was very bizarre. 

[00:07:25] Kyle Risi: So I reckon, because we're not doing all the latest things anymore, we just get straight into it. 

[00:07:30] Adam Cox: Let's do it. 

[00:07:31] Kyle Risi: Adam, our story starts in the late 1960s in Mozambique, Southern Africa. The country that inspired Nando's. Okay. Well, there's an important benchmark.

[00:07:42] Adam Cox: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:07:43] Kyle Risi: It is here in Mozambique that a fairly famous Hollywood actress called Tippi Hedren is filming a new movie called Satan's Harvest which is going to be directed by George Montgomery. Now Tippi Hedren at the time is probably most famous for starring in a couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies including [00:08:00] The Birds and it would actually later emerge that she was totally tortured man by Alfred Hitchcock. There are some serious serious claims that he sexually assaulted her multiple times during filming of these movies even forcing her to sign a contract that limited who she could work with in the industry. So it's just another Hollywood elite that you can add to the scumbag list I guess. 

[00:08:20] Adam Cox: To be honest, I've never heard about that with Hitchcock because he's always put up as this master filmmaker. But actually, he's a bit more like Harvey Weinstein. 

[00:08:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it sounds like Hollywood's just filled with Weinsteins, man. Swine steens. So it's on this trip she was being accompanied by her husband and manager, a guy called Noel Marshall. Now, he was a seasoned Hollywood producer in his own right, and midway through their trip, the couple heads off on a safari, To some national park in the area where they come across this incredible abandoned house near a river, that's been taken over by a pride of lions. 

[00:08:55] Now the house was previously part of a safari lodge and following the [00:09:00] flood Nobody came back to claim the house So it was adopted by this pride of lions. Tippi and Noel were really moved by this stunning sight of Dozens of these lions that were just lounging around this abandoned house like dangling out the windows climbing up around the roof Just chilling out man. So I can appreciate the aesthetic of what they're seeing there all these wonderfull lions just chilling out.

[00:09:24] Adam Cox: Is that the house that was in the movie? No, that recreated. 

[00:09:27] Kyle Risi: It's not even close. It was a really tiny little lodge So you can't even compare the two from what we saw in the movie. What their guide explains to them is that the lions were actually there essentially hiding from poachers that were looking to capitalize on the high demand of pelts during the 1960s, and the lodge being previously private land therefore was out of the poachers territory and become this kind of unique sanctuary of safety for this pride where they ultimately thrived.

[00:09:53] So being completely moved by this experience and the urgency of the plight of these magnificent cats Both [00:10:00] tippy and noel recognized that there was probably some kind of hollywood movie in what they were seeing in front of them. 

[00:10:06] Adam Cox: Really You I'm not seeing it but fine.

[00:10:10] So they first started off with this concept of the lions living in the house, then they imagined what it would be like if humans lived alongside these lions as part of this big interspecies pride, like man and lion living side by side in like complete harmony. 

[00:10:24] Okay now I see it. 

[00:10:25] So their goal was to show that lions are these peaceful, loving creatures and not the monsters that the movies have previously portrayed them as. And they thought that this would help make people realize that owning like a lion pelt was no different to owning, let's say, a poodle pelt. They wanted to create this disgust in that notion of owning one of these pelts.

[00:10:47] Okay. 

[00:10:48] Kyle Risi: So when Tippy and Noel get back to Hollywood, Noel sets out to start writing a script. Only problem was, he didn't have any experience in script writing. So, he was going to have to learn. Eventually, he comes up with an outline, [00:11:00] and it is fairly basic, and the premise of the story is that an American family are living in a riverside lodge somewhere in Africa, with 30 something tame lions who are all essentially like their children or their siblings. 

[00:11:12] The first big hurdle, though, that they come across is that they need to first of all source a bunch of tame lions, but they live in California.

[00:11:20] Adam Cox: Yeah, where did you find them? They just go to the zoo, 

[00:11:22] Kyle Risi: What they did is they did some brainstorming. They decided to approach a bunch of lion tamers to negotiate hiring their lions for the film. And they all pretty much said the same thing. A, you're absolutely nuts. And B, you can't put a bunch of adult lions in a small place like a house, because they will literally fight each to the death. including you.

[00:11:42] Adam Cox: Yeah. There are several problems here because it doesn't matter how tame a lion is. It's surely a wild animal, which is unpredictable. And like one is probably, you're pushing it 30. 

[00:11:55] Kyle Risi: Oh, and there was way more than that, but we'll get onto that.

[00:11:57] So of course the resounding answer from [00:12:00] the trainers was hell no. That was until one trainer suggested that the only way this MIGHT work, and I wrote that all in caps, is if they raise the lions themselves from birth. This way they would essentially establish this familial hierarchy. Essentially there would just be one big, like, pride. 

[00:12:16] Adam Cox: And is that why it took so long then, because they were rearing these lions?

[00:12:21] Kyle Risi: Yes, so, it took them 11 years to physically complete the project, and that's because they had to raise these lions from birth. Noel and Tippy are like, yep, okay, this film is very important to protecting animals, and if this is the only option we have, then this is what we're going to do.

[00:12:37] And so off they go. And of course, that means That filming can't start until they have sourced a bunch of cubs and have raised them all to adulthood. 

[00:12:46] And so Adam, this is the start of that 11 year journey to raise a bunch of cubs to make this movie. And, this again is just so wild to me because as you just said, even raising lions from cubs [00:13:00] does not guarantee that they won't try to eat you or rip your face off and then eat you. 

[00:13:05] Adam Cox: And so what year is it that they start to raise these cubs? So this is now 1970. 1970. And they think lions are going to be extinct by the 2000s. So they know that the movie won't come out for another 10 years. So within that 20 year gap, They've got to make sure lions don't go extinct. It's kind of like you're cutting out a third of the time that's left in order to save these creatures. 

[00:13:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, I don't think they thought a lot of these things through. 

[00:13:30] Adam Cox: Okay, fine. Just putting it out there. 

[00:13:32] Kyle Risi: So in the 1970s, the pair of them saw several baby lion cubs from various rescue centers, from all across the United States. And sourcing them wasn't difficult because Between the 1960s and the 70s it was a huge trend for people to buy big cat cubs and own them as pets but of course it wasn't long before people began to realize that even as cubs baby lions and tigers are extremely destructive not just on your furniture but also on their owners like just think about how brutal [00:14:00] a little kitten can be when it's scratching you now just amplify that like By 10.

[00:14:04] Because they don't know that they're hurting you, right? So what would be like little pin scratches from a domestic cat would be deep lacerations from a lion cub. 

[00:14:13] So before long the market is just awash with people looking to get rid of their cubs and this is where Tippy and Noel were ready to just start scooping them up.

[00:14:21] So they start raising all these rescue cubs, how you might raise essentially a kitten in their Beverly Hills home where they lived with their five kids. Uh, Noel previously had four boys from a previous marriage and Tippi had one daughter who, believe it or not, is Melanie Griffith. And you did say, who's she the mother of? So her daughter is Dakota Johnson from Fifty Shades of Grey. 

[00:14:44] Ah, okay, So you might remember Melanie from the 1988 film, Working Girl, which obviously scored a couple Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. So she's a pretty serious, like Hollywood A lister. 

[00:14:59] Adam Cox: And so she's [00:15:00] probably the most famous from this movie, right? 

