Winston T. Boogie
Senior HTF Member
Dr. Dolittle (1967)
It turns out that if you hire over a thousand animals to work with Rex Harrison, some of them are definitely going to piss on him. This is fair enough, as Harrison was a demanding and obnoxious presence on set, with he and his entourage racially abusing other actors and demanding their roles be reduced. And his casting had seemed such a good idea at the time.
After the success of My Fair Lady it seemed sensible to ask for another film from Harrison, Lerner and Loewe. Loewe had retired, and Lerner was fired after a year of procrastination. The script had trouble working in a romance, and removing the more racist elements of Hugh Lofting’s source material. The replacement writer hadn’t written a cinema screenplay before, and wanted to impress the producer by rattling out a draft. Meanwhile Harrison demanded the firing of Sammy Davis Jr. from the role of a character that would later be cut, insisting that he be replaced in the musical by Sidney Poitier. The production hired Christopher Plummer to replace Harrison, paid him in full, but kept Harrison when the actor decided to take part after all.
Shooting in Wiltshire was interrupted by both the traditionally moist British summer and the less traditional having Ranulph Fiennes bomb the production’s artificial dam. He didn’t think it in-keeping with the village’s rustic aesthetic. Re-shoots took place in studio in California.
The giant mechanical snail prop didn’t work properly, and by unfortunate coincidence the local children of St Lucia had been struck by a possibly metaphorical stomach bug caused by freshwater snails. People threw rocks at the snail in response. A giraffe died before it could be insured. The production hired ducks that couldn’t swim.
Then the film got sued when elements of a previous draft turned up without the writer being credited. The writer had assumed that it was from the books, rather than an abandoned script, and so they were sued quite successfully. The scene in question wasn’t ultimately filmed.
The original budget of $6 million tripled over the four year production.
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/...054/19-ambitious-movies-that-didnt-go-to-plan
It turns out that if you hire over a thousand animals to work with Rex Harrison, some of them are definitely going to piss on him. This is fair enough, as Harrison was a demanding and obnoxious presence on set, with he and his entourage racially abusing other actors and demanding their roles be reduced. And his casting had seemed such a good idea at the time.
After the success of My Fair Lady it seemed sensible to ask for another film from Harrison, Lerner and Loewe. Loewe had retired, and Lerner was fired after a year of procrastination. The script had trouble working in a romance, and removing the more racist elements of Hugh Lofting’s source material. The replacement writer hadn’t written a cinema screenplay before, and wanted to impress the producer by rattling out a draft. Meanwhile Harrison demanded the firing of Sammy Davis Jr. from the role of a character that would later be cut, insisting that he be replaced in the musical by Sidney Poitier. The production hired Christopher Plummer to replace Harrison, paid him in full, but kept Harrison when the actor decided to take part after all.
Shooting in Wiltshire was interrupted by both the traditionally moist British summer and the less traditional having Ranulph Fiennes bomb the production’s artificial dam. He didn’t think it in-keeping with the village’s rustic aesthetic. Re-shoots took place in studio in California.
The giant mechanical snail prop didn’t work properly, and by unfortunate coincidence the local children of St Lucia had been struck by a possibly metaphorical stomach bug caused by freshwater snails. People threw rocks at the snail in response. A giraffe died before it could be insured. The production hired ducks that couldn’t swim.
Then the film got sued when elements of a previous draft turned up without the writer being credited. The writer had assumed that it was from the books, rather than an abandoned script, and so they were sued quite successfully. The scene in question wasn’t ultimately filmed.
The original budget of $6 million tripled over the four year production.
http://www.denofgeek.com/uk/movies/...054/19-ambitious-movies-that-didnt-go-to-plan
