{"id":11647,"date":"2015-06-18T04:05:15","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T08:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11647"},"modified":"2015-06-18T04:18:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-18T08:18:17","slug":"the-return-of-roar-1981-some-rare-publicity-materials-from-down-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=11647","title":{"rendered":"The Return of ROAR (1981) + some rare publicity materials from down under."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Roar_DrafthouseFilms_poster_m\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Way, waaaay back when I was in high school, I picked up a book by the Medved brothers called The Golden Turkey Awards<\/strong>, and soon grabbed their next work, The Hollywood Hall of Shame<\/strong>, a tome that didn\u2019t necessarily chronicle bad movies per se, but big bloated wastes of money, or epic productions whose content was more pungent than the most vicious unpasteurized cheese.<\/p>\n

In the back was a tally of other works whose worth wasn\u2019t less than the bigger blunders, but likely couldn\u2019t fit into the main section and be dissected in full detail.<\/p>\n

The Medveds were great at researching and using acrid wit to smackdown movies that deserved a good pelting of fresh tomatoes, but as with anyone reading a review of a movie that\u2019s supposedly dreadful, the question that really emerged was \u2018Was it really that awful?\u2019<\/p>\n

Maybe for most, but then what\u2019s bad can be good-bad, or actually good, depending on one\u2019s preferences. I\u2019ll defend Joseph Mankiewicz\u2019s Cleopatra<\/strong> (1963) because as bloated as that studio-killer may be, it\u2019s not the mess that critics made it out to be. It has its detractors, but there are admirers of At Long Last Love<\/a><\/strong> (1975) who feel Peter Bogdanovich was given a raw deal (although I beg to differ).<\/p>\n

Roar<\/strong> (1981) has been a small personal obsession since I read about it in the Medveds\u2019 book because it was unseen taboo, golden fromage that had been experienced by a select few.<\/p>\n

The core facts: former Alfred Hitchcock leading lady Tippi Hedren (The Birds<\/strong>, Marnie<\/strong>) produced with husband Noel Marshall what became a $17 million big cat movie that took 11 years to complete. People were bitten on the head, including future Die Hard<\/strong> cinematographer Jan de Bont, who stuck with filming like an a rabidly loyal trooper.<\/p>\n

Melanie Griffith co-starred with mother Hedren because like her screen \/ real-life brothers, she grew up with the film\u2019s big cats, as Hedren and Marshall had founded their own big cat sanctuary. The casting of the Marshall family made sense, but eleven years<\/em> seems like a long time to finish the thing.<\/p>\n

Roar<\/strong> vanished from distribution, but Hedren\u2019s Shambala<\/a> sanctuary flourished, and I recall her appearing on one of the network morning shows to discuss her partial autobiography that chronicled both its founding and the making of Roar<\/a><\/strong>, as both endeavours complimented each other.<\/p>\n

Years later when I was working in a book store, Hedren\u2019s book popped up as a remainder, and I read the book cover-to-cover, lapping up the crazy events \u2013 floods, animal \/ human accidents \u2013 that plagued the film, and the tragedy of losing cats when a few strayed from the sanctuary after a flood and were shot by authorities.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no denying Roar <\/strong>is a labour of love bearing one major message for audiences \u2013 save the big cats \u2013 so seeing the film at Toronto’s Royal Cinema<\/a> two weeks ago was a little surreal. Behind myself and a friend were a row of twentysomethings who\u2019d clearly come to relish a bad movie, whereas I couldn\u2019t watch the film without thinking of Hedren\u2019s book, and her deep affection for the cats.<\/p>\n

The back row didn\u2019t ruin the experience \u2013 the film\u2019s flaws are major \u2013 but they were clearly experiencing a different kind of cult movie. Roar<\/strong> isn\u2019t very good, but it lives up to the P.R. in having footage no one would ever attempt to replicate again. The danger factor is sky-high, and the unique relationship between the Marshalls and the cats may have been the only thing that stopped the family from becoming dinner.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written a 2000+ word review because quite frankly the film deserves it, backstory and analysis and all, although it\u2019ll be revised when the film is released on Blu-ray by Olive Films \/ Drafthouse Films<\/a> in the fall.<\/p>\n

\"Roar1981_R2_s\"<\/a>Also referenced throughout the review is the 2006 German Region 2 DVD I picked up that year when I visited my aunt. I\u2019ve had the DVD for years, but never watched it, hoping a domestic release would one day arrive rather than this NTSC-PAL conversion that\u2019s also flawed. I\u2019ve noted some differences, including running times, credits, and other oddities caught by the film\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n

There are people who were touched by the film, and given the level of endangered species in Africa hasn\u2019t diminished since 1981, while the earnestness of the film may cause a chuckle or three, before laughing too hard or too loud, think of species like the northern white rhino, of which there\u2019s a single 42 year old male in poor breeding health, and two females in the wild. The few living in zoos are female.<\/p>\n

When he dies, the species is dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m working on a related piece for Roar<\/strong>, but I do have a few pages that make up what was apparently part of the film\u2019s Australian publicity tour. Near the end of the film review<\/a>, you’ll find a link to a separate page with the mid-fi scans.<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> Teruo Ishii\u2019s weird & wonderful <\/span>Blind Woman\u2019s Curse<\/strong> from Arrow Video \/ MVD Visual, and double-bill reviews of Pat Boone\u2019s two forays into film acting in Fox\u2019 <\/span>Bernadine<\/strong> and <\/span>April Love<\/strong> (both from 1957), with the latter released on Blu from Twilight Time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lengthy review of Tippi Hedren’s ROAR (1981), currently touring cinemas courtesy of Olive Films and Drafthouse Films + some rare Aussie publicity pap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11663,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[2562,2563,3725,3222,2974,3720,3724,3721],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Roar_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-31R","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11647"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11666,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11647\/revisions\/11666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}