[00:15:02] Kyle Risi: I would say so. I mean, Tippi Hedren was also quite famous. She starred in Alfred Hitchcock movies. Yeah, of course. Noel Marshall also has got a bit of a background, but I would say Melanie Griffith is probably the most famous out of all of them. 

[00:15:15] Adam Cox: Yeah. 

[00:15:16] Kyle Risi: And at the time though, Melanie, she's just 13 years old. Essentially, she's found herself living with a bunch of lion cubs, which grew into teenagers and then adult lions surprisingly quickly. But at this stage, they only had a handful of cubs, and if they were going to be making this film, they were going to need a hell of a lot more. 

[00:15:35] So in 1971, Life Magazine does a feature on Tippy and Noel and their kids and how gorgeous it is that they are sharing their home with these big cats including a now 200 kilogram male lion called Neil.

[00:15:48] Adam Cox: Where'd they got Neil from? 

[00:15:50] Kyle Risi: Well, he's one of the baby cubs. 

[00:15:51] Adam Cox: Oh, he's grown. So they grow pretty quickly, 

[00:15:53] Kyle Risi: yeah. And Adam, he's massive. He is, he's literally twice the size of Tippy. So in the Life [00:16:00] Magazine article, there are all these really crazy images of them living side by side with these animals like they're not in pens or cages, Adam, they live in the house like regular domestic cats. 

[00:16:10] One of the images is just of Tippi just casually reading the newspaper while she's lying down on Neil while he snoozes in their living room. 

[00:16:18] Adam Cox: So they don't want to kill them then. 

[00:16:19] Kyle Risi: No, because again, remember the training was like if you raise them from cubs, they will think that you are just part of their herd. Exactly. 

[00:16:27] There is also another image of them all just swimming out in the back pool and Neil is just like playfully grabbing at Melanie's kind of ankle while she jumps to the water. It's cute. It's cute. But you just know that Neil is just testing to see if Melanie minds him had like having a little nibble on her on her leg.

[00:16:43] And then there's obviously probably one of the most famous photographs of Tippi and Noel all bundled in a bed with literally five teenage tigers all in the bed with them. 

[00:16:53] Adam Cox: It's cool. I imagine growing up with these tigers. And I imagine there are some really lovely moments, but, I don't know, I [00:17:00] think with the litter tray. 

[00:17:00] Kyle Risi: Bruh! Yeah, with like, and if they're eating meat and stuff, it's gonna stink. Do they have to get in fresh zebra? Um, well, I mean, I don't know too much about what they're getting. but they are, they do really pride themselves on the meat that they do feed them.

[00:17:13] So they're not skimping, they're not doing like a Joe Exotic where they're going to supermarkets and like taking all the out of date meat. They really prided themselves on the quality of the food that they fed them. 

[00:17:22] But the thing is though, while this all looks idyllic, it wasn't quite so cutesy cute when for the neighbors who would often come face to face with a fully grown lion that had escaped and gone exploring around the neighborhood.

[00:17:32] And of course whenever this would happen the neighbors would then just call the cops who would then alert the appropriate authorities like animal control or animal protection. And so it wasn't long before Tippi and Noel were forced to move their entire pride of cats to a more suitable location. Which is probably wise at this point, especially if they need to collect 130 cats right?

[00:17:53] So they found an affordable piece of land in rural LA and they decide to build a ranch Therefore they're growing pride. [00:18:00] Now I say affordable That's a bit of foreshadowing there because the land was in an area that was prone to wildfires and flash floods. So not exactly the place that you want to set up a ranch filled with wildcats, especially if you need to move them really quickly in an emergency. 

[00:18:16] But still, this is the spot that they chose where they're going to start filming their movie when they're ready.

[00:18:21] But of course transforming the Lodge to look like Africa Coupled with the burden of having to care for all of these lions, which by now they collected 50 something, meant that they were literally hemorrhaging money. 

[00:18:33] So Noel decides that he's going to try and find some financial backers to help, but most people just didn't want anything to do with the project on account that they thought they were just utterly insane. It was only going to be a matter of time before someone got seriously hurt or mauled or even worse killed, especially since they weren't strictly keeping the animals contained. So no one really wanted kind of their name associated with that risk, which I completely understand. You wouldn't want to be associated with a [00:19:00] film that is essentially putting people's lives at risk. 

[00:19:03] Adam Cox: Yeah, and also it's quite a long payoff because you're just at the moment seem to be putting your money to raising lions. 

[00:19:09] Kyle Risi: Oh, yeah, I guess I didn't really think of that. Yeah, because it's more of a long term investment, right? Yeah, we have to raise these lions first and then we make a movie and then maybe you might get your return But people probably want to return within a few years, right? 

[00:19:21] Adam Cox: Yeah, I mean sure people do go into long investments, but you're like well, you know, do all these lions survive? What happens if you decide I actually don't want to do it anymore.

[00:19:28] Kyle Risi: Because they can't find any backing, tippy and all, they're forced to sell pretty much everything that they owned. I'm talking like properties, jewelry, clothing. And at this stage, remember, they were already a few years into the project. So the prospect of giving up now. After having spent all the money that they already had, it just seemed to them like a complete waste.

[00:19:48] It was definitely like that concept of a sunk cost fallacy that was at play, like they'd already come this far, they can't give up now. And so Just to point out how much this was costing them, but remember [00:20:00] these are growing lions and they need a lot of meat to survive. 

[00:20:04] At this point they were feeding them fresh meat daily and it was costing 4, 000 per week. Bear in mind that's 1970s money, so that's the equivalent of 30, 000 a week to feed all these animals. 

[00:20:19] Adam Cox: Geez, she must be doing other acting gigs and things like this to just keep things running. 

[00:20:24] Kyle Risi: I think that they had enough money to bankroll this initially that yes they had to sell some properties but I think they just made it work.

[00:20:31] That is a crazy amount, just on food. just on meat. But the thing is though Adam, they were genuinely convinced that this movie would be a hit and they were basing this all on a recent Oscar winning movie called Born Free which had been released shortly before all of this had started and it followed this British couple that were living in Kenya who had ended up adopting an orphan lion cub called Elsa and of course they didn't want to send the lion to a zoo and releasing elsa into the wild, especially unprepared, [00:21:00] would mean that she could potentially get killed. 

[00:21:02] So they decide that they're going to raise Elsa as a wild animal and they teach her how to hunt, how to fend for herself, and eventually they set her free and it's really emotional. And then as you'd expect, there's this eventual reunion where they see that Elsa has become a mother of three cubs herself. And it's all really beautiful. Like I watched that loads growing up. It was like one of those seasonal films that just replayed year after year. 

[00:21:24] Adam Cox: But you know the key thing with that though? What's that? One line. 

[00:21:27] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. That is it. But this was the dream that Tippy and Noel were determined to bring to life. So they just kept going. They kept adopting more cats whenever the opportunity arose, but it didn't stop at lions. 

[00:21:39] Soon they were taking in tigers, cougars, leopards, jaguars, cheetahs, panthers, all of them. They weren't discriminating against the big cats anymore. The film was supposed to be set in Africa. And, the last anyone checked, tigers, cougars, jaguars, they weren't exactly native to the continent, now were they? 

[00:21:56] Adam Cox: Oh yeah. Did they even bring that up in the movie? Like, oh, you've got tigers now [00:22:00] or something? 

[00:22:00] Kyle Risi: They did bring it up in the movie. But this did mean that they had to rewrite the script to now start making it work, right? To top it off, the original concept of the lions that was central to the film's title. It was originally called Lions, Lions and More Lions.

