THE DAY I QUIT THE BEASTMASTER

The Beastmaster ended up being my Waterloo. The night before shooting started, when most financiers would ring up and give you a few words of encouragement, like “I hope your shoot goes well,” I too received such a call, with a few extra words tacked on. “I hope your shoot goes well, and if not, I will replace you.” Great motivation, eh?

During the first week of shooting, things were pretty rocky. The “brain trust” (and I use that term loosely) came very close to firing cameraman John Alcott due to some focus issues with the anamorphic lenses. Anamorphic lenses are a very traditional motion picture tool that squeeze a wide-screen image onto standard 35 mm film; the anamorphic projection lens then unsqueezes the image onto the screen in the theater. Without my consultation, or John’s approval, they decided to scrap the first two days of shooting and switch to a standard lens system. (Later, when they realized their mistake and refused to pay for a reshoot, they optically unsqueezed that footage and actually used it in the finished film. Check out the sequence in which young Dar is threatened by the bear—to this day it still looks visually god-awful.) To second-guess one of the greatest cinematographers in movie history about lens choice was an ill-advised and fatuous move.

A couple of days later word came down that I was officially in the doghouse. Our moneyman intimated that I would probably be fired as director of The Beastmaster. This idea that I could be fired seemed ludicrous, but after battling on so many creative fronts during preproduction, including the casting issues, the unilateral dialog rewriting going on in secret by the CD and some writer he had hired, and the forced change in animal trainers, I tended to ignore these rumors. I knew the situation was really bad, but I was facing seventy-two days of shooting on a six-day-per-week shooting schedule, mostly outdoors in the elements. I was just trying to keep my head above water and get through each day of work. We were shooting full twelve-hour days, so with lunch, the hour commute each way to the Simi Valley location, and the production meetings before and after work, I was averaging barely four hours of sleep per night, if I was lucky. On top of that I was sick—I had developed pneumonia and was living on antibiotics. Due to stress I wouldn’t shake it for two full months.

To make matters worse, just prior to shooting, the CD had fired his assistant producer (remember Jeff, the guy with the black eye?) and then brought on a replacement, a new hatchet man to keep Paul and me in line. This new guy enjoyed his newfound sense of power and disrupted everything. All of the crew that Paul and I had meticulously hired were now in jeopardy of losing their jobs. He didn’t know it at the time, but this hatchet man would, of course, ultimately find his own head on the chopping block as well. That was just the way our moneyman rolled.

Frequently, the CD would take over my office at our North Hollywood warehouse/stage while I was out shooting and use it as his own. Coming back after work one night after a long shooting day, I discovered a casually abandoned note on my desk with a list of replacement directors scribbled on it, along with their financial quotes. (Their fees were a helluva lot higher than what I was earning!) Was it forgotten? Or was it left there deliberately for me to see?

At the end of our first week of shooting, my cinematographer, John Alcott, got wind of the fact that production had decided to fire me. For reasons known only to him, John objected. Vociferously. John, without my knowledge, let it be known to production that if I were to be fired, he would immediately quit The Beastmaster. Despite the fact that John had relocated his entire family to Los Angeles, leased a house, and enrolled his son Gavin in school here. It was hard to believe John would suffer such financial hardship and disruption to his family’s long-term plans just for the sake of a twenty-seven-year-old film director he’d only known for a few weeks. From that point on I intimately understood why, whenever I would see press about his career, John Alcott was always referred to as “Stanley Kubrick’s loyal cinematographer.” The operative and truthful word there was “loyal.” John was one stand-up guy and I will always be grateful to him for that.

I made it through the first week of shooting and then, late on that Saturday night, I received the expected phone call. The CD was on the line and told me that after watching the film we had shot to date, he had decided that I did not know how to shoot action. I found myself in the humbled position of trying to protest to him that my previous film Phantasm was chock-full of great action and had been a critical and box office success. He simply ignored me and went on to say that he had magnanimously decided not to fire me (thank you again, John Alcott!) and instead had decided to hire a stunt director to oversee my action work. Of course I immediately objected vehemently and was informed by him that if I chose not to work with this man I would be summarily fired. I shot back that I was a Directors Guild member (DGA) and they would not allow him to force someone on me like that. (This turned out to be untrue; I later found out there were no DGA provisions that would protect me in this case.) The CD told me it was my choice, I would follow his instructions, or he would fire me. He gave me this guy’s phone number and told me to call him.