[00:22:16] Adam Cox: That was a terrible name. 

[00:22:18] Kyle Risi: So they had to obviously change it to Raw to be inclusive of all cats. But they didn't just stop at Picasso. They also ended up like adopting an entire flock of exotic birds. They even had an ostrich at one point. They had an entire flock of sheep. And also let's not forget they had two fully grown elephants, which were called Timbo and Tembo.

[00:22:37] Adam Cox: Were the sheep to feed to the lions? 

[00:22:39] Kyle Risi: No, I think they were probably someone wanted to just get rid of a herd of sheep, but they weren't in the film. But all the other animals were fed to 

[00:22:47] Adam Cox: the lions, 

[00:22:49] Kyle Risi: possibly.

[00:22:50] And here's the thing. A lot of these animals, including the elephants, they came from previous owners who didn't treat them. Well, many had endured like trauma, which [00:23:00] only added another layer of unpredictability to their nature. Sure, you can try your best to raise wild animals correctly, but past trauma has a way of resurfacing often in unexpected and dangerous ways. And let's not forget. There's still wild animals, Adam. So the instinct can kick in at any minute, no matter how you raise it, they could turn around, like rip your face off.

[00:23:23] Adam Cox: And they almost did a lot of the times when I was watching that movie. 

[00:23:27] Kyle Risi: Pretty much. Eventually, in 1976, they were finally ready to start filming. And by this point, they had a total of 130 cats. The first item on the agenda was to recruit a crew and some actors. And so to drive interest, they sent around a script which had now evolved to factor in all the non native kind of African cats. And Adam, it's fucking wild. I don't know if you managed to pick up on what the plot was from the movie, but basically, This is the plot, right? [00:24:00] Let's see how closely it aligns with what your understanding of the movie was. 

[00:24:04] So the story is, of course, set in Africa. It follows a zoologist and a big cat enthusiast named Hank. Now, he's living in a large house on the shores of a big lake, tending to his conservation efforts in the area. 

[00:24:17] Now, he is sharing the house with 150 lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs and jaguars and this is all part of an experiment that he believes will prove to the world that humans and cats, can form some weird multi species tribe or pride together and live in harmony.

[00:24:37] And so after three years Hank thinks that he's proven his little experiment to be a success and he finally invites his family to come and stay with him at the lodge. 

[00:24:45] Now Hank's wife and their three kids, they have no idea that he has been living with these wild animals all of this time. Hank's intention was of course to fill them in when they finally arrived, but in the lead up to them arriving they mix up [00:25:00] their AMs and their PMs, oopsie, You know, which means his family arrived 12 hours earlier than Hank and obviously expected. And so Hank isn't there to pick him up at the airport. He's actually away at some kind of conservation meeting a few towns away. 

[00:25:15] When they arrive, they burst into the house with all their luggage. There's no sign of Hank. There's just lions, lions, and more lions everywhere. And of course, they're all very angry. excited to see them.

[00:25:26] Now, rather than just leave, they then spend the next 24 hours desperately trying to escape the cats, who they think are trying to hunt them and eat them, not realizing that they just want to play. 

[00:25:37] And Adam it's just one hour of nothing but slapstick where mum and the kids are hiding in cupboards, which the lions just appear to tear apart with their claws. They get chased, they get tackled, and all while the cats just completely demolish this house. 

[00:25:53] Adam Cox: Yeah. So I did get the plot. Um, although saying that I didn't really remember that that's what his goal was, that they're living in [00:26:00] harmony.

[00:26:00] Kyle Risi: So Hank obviously has to now try and rush back to get home to see his family. He gets caught up in all sorts of shenanigans along the way including a very tenuous car ride which results in more encounters with Increasingly more aggressive animals and so it ends up taking him 24 hours to get back.

[00:26:15] Adam Cox: Yeah, because there's kind of these somewhat comical scenes where they're running around the house and they're hiding into cupboards. One of them even gets into a fridge. Doesn't he, empty the eggs out of the fridge? Yeah. Takes him ages. Yeah, and then he gets in there, then ten lions, like, pound into the room, and then one of them, like, keeps opening the door and he keeps shutting it. It's just all a bit stupid. But it did look like they could eat them, to be honest. 

[00:26:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah, it was petrifying. Of course, while this is all happening, eventually they just exhaust themselves after a day of fighting for their lives. So, bizarrely, they end up just passing out, they fall asleep, and when they wake up in the morning, they're just surrounded by all these cats that are all just peacefully sleeping around them. Like, no one's got any in the middle of the night, even [00:27:00] though the whole day was just being chased, being attacked, being tackled, like being pinned against the wall.

[00:27:06] Adam Cox: Yeah, it's almost it's 10 o'clock guys, can we just call it a truce for the night? Let's all just settle down. We'll pick this up in the morning. 

[00:27:12] Kyle Risi: Exactly, it's so dumb. And then just as they're waking up, obviously Hank arrives and there's this big, big, big Joyful reunion and they realized that the cats were just being playful this entire time. And now they're just one big happy multi-species pride. And Hank was right the whole time. 

[00:27:29] Adam Cox: And the way they made you realize this is when they're being chased. It was like dramatic music. 

[00:27:34] Kyle Risi: Mm-Hmm. . 

[00:27:35] Adam Cox: But then when they were told like, look, they're being friendly then as all it's all comedy, nice music 

[00:27:39] Kyle Risi: be beep.

[00:27:43] And basically, that's just the whole movie. All I can say is it's really messy.

[00:27:47] Adam Cox: Yeah, wasn't there a scene where like two of the lions are like fighting and he's like trying to break them up and they are having a savage real fight. There's blood that's being produced from these lions because they're clawing each other's face and he's trying to break them [00:28:00] up and to the point where they swipe him and then he's bleeding.

[00:28:03] Kyle Risi: Yeah, despite the awful plot and the glaringly obvious dangers. The script does somehow manage to attract a cast and crew willing to work closely with these lions and these tigers but of course Noel has a very specific hiring policy because he outright rejects any applications from any unionized workers because he knew that unions would only just impose Rules and regulations on what he was allowed to do on set.

[00:28:29] What, health and safety? Yeah, based on what you said just a minute ago with him jumping in the middle of four fighting lions. Of course a union worker is going to say, yeah, maybe you shouldn't do that. But also hiring non union workers also gave him that freedom to set his own pay rates because he'd already burnt through all his budget anyway, so he couldn't afford to pay anyone anything of substance, essentially.

[00:28:51] Adam Cox: So these are probably like actors trying to get like their first roles, right? Mhm, 100%. Or who didn't read the contract, probably don't have an agent, because it probably says that if you [00:29:00] die on this movie, you can't sue us. 

[00:29:01] Kyle Risi: Exactly. And definitely one thing that they definitely were lacking. Was an HR department.

[00:29:08] For sure. 

[00:29:08] Adam Cox: Not even close. Did they have people, as part of the crew that were there with tranquilizer guns or anything like that? No. 

[00:29:14] Kyle Risi: No, they had a safety officer, but they had to take turns, being the safety officer because, they kept getting injured.

[00:29:25] Adam Cox: Oh my god. 

[00:29:26] Kyle Risi: The last major position that Noel and Tippi needed to fill was director. But of course, since no one was interested, big shocker. Nor decides that he is going to take the role for himself Classic case of wrote the theme tune sung the theme tune and so on only problem was he has zero experience directing Which I think is pretty clear I don't know. Is it a case that he was a bad director? Or is it a case that he was working with a hundred and fifty lions? 