Chuck Bail had a storied career as a stuntman and then migrated to actor and then director. He had a big success with his third film, directing the entertaining cross-country car chase film The Gumball Rally. His other credits were directing two of the so-called blaxploitation films, Black Samson and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. He was also a longtime confidant and stunt coordinator for esteemed director Richard Rush. I called Chuck’s number. He said we should meet and he volunteered to come pick me up.

When Chuck arrived at my house in Sherman Oaks, he was driving a 1955 Mercedes 300 SL with the futuristic gullwing doors. It was the first and only time I ever rode in one of these vintage, high-performance sports cars that today sell for well over a million dollars. On the drive I learned that Chuck also owned a Stearman PT-17 biplane, which he bought directly from his pal, actor Steve McQueen. Chuck was a big, larger-than-life, handsome guy with a disarming sense of humor. He hailed from Texas and broke into Westerns in the mid-1950s as a stuntman. He worked in television and films over the next two decades along with other stunt performers who later moved into directing, such as Hal Needham of Smokey and the Bandit fame. We drove over to our North Hollywood warehouse stage and I showed him around the Beastmaster interior sets. Chuck told me he was happy to get the gig and would enjoy helping me out with the movie.

I mulled it over that Sunday night. I was angry and frustrated. On my previous films the investors had no creative say whatsoever and I could make the films I wanted, the way I wanted. The call time Monday morning was at 6:00 a.m. I stayed up that entire night (which is a terrible thing to do when you are directing a picture) and after much soul-searching I made the decision to quit the film. I was not going to suffer the humiliation of being forced to have some random stunt director looking over my shoulder while I worked.

After my hour-long predawn commute, I arrived at our Simi Valley location up in Tapo Canyon Park. We were prepping to shoot the sequence in which Marc Singer uses his tiger to scare Tanya Roberts into falling into his arms. As I walked to the set I was assaulted by questions from the crew: “Where do you want the camera, Don?” “Don, do you understand that due to the cold temperature the tiger will be frisky and we all must stay on our toes?” “Tanya is having a wardrobe issue and we need you, Don.” This is standard operating procedure for a director. In the mornings everybody has questions about the day’s work and it’s important to get those questions answered quickly and efficiently. It was a nice feeling to just ignore everybody. I wasn’t directing this damn movie anymore because I was on my way to fucking quit. First stop, Chuck Bail.

I walked over to Chuck. “I need to talk to you.” “What’s up, Don?” “Chuck, I’ve thought it over and I’ve decided to quit the show.”

“Wa-wa-wa-wait a second there, buddy.” Chuck quickly slid his arm in mine and surreptitiously guided me around a stand of trees to where we could have some privacy. Chuck’s intent, of course, was to stop me from quitting. But the most bizarre part of this conversation was that I had seen this movie before. Quite literally.

I don’t know if I consciously remembered it at the time, but just the year previously Chuck Bail had a significant, featured acting role in Richard Rush’s classic film The Stunt Man. In that film actor Steve Railsback’s character is on the run from police and hides out on a movie set run by a powerful and enigmatic film director played by Peter O’Toole. Throughout the film, as Railsback’s life, reality, and even his sanity spin out of control, a sage and savvy stuntman is always there to take Steve under his wing, providing him guidance and counsel at critical moments. The memorable role of this important stuntman character was essentially a doppelgänger of Chuck Bail played by himself, only his on-screen name was Chuck Barton.

Now here I was at my wits’ end and ready to quit my own movie, strung out just like actor Steve Railsback was in The Stunt Man. And right in my ear I can hear this same guy, “Chuck Barton,” giving me confidence and hope. “Come on, Don. Don’t do anything rash. This is gonna be a good picture. We’ve got a good gig here. It’s your picture, I’ll stay out of your way. I’m just here to help. Besides, it’s a real good gig for me and I don’t want to rock the boat. That executive producer of yours is paying me a hundred K to hang out in the trailer and be there when you need me. Plus he’s buying me a new Cadillac for the wife.”