[00:29:54] Adam Cox: I think it's probably a little bit of both, because there's shots where, like, he is speaking to [00:30:00] another person, I can't remember who it was now, another character, having a serious conversation, and it cuts away to a lion, and in the next shot, a panther's on his face.

[00:30:07] And it's like, but that panther wasn't there. 

[00:30:10] Kyle Risi: And he's got no clothes on because they've all been ripped off, and it's like, continuity! 

[00:30:14] Adam Cox: And then another shot and the panther's gone. It's just like, hang on a minute. Could you not reshot this? But it makes me feel like they just couldn't reshoot things because that they're like, that's probably the best shot we'll ever get on this.

[00:30:25] Kyle Risi: It's practically a golden rule of filmmaking. Never work with kids and never work with animals. And lions and tigers, they just don't care about, staying on their mark or staying in frame just because you ask them nicely. Do they?

[00:30:37] Adam Cox: Even if you've raised them, they're still not gonna do that. 

[00:30:40] Kyle Risi: Also, finding actors willing to take on the human roles wasn't much easier. Like, Tippi, naturally, she was cast as Hank's wife. So, in the film, that is Tippi Hedren. But as for the lead role of Hank, she really wanted Jack Nicholson. But, surprisingly, He obviously refused, obviously looks at the script, did have someone of [00:31:00] substance to read through the contract and was like, yeah, don't do this, you will die.

[00:31:04] And so once again, Noel steps in and casts himself as Hank. So he is, at this point, the producer, the writer, the director, he starred in the film. And let's be honest, When all this goes belly up, Adam, there's not going to be much room to blame anyone else other than himself. 

[00:31:21] Adam Cox: To be honest, he's probably the only person that can star in it and run this show because it's his idea, in a way, and he's crazy enough to do it and also he's raised these lions and so if there's anyone that's gonna break up a fight between four lions, it's gonna be him, sort of thing.

[00:31:37] Kyle Risi: I think that, that's smart because the same situation with the kids, right? they couldn't find anyone willing to pay the kids, so Noel just cast his two sons, John and Jerry, as the boys, and of course 17 year old Melanie Griffith as the daughter.

[00:31:49] According to Noel and Tippi, this made perfect sense because the kids already had that bond with the cats, right? So bringing stranger actors in might have been harder for the animals to kind of accept them [00:32:00] as part of their pride. So it made sense, but also, I don't get the sense that Melanie Griffith wanted to do this.

[00:32:06] She's like, okay, dad. What absolutely blows my mind is that five years in That nothing fatal had happened up to this point. I don't comprehend that in any way. Like at first their strategy was to raise cats from cubs so that they would be tamer more socialized but over the years they just began rescuing whatever big cats they could get their hands on and many of these animals came with problems.

[00:32:31] In the end they did get their 130 cats plus other animals. There is no way that they were able to form a close bond with every single one of them. So therefore it's genuinely a miracle that nobody was mauled or eaten. 

[00:32:47] Adam Cox: Jeez, yeah, I didn't even think of that. 

[00:32:49] Kyle Risi: Unless someone was mauled and they just covered it up. I guess it would be easy to, right? 

[00:32:54] Adam Cox: Yeah, if there's no union about, then just quick, like, quickly bury Geri.

[00:32:58] No one's going to ask around her. Is there 

[00:32:59] Kyle Risi: even a [00:33:00] need to bury Geri? 

[00:33:01] Adam Cox: Oh yeah, good point. It's like kids. 

[00:33:04] Kyle Risi: We can save some money on food. Yeah. I can't even imagine what her childhood must have been like growing up Melanie Griffith. Like Dakota Johnson is on the record of saying, people don't fully appreciate how nutso she is. My mother's childhood was and the thing is that we don't really get too much information from Melanie Griffith And it makes me question whether or not it was just a really traumatic time for her and that's why she doesn't talk about it 

[00:33:31] Adam Cox: I mean, I Can understand that because you're forced to live with these lions and all your friends have probably got normal sort of upbringing. And it's because her parents are heavily invested in this project that they can't say no to now anymore. 

[00:33:47] Kyle Risi: And I can also imagine that if Noel has got everything riding on this, he's probably really obsessive and probably really insufferable as well, which he is. 

[00:33:55] Adam Cox: I wonder if he likes the lions more than he likes his kids.

[00:33:57] Kyle Risi: Do you [00:34:00] reckon? So Adam, I think this is a great time to take a quick break. And when we get back, filming is about to kick off. 

[00:34:05] Adam Cox: Okay.

[00:34:07] Kyle Risi: So Adam, we're back. Where's your mind at? What are you thinking? 

[00:34:12] Adam Cox: I'm thinking these people are crazy. I

[00:34:15] Kyle Risi: think that's a fair assessment! I can't imagine The pressure that Hank must be under knowing that he has to make this film and also and the pressure that he's been living with for 11 years knowing that he has to make this a success.

[00:34:28] Adam Cox: Yeah, and just a crazy thought they're shooting at this house And because the are pretty territorial if they're like a regular house cat, they'd be like spraying, and like, making things their sort of territory. That place must have stank.

[00:34:41] Kyle Risi: You reckon? Probably. Unless they got all the boys neutered. I don't know. I doubt it though. Those boys look pretty horrifically ferocious. 

[00:34:48] Adam Cox: Yeah, and probably when they pee, it's, probably like a bucket. 

[00:34:51] Kyle Risi: Oh, gross. Eww.

[00:34:53] Filming finally kicks off in 1976. Now, they originally thought that it would take six months. Instead, [00:35:00] it drags on for five more years. 

[00:35:02] Adam Cox: Five years of filming? Mm hmm. 

[00:35:04] Kyle Risi: Yep. Delays came from every direction, but the biggest issue was, of course, animals are a fucking nightmare to direct, right?

[00:35:12] And like we said earlier on, lions don't care about hitting their mark or staying in frame just because you asked them nicely. So getting them to do anything on cue really required an absurd amount of motivation. 

[00:35:23] Their go to tactics were to lure the animals with live chickens, or even worse, chase them around with fire extinguishers. Isn't that horrible? But here's the thing, if a lion didn't feel like cooperating, there was pretty much nothing that you could do about it. Most days they were lucky if they ended up with a few minutes of usable footage and on a really good day They'd end up with just a few minutes of footage, but no one was sent to hospital.

[00:35:53] And that's the main reason why the whole production took so bloody long, [00:36:00] because the lines just don't want to do it. And Adam, we know clearly from the descriptions that we've gone through already that there were injuries. 

[00:36:08] But I can tell you now, there were. A lot of them and they were horrific. There's no easing into this because injuries were literally dished out from day one. There were bites, scratches, broken bones, like severe, severe infections. Because of course lion's mouths are like harbors of bacteria right and out of the 140 cast and crew who worked on this film 120 of them had to go to hospital at least once It's about to kick off Tippi herself obviously she ended up in hospital several times the worst injury she got was courtesy of a lion named Cherries. Now, during a scene, Cherries mistook Tippi's head for a toy ball. It bit down on it so hard that the fang pierced through the skin curled under Tippi's scalp. And Tippi [00:37:00] vividly recalls the sound it made as the fang scraped against her skull. And this was all caught on camera, which they then used in the sizzle reel to attract investors.

[00:37:11] Adam Cox: I can't believe they did that. To have her head being bitten in the sizzle reel, and then for an investor to go, is she okay? 

[00:37:22] Kyle Risi: No, she died, Steve. She died. 

[00:37:25] Adam Cox: No, maybe she's there. 

[00:37:26] Kyle Risi: Do you want her vest? 

[00:37:27] Adam Cox: Or she's there at the sizzle reel with like bandages around her head. 

[00:37:32] Kyle Risi: Poor 

[00:37:32] Tippi. 

[00:37:33] Tippi, of course, she's rushed to hospital, right? Where she needed a bunch of stitches, but in order to properly stitch her up, they needed to shave her head. But Tippi was like, no, I do not have time for my hair to regrow back. So she insisted they just stitch her up as is and that's exactly what they did. So she has this awful scar under, under her hairline.

[00:37:56] And the injuries, Adam, they just kept coming. One of the worst [00:38:00] injuries came from Timbo. That's one of the deranged elephants. They were trying to film a stunt where Timbo was supposed to gently lift Tippi up with his trunk and place her on his back.

[00:38:10] But when no one called action, Timbo yanked Tippi off the ground in such a way that she snapped her ankle and then Timbo finally plonked her on his back. He then bucks her off, which she then falls and then shatters her wrist. That was the scene that we watched twice last night. Do you remember when she was running away and her wrist is just flailing around and it's completely broken?

[00:38:29] Adam Cox: It didn't look right, but she was a trooper and she carried on, which I'm surprised about, but I guess, again, they've got to get the footage, they've got to make it work. 

[00:38:38] Kyle Risi: Yeah. 

[00:38:38] Adam Cox: I have to, like, she should have won an Oscar. 

[00:38:41] Kyle Risi: At one point, Adam, she develops such a major infection, like an inflammation of the vein, they call it, which Essentially turned to gangrene. This got so serious that she had to be sent to intensive care for a few months alongside one of Noel's sons, who was there on a separate incident. And [00:39:00] when she recovered, she was then back on set, almost as if nothing had happened. You're right, she's a trooper. 

[00:39:05] Adam Cox: Yeah, and thank God that they're family, because there's no other way, no other way any other actor would be going back to that set.

[00:39:12] Kyle Risi: It is wild to me that they just didn't shut the whole thing down right there and then at that point, because of course that is your wife, right? She has been injured. She's had her ankle broken and she's had her wrist shattered.

[00:39:21] But remember, I guess they believed that this film was going to have this major positive impact and get people behind protecting these animals. Plus Adam, they didn't come this far to just give up. Mm hmm. Five years in now, right? They've got another five years to go. You're halfway through. Yeah. So just keep going.

[00:39:37] And so, as you can imagine, this leads to a total disregard for their safety, including their kids. And don't be fooled. The cats also injured the kids. At one point Melanie did quit because before filming they would establish like the safe word which they would shout whenever they wanted to get out of a situation, but during a scene that was getting really out of hand, Melanie repeatedly shouted that safety word, but Noel just ignored her [00:40:00] because he felt that the authentic fear in her face would look amazing on camera.

[00:40:03] No. No, it's so awful. And following this, she tried to quit, but Noel just convinced her to come back and surprise surprise. Shortly after, she sustained such a major gash from the corner of her mouth right up to her forehead narrowly missing her eyeball. It was so bad she needed 50 stitches and several rounds of cosmetic surgery to try and minimise the scars. So she was scarred for life because of this and it's all because he was negligent. 

[00:40:32] Adam Cox: So generally, I can understand why she doesn't want to talk about this now, because not only metaphorically scarred for life, 

[00:40:39] Kyle Risi: But physically as well. And of course the boys got injured as well. One time a lion got hold of John's, head. He locked onto it for 25 minutes while other crews struggled to get the lion to get let go. He ended up getting 60 stitches. Of course, it scarred up like a bitch because an infection set in as well.

[00:40:57] Adam Cox: And is that why he went into intensive care? 

[00:40:59] Kyle Risi: [00:41:00] No, so that's just Jerry. So Jerry, he's the other son. He ended up losing a pint of blood on his way to hospital after a lion got him in the leg. And again, a major infection set in. So he was in intensive care right there alongside Tippy, just within days. 

[00:41:14] Adam Cox: I can't believe this.

[00:41:15] This is horrendous. 

[00:41:16] Kyle Risi: It's so bad. Of course, Adam, tons of crew left as well, mostly after being attacked themselves. This meant that as well as starring in the movie, Noel's sons had to take on roles of the crew as well. So they handled things like the boom mic or filled in for injured cameramen, even filling in as the first aid officer because they kept getting attacked.

[00:41:41] I mean, that's your whole job and you kept getting attacked. 

[00:41:46] Adam Cox: I mean, maybe he, the first aid officer, is probably the most safety conscious and is getting himself into loads of trouble, when everyone else is just running away. 

[00:41:53] Kyle Risi: Adam, think about it though, like, attacks are not coming from one direction. It's literally 360 degrees, they're above [00:42:00] you. They're below you, then the size of you, then the left you, the right of you, everywhere. 

[00:42:03] Adam Cox: It's, it feels like you're in a trap, like you're falling into some, I don't know, dark cave and there's just like monsters everywhere. 

[00:42:11] Kyle Risi: Yeah. And when you're in the house, because of course there's balconies, there's stairs, they are literally everywhere.

[00:42:16] Adam Cox: There's a scene which, I don't know if it's intentional or not, you never know with this movie, but I'm pretty sure Hank is, trying to convince someone that they're really friendly, they're lovely, and then all of a sudden, this lion comes running off camera and just tackles him and pushes him over and then about 10 lions just jump on top of him like any moment he could have been mauled and he's like going trying to smile to the camera going like this is great 

[00:42:40] Kyle Risi: yeah he's like oh that's great It's Togar. Don't mind him. He's the boss around here. And it's he's literally, his hand is bleeding, his face is bleeding, his clothes are literally ripped off. And like, he's saying all these words, but he's holding his hands out in front of him, like in fear. Yeah. Hey! 

[00:42:58] Adam Cox: There is that other actor. I don't [00:43:00] know what his role exactly was. He was the one that was the friend that he was getting the tour of the place at the very beginning. Yeah. You can tell he was scared. He was scared. Because he's just, he was on edge all the time. 

[00:43:11] Kyle Risi: At one point 20 crew members quit on the spot after seeing the director of photography, y Deon getting literally mutilated. It was Cherries again. That's the one who had already bit and tippy, right? Mm-Hmm. . What had happened is that while Yan was shooting a scene from under a Top. As the lions were supposed to run past, his movements caught the attention of Cherries. to investigate. She swipes. And peels his scalp all the way from the back of his head right to his forehead. 

[00:43:40] Adam Cox: No. 

[00:43:41] Kyle Risi: She scalped him. She scalped him.

[00:43:44] Adam Cox: I don't know what to say. I'm just shocked. I mean, I was generally in fear for their lives watching some of it, but hearing these stories 

[00:43:51] Kyle Risi: So he had this bloody flap of hair and skin just dangling over his face, and for a moment he didn't even realize what had happened.[00:44:00]

[00:44:00] So John then rushes over, he flips the flap back over in place, he wraps his head in a towel, and he drives into hospital! And then soon as Jan was out of sight, John is on the phone calling around for a new director of photography because his main concern was making sure that they didn't lose too many more days of shooting.

[00:44:20] Adam Cox: This thing should have been shut down. Why were the police not alerted? I don't know. This is, this is horrendous. Even, why did the crew not complain to someone if they all, like, quit on the spot? 

[00:44:30] Kyle Risi: guess because they're not unionised, who are you going to complain to, hey? Who is it? Yeah. But luckily, Jan didn't want to leave because as soon as he was stitched up, by the way, he required 220 stitches. That's a lot. That is a lot. He went straight back to set, but they did lose 20 crew members that day. 

[00:44:46] Adam Cox: I'm sorry, these people are crazy if they keep going back. 

[00:44:48] Kyle Risi: Yes, but here is the coolest thing. Because Jan went on to direct some huge blockbusters, including Speed 1, Speed 2, Twister, he was a cinematographer for [00:45:00] Die Hard, so he became this really big deal in Hollywood, and Raw was where he started.

[00:45:06] Adam Cox: Wow, so he'd learned that kind of, nail biting kind of action movies. 

[00:45:10] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, some scenes in the film were good. Mm. And that was probably because he filmed those bits. 

[00:45:17] Adam Cox: Yeah. To be fair, there were moments which were entertaining.

[00:45:20] Kyle Risi: Yeah. I mean, the whole thing was 

[00:45:21] Adam Cox: entertaining for all the wrong reasons, for the wrong reasons. , 

[00:45:24] Kyle Risi: then of course, there's no. He gets attacked a lot mostly it's because he's determined to get a decent shot of the action. In the movie, he's constantly just dripping with blood. He's constantly pinned, constantly being tackled. He gets swiped left and right all over the place. And remember, this film was meant to feel wholesome in parts. But despite the absolute chaos that you're watching on screen, the dialogue, as we said, is like, Oh, Togar, come on. It's no time for playing. Meanwhile, in the background, there's literally a fight to the death happening between three male lions.

[00:45:58] Did any of the lions die? [00:46:00] Well, we'll get onto that. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. It is sad. But Noel when he is talking to the Lions, he uses that kind of polite tone of voice. Kind of, kind of like that tone of voice that you use when someone else is Monster kid has been an absolute bastard to you, right in front of their parents

[00:46:16] And you're like, oh, no, Gary. No Gary. Don't do that. No. Gary, when you really wanna say. Tell your fucking kids to get off of me! You know what I mean? 

[00:46:24] Adam Cox: What a hit, Gary. Yeah, 

[00:46:26] Kyle Risi: that's how he was talking. He was being so polite and like nurturing and loving towards these animals because again, it was a family film. When really he was like, don't bite my fucking hand! 

[00:46:36] Adam Cox: Please let go! And also, I guess the whole point of this movie is that these humans and animals can live in harmony together. Which they absolutely cannot. Look 

[00:46:46] Kyle Risi: how they destroyed the house! They didn't even have a house at the end! In harmony! Oh, better get the builders in again.

[00:46:54] Oh, one of the dumbest things he does though, as we mentioned earlier on, is he jumps [00:47:00] in between four fighting lions, trying to break them up. And he's kind of like yelling at them and slapping them. And then boom, one of the lions chomps down on his hand, and there's just blood everywhere.

[00:47:11] And the cameras just keep rolling. And then the next thing, he's in the house, surrounded by 40 other lions trying to bandage up his hand.

[00:47:21] By the way, this makes it into the final cut. And while he's trying to stop the bleeding, There's these other eight other lines, just like tugging at the bandage that's dangling down, and it's just absolutely ridiculous. He can't get anything done, and that's what I mean. Every second of the film is just one hectic moment after the next.

[00:47:39] It's 

[00:47:39] Adam Cox: brilliant. 

[00:47:39] It's like dangling some string along to a kitten, and they just won't let go, and he's trying to like carry on with the scene. 

[00:47:47] Kyle Risi: He's but I'm bleeding, Togar. Gary, don't do that. And of course he gets loads of infections which nearly kills him when it develops into sepsis and gangrene. And there were three separate injuries to both his legs and his [00:48:00] arms, where literally doctors seriously floated the idea that if the infection got any worse, They would have to amputate.

[00:48:07] So it's remarkable that nobody was killed in this film. Obviously, as more and more crew members left, they began sharing their stories of the numerous close calls they had experienced. And soon the media started reporting that this was yet another cursed production by Noel Marshall. Because Noel's career originally took off after he worked as a producer On The Exorcist.

[00:48:32] Oh really? Yeah! So now people were drawing these parallels between The Exorcist and Raw, saying, oh, The Exorcist curse strikes again. Which, I mean, pretty much did.

[00:48:43] Another major story that makes the headlines in The Hollywood Reporter was when the assistant director arrived on his first and only day on set. And he was viciously attacked. Basically, Togar, one of the lead lions, bit the assistant director [00:49:00] clean through the neck, missing his jugular by just one centimetre, Adam. Oh my god. He also then pulled his ear off. And obviously while he survived, it was reported as being nearly fatal. And again, another casualty that had to undergo extensive surgery because a lion had attacked him. Literally ripped his ear off. 

[00:49:21] Adam Cox: What kind of insurance do you have for this? . 

[00:49:23] Kyle Risi: No one was going to cover that, are they? But basically, Adam, hopefully that explains to you why all of this took five years to finish the filming, 

[00:49:30] Adam Cox: yeah, and what's weird is the fact that, The cast don't look like they've aged much. I don't know. I'm not, I really want to rewatch it now knowing that it's five years because I just, 

[00:49:39] Kyle Risi: yeah, I guess so. Because Melanie would have been what 17 at the time. So they probably finished filming at what 23. 

[00:49:45] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:49:46] Kyle Risi: But basically the delays are all due to the many, many casualties. But also because the ranch was built on a floodplain and prone to wildfires.

[00:49:53] So inevitably, these things were going to happen eventually. And after a three meter [00:50:00] flood, the set was completely destroyed. So they had to rebuild the entire thing from scratch. That flood knocked down the fences that were keeping the cats in the complex So 15 of those cats escaped and they started roaming around california And the sad thing is that some of them were shot by the police Including the star of the film a huge lion that they called robbie Which again delayed filming until they found a replacement Which they couldn't So that's why some lines have that blood in their face so they can go Oh, that's that line that we're talking about because we've seen him before with all the blood and he's the bad line or whatever 

[00:50:37] Adam Cox: Okay 

[00:50:37] Kyle Risi: But also wildfires tore through the ranch as well. Again, destroying the set and again, they had to rebuild it. Luckily, though, no animals were lost during the fires. But again, it just caused more delays and more delays were caused by just the ferocious fights that would break out between the lines, which we saw firsthand. Having that many male lines in such [00:51:00] a small, confined space, of course they're gonna fight. They're competing for territory. And so having to treat all of their injuries just ended up costing a ton in vet bills. 

[00:51:11] Adam Cox: I was just thinking the money that must have been spent on this production. Do you know how much was? I do. And I'm going to come on to that. 

[00:51:18] Kyle Risi: But I want to tell you about one more delay.

[00:51:20] Adam Cox: Okay, fine. 

[00:51:21] Kyle Risi: So there was also an outbreak of a feline virus as well, that resulted in a bunch of the lines needing to be put down as well, because they were kept in such a confined space, they weren't in pens or anything, but the territory of the ranch just wasn't big enough to house them all. And so they were literally hemorrhaging money and blood.

[00:51:44] Blood all over the shop. So the initial budget was 3 million with a one year timeline, it ended up taking 11 years and they spent a total of 17 million. In today's money, that is 93 [00:52:00] million dollars. 

[00:52:01] Adam Cox: That's not as much as I thought it could have got up to. Oh, you thought it was more?

[00:52:05] But I do wonder if that's what's reported. Mm hmm. I'm just wondering about all these extra, like, debt bills and whatever bills, if that's included. Because that could be just production costs. Yeah. Then you've got everything else. 

[00:52:17] Kyle Risi: But also along the way they lost all of their investors. So yeah, 93 million dollars now all of a sudden seems a hell of a lot when you don't have any investors, right?

[00:52:24] Oh yeah, 

[00:52:24] Adam Cox: yeah. 

[00:52:25] Kyle Risi: It did reach the point where they just had to stop altogether. So they decided that they were just going to make do with the footage that they had so far, hoping that they could piece together enough of a plot as best as they could, which is why the plot is so messy and almost in some places impossible to follow.

[00:52:45] Adam Cox: Yeah, it kind of ends abruptly a little bit, doesn't it? Like, oh, everything's all happy families after a while. 

[00:52:50] Kyle Risi: Adam, you didn't even see Sunset come. Remember they fell asleep? And then it was morning. But this all happened during the day. 

[00:52:57] Adam Cox: I think I was still in shock. I didn't, I [00:53:00] didn't really question the plot holes. There was no night scene. Now that you say that, yeah. And you say like, yeah, um, the feline virus and everything that and a few others that got killed. But I'm sure at the end of the movie, didn't it say no animals were hurt? 

[00:53:14] Kyle Risi: Yep. So that means. No animals were hurt during the rolling of the cameras during the making of the film. Of course, there were loads of casualties. Some got shot, some died from feline, like, virus or whatever. Some 

[00:53:29] Adam Cox: of them killed each other. So they're trying to like protect the lions. Mm hmm. But actually Oh, we're gonna come on to the irony bits in a 

[00:53:36] Kyle Risi: second. But finally in 1981 they cobbled together the final product and it was marketed as a family friendly adventure comedy and the tagline was a ferocious comedy, but surprise No American distributor wanted to touch the movie at all.

[00:53:54] And that's because everyone had heard about what a nightmare filming was and the huge number of casualties. [00:54:00] And the fear was that if they distributed the film and it gained any amount of success, then people would file lawsuits for the injuries that they had sustained. Not to mention that Distributors didn't want to be associated with a film that had exploited non union workers, endangered their lives, and probably mistreated a bunch of animals.

[00:54:21] Plus also, the movie was pretty bad. They 

[00:54:24] Adam Cox: probably 

[00:54:24] Kyle Risi: think, yeah, this is not going to make money. Apart from a few scenes which were obviously shot by Jan de Bont, largely, it was, it was a bit of a catastrophe.

[00:54:32] Hang on, let me take that back. I really, I really like watching it. I really enjoyed it. But I, I liked it for what it was. And that was a pile of crap. 

[00:54:40] Adam Cox: Yeah. Yeah. And there were some amazing bits of footage of the cats and stuff like that, which you even throughout the whole, craziness. There's a lot I can appreciate given how traumatic the shoot was. The fact that they managed to even put out a film with no one dying, I think is a miracle. [00:55:00]

[00:55:00] Kyle Risi: Yeah, exactly. You could even argue that this was the luckiest film ever made, not the most dangerous. But the thing is though, the story was stupid, the dialogue was appalling, the acting was even worse, and the, I mean, the overdubbing, that was amateur at best.

[00:55:13] So I loved it. I mean, we've said it so many times. It was just scene after scene of people just being mauled by animals, screaming, crying, bleeding, all while trying to make out that what you're seeing on screen was just play between humans and beasts, essentially. Also, they set it to this really goofy music.

[00:55:32] So all you heard was like, Dump, de dump, de dump, ba bump, ba dump, ba dump. Yeah. And the thing is that my theory is that they had to do this so that the viewer would know that it was meant to be a family friendly, film in spite of clearly seeing, like, someone getting slashed by a tiger. Otherwise they wouldn't know that it was meant to be, like, joyful. 

[00:55:50] Adam Cox: Yeah, exactly. There was moments where someone's, yeah, being gripped by a lion and you're like, oh, this is a fun part.

[00:55:57] Kyle Risi: So the film ends up being screened only in a handful of [00:56:00] countries, including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Japan. But the screening only lasts a week and then it just disappears. So it took basically 11 years, 17 million, tons of injuries, and it didn't even make two million dollars.

[00:56:13] So the next year, Tippi and Noel, surprise, they filed for divorce as a direct result of the movie, and also how Noel treated his family.

[00:56:23] Adam Cox: Yeah. It's interesting that she filed for divorce. She wasn't happy with the way that he treated the family. No. But she went with it because they needed to get it done, maybe? 

[00:56:33] Kyle Risi: I guess so, yeah. Yeah. Wow. In the divorce, Tippi, she obviously got to keep the ranch, which she ended up transforming into a big cat sanctuary named Shambhala Preserve. That's right. And today, basically, she's doing what Carole Baskin does. 

[00:56:48] Adam Cox: That's what she she killed her husband. 

[00:56:51] Kyle Risi: I think if they had stayed married that might have happened But today she's 94. She's still running the ranch and she continues to take in rescues she [00:57:00] also raises money and awareness against the exploitation of exotic animals and since then she's written two books and she Completely which I respect completely acknowledges that what she and Noel did was utterly stupid that they were just arrogant and they should never have created such a dangerous environment for themselves and for others and she says that while she regrets what they did she was very heavily led by Noel which you can get a sense of in the film. But I genuinely think that they were acting with integrity, because remember, in the 1960s, they were predicting that poaching would wipe out a ton of different species by the year 2000, so they felt that they needed to act with urgency, and they were from Hollywood, and so they The only thing that they could offer, in terms of skills, was make a movie, right? You lean into what you can offer, and I guess just along the way they just ended up losing their way. 

[00:57:54] Adam Cox: I think they're just too far into it to really turn back. I mean, they could have created a very [00:58:00] similar movie, maybe with just five lines. Or, or ten, max. And it would have probably still had the same effect as Guy living amongst a herd.

[00:58:07] Mm hmm. Or a pack, what are they called? A pride. A pride. A pride of lions. And that would have been nice. And probably less people would have been injured. 

[00:58:16] Kyle Risi: Less people would have been scalped, mauled, or pinned and attacked. 

[00:58:20] Adam Cox: Yeah, and no lions might not have been killed.

[00:58:22] Exactly. And it probably would have been shot in a year or two. And do you know what? It probably would have made money. 

[00:58:27] Kyle Risi: I guess they just wanted to go big, right? Go big or go home. 

[00:58:31] Adam Cox: Go home. 

[00:58:31] Kyle Risi: I respect what they did. I don't like some of the things that happened, but I respect what they did.

[00:58:37] Adam Cox: Yeah.

[00:58:38] Kyle Risi: As for Noel, Roar pretty much ended his career in entertainment. He did try working on one or two projects after this, but that didn't work out. So he found a new career in hospital administration and eventually he sadly died from a brain tumor in 2010. So he lived a long time, but for all those years, the movie just got lost to history until [00:59:00] 2015 when John Marshall, one of Noel's sons, managed to convince a distribution company who specializes in like hidden gem type movies to buy the movie. And the original poster, which features two lions in an like an old style car with the tagline ferocious comedy on it, that ends up getting replaced with real images of Noel being mauled, and they give it a new tagline, Which is appropriate.

[00:59:24] The most dangerous movie ever made. 

[00:59:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, that works better. That's what it's known for, right? And I guess this rebranding really helped it. 

[00:59:32] Kyle Risi: I think it did because it did really well. It sold really well on DVD and Blu ray under kind of the cult classic genre. And since then, it's now accessible entirely on YouTube.

[00:59:42] I don't know how much longer that's going to last for. But there really is no excuse. Everyone should go and watch it. Of course, we'll link to that in the show notes. 

[00:59:51] But as for Melanie Griffith, like, she hasn't said very much about the experience at all. The only real snippets that we've gotten are on the [01:00:00] rare occasions where Dakota Johnson has briefly mentioned like how wild her mother's childhood was growing up.

[01:00:06] But as we alluded to, I, I just get the sense that Melanie just doesn't want to revisit it. And it's probably because it was a very traumatic time for her in her life. So I I guess we understand that, right? Especially that memory of someone you love deliberately putting you in a dangerous situation, agreeing to use your safe word, and then just ignoring you. That just must be traumatizing. Like you would never do that. Like our safe word is banana. 

[01:00:30] Adam Cox: Banana. 

[01:00:31] Kyle Risi: So John Marshall does attest to how horrible Noel was growing up, especially on set. He talks about how short his temper was and how he just became completely consumed with making raw and I guess it just became an obsession for him after all like he sunk everything that the family had. into that. So it was, it literally was ride or die, but at what cost? Because in the end, he was left with nothing except obviously strained relationships with his family members. 

[01:00:58] Adam Cox: He wasn't left with the lions, was he? [01:01:00] He could keep them. 

[01:01:01] Kyle Risi: Do you know what? I do not know what happened to the lions. I guess a bunch of them must have gone to the Shambhala Preserve with Tippi, but 130 of them?

[01:01:09] Damn. 

[01:01:10] Adam Cox: I can just imagine, everyone deserting on the last day, leaving him with all these lines, and he's got like, Like, see ya! Yeah, and what am I going to do with these? 

[01:01:18] Kyle Risi: So, if you watch it, be prepared, for 90 minutes of utter chaos, but also be very aware that the violence and the blood and the injuries and the fear that you see is all real.

[01:01:27] And, I felt really bad for the animals, because, This isn't their natural environment. No matter what the set looks like, because it looked like Africa, that's California. And there's just no way that that many lions are getting proper care and attention that they need. The irony is that while a film was meant to bring awareness and end poaching, somewhere in that process, they inevitably probably caused trauma to the very same animals that they were trying to protect.

[01:01:53] Adam Cox: Yeah, and They probably didn't even think of that when they were doing it at the time. No. It's only in hindsight, or probably if you just take [01:02:00] stock of what's going on, like, oh, what have we done? 

[01:02:02] Kyle Risi: So if you do make it through the entire film, and I mean, if you make it to the very end of the credits, They do include like a sort of to do list that the viewer can kind of adopt to help end animal exploitation so you they made all of that where there's the actual purpose of that film was those four little bullet points at the very very end of the credits where it was like oh you can like not buy furs or you can support like a non profit organization that supports animals or like you should show disgust and anyone who like buys ivory or buys a fur coat There's four things like that, but that was it at the very end of the film.

[01:02:40] Adam Cox: Yeah, and they're really making a wild assumption that people are going to sit through the entire movie and then the credits. We did. We did. That's true. 

[01:02:49] Kyle Risi: But I knew to look out for the credits. 

[01:02:50] Adam Cox: Oh, okay. 

[01:02:51] Kyle Risi: The good news is that after this fiasco, new rules were actually introduced to govern how animals are treated on movie sets. But you also have to appreciate the [01:03:00] irony of making a movie about saving and protecting animals that ended up being so bad that it resulted in new laws. 

[01:03:06] Adam Cox: About protecting animals.

[01:03:10] Kyle Risi: Win win, I guess.

[01:03:14] And Adam, that, my friend, is the story of Raw, the most dangerous film ever made. 

[01:03:21] Adam Cox: That is a wild ride. 

[01:03:24] Kyle Risi: I'm really glad that we watched last night. I'm glad you watched with me.

[01:03:27] I

[01:03:27] Adam Cox: Yeah, it was, uh, it was fun. Definitely worth a watch. It's just, you have to see it to believe it.

[01:03:32] Kyle Risi: If you do want to know more, like I said, watch the film. You can access on YouTube free of charge. There are also, of course, a couple 20 to 30 minute kind of making of. Videos if you can find them I can find them out there, but they do exist They're listed on the website.

[01:03:46] I would have 

[01:03:47] Adam Cox: loved to watch the behind the scenes. Yes of people just being shipped off in like ambulance

[01:03:52] Kyle Risi: Oh god, actually i'm gonna try harder To find them because the list is on their website but I couldn't find any digital copies anywhere There [01:04:00] are obviously a few videos floating around on the internet With interviews with some of the actors, one of the most famous interviews is of one of the Native Africans who starred in the movie.

[01:04:08] That's TiVo, the guy that you saw at the very beginning and almost everyone in the movie was cast under their own name for safety purposes. So that if like someone had to yell out at you to kinda like, Hey, watch out, then there would be no confusion about who they were shouting out to.

[01:04:23] 'cause you don't wanna get your stage name confused with your actual name, right? 

[01:04:26] Adam Cox: Yeah, but the fact that they thought that beforehand 

[01:04:30] Kyle Risi: Yeah! 

[01:04:31] Adam Cox: Just goes to show what they were putting themselves into. 

[01:04:35] Kyle Risi: Exactly, but then also, it does show that they had some sensible safety standards.

[01:04:39] What, calling each other by their real name? Yeah, it's the least they could do.

[01:04:43] Adam Cox: No. 

[01:04:43] Kyle Risi: But Mativo, uh, he's a Kenya native and he obviously points out like, duh, in real life we don't actually live with these animals in the way that's depicted in the film. and we certainly don't cuddle with them. But he said that when he finished shooting for the day [01:05:00] he would get the hell out of there as quickly as he could and he just couldn't believe how people just hung around afterwards with these ferocious beasts just lurking literally everywhere above you below you to the side to the left everywhere none of them are in cages so he was just pretty much These crazy white people and their arrogance is just outrageous, basically, and it's true!

[01:05:21] Adam Cox: Yeah. 

[01:05:21] Kyle Risi: So, yeah. That was Raw. 

[01:05:24] Adam Cox: Good. Good story. 

[01:05:26] Kyle Risi: So should we run the outro for this week? 

[01:05:28] Adam Cox: Let's do it. 

[01:05:29] Kyle Risi: And that wraps up another journey into the fascinating and the intriguing on the compendium. If today's episode tickled your curiosity, then please don't forget to hit that follow button on your favorite podcasting app.

[01:05:40] It makes the world a difference when you do. And for our diehard listeners, Next week's episode is waiting for you on our Patreon completely free of charge. If you are hungry for more then join our Certified Freaks tier to unlock our entire archive and enjoy exclusive content and get sneak peeks of what's coming up [01:06:00] next.

[01:06:00] New episodes drop every Tuesday and until then remember, sometimes the real beast isn't the lion, it's the idea that you can tame it. 

[01:06:09] See you next time. 

[01:06:10] See ya.