I was thrown for a loop. I suddenly found myself as the protagonist in a Richard Rush film come to life. And Chuck Bail/Barton was convincing and assuring. I probably should have quit right there. But I didn’t. I stayed on and finished the picture. To this day I still do not know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

I actually learned a lot about the stunt world from Chuck Bail. Surprisingly, I ended up having a very cordial and easy working relationship with him. Having come up from Westerns his experience was invaluable since The Beastmaster was loaded with horse action. Chuck taught me how to work around horses without getting stepped on, which is a frequent director injury. He also taught me all about “falling horses.” A rare few horses are born with the ability to lie down on cue. These horses are in huge demand; with a simple tug on their bridle, they will lie right down on the dirt. A good stuntman and falling horse can make it look like they’ve both been shot and get right up after the stunt with no injury. At that time stuntman Larry Randles owned the best falling horse in the business, and we were lucky to have him come work for us. The funny thing about these falling horses is that sometimes they are so prone to lying down that it can be hard to keep them on their feet. One day while we were waiting to set up a shot, I watched Larry try to ride his falling horse from the trailer to the set and the horse laid down and took him to the ground three times. Larry, muttering and cursing, finally had to get off and walk his horse over to the set.

Chuck also taught me a lot about working with stuntmen, being one himself. Sometimes I would get freaked when a stunt performer suffered a minor injury—and a lot of stuntmen suffered injuries on The Beastmaster. Chuck counseled me to not worry about it, as they were all skilled, knowledgeable, and very well-paid professionals. Chuck always said in reference to the injury, “Don’t worry, they’ll just rub money on it.”

Practically every stuntman of note in Hollywood worked at some point on The Beastmaster. I learned from and worked with illustrious members of some of the legendary stunt families, including the Rondells, the Hookers, the Deadricks, and the Eppers.

Both Jeannie Epper and Tony Epper were featured in The Beastmaster. Jeannie is considered the greatest female stunt performer of all time and performed many dangerous gags doubling for Tanya. Her brother Tony portrayed the barbarian leader that Marc Singer battles on the fiery bridge in the finale. Choreographing that fight with Tony, Chuck, and stunt coordinator Steve Boyum was a genuine highlight. My brilliant production illustrator Nikita Knatz had designed the multibladed axe that Tony expertly wielded, and once he got that weapon flying through the air Marc Singer had to be quick on his feet to avoid a bloody haircut.

One of the major gags in The Beastmaster was blowing up the tar moat surrounding the walled city. The scene called for the barbarian horde on horseback to attempt to charge across the tar moat, and then for the townsfolk to ignite the oily contents. As written, the young prince Tal would run toward the moat with a torch but then go down with an arrow in his shoulder. The Beastmaster would vault over the gate, run to the stricken boy, grab his torch, and hurl it into the moat, which would cause the explosion. Tanya came to me and told me she felt that her character was left out of all the fun and wanted in on the action. I was also looking for something better, but stunt coordinator Steve Boyum was the one who came up with a terrific but complicated idea. Tanya would run to the stricken prince, grab the torch, and light a charging barbarian on fire; then the Beastmaster would leap through the air and kick the burning man into the tar moat, thereby igniting it.

Doing all of that at once seemed impossible and overwhelming, but directing is always about taking seemingly impossible sequences and carving them up into component shots that can convey the narrative—but are achievable. In fact, many of these component shots were very simple to shoot and we knocked those off quickly—the prince getting hit by the arrow, Tanya grabbing the torch, Marc Singer vaulting through the air. Now for the big enchilada: blowing up that tar moat.

I first met pyrotechnic effects wiz Roger George while working on Phantasm. We had to blow up a Cadillac hearse and Roger was recommended for the gag. He was a legendary special effects man and we were lucky to have him. The only thing that frankly was a bit odd about Roger was that when he first showed up on the set, one half of his face was seriously scarred from what appeared to be a pretty nasty burn. It actually gave us pause; there was concern as to whether he would be safe to work with. The cause of the burn was never revealed to us but I later heard a rumor that Roger was too close to a pyro charge that detonated prematurely. Roger had a jolly personality and he personally rigged the Phantasm hearse with black powder bombs, mortars, and lots of gasoline. Just before the take I saw Roger walking toward the hearse with a large package in his arms. He told me it was a “naphthalene bomb,” which he had left over from a war movie he had been working on and that he had decided to place on the front seat of the hearse just for the hell of it. To say that Roger blew the bloody hell out of that Phantasm hearse is an understatement. Watch the movie and you can see the massive, fiery explosion he orchestrated.

For the tar moat explosion in The Beastmaster I wanted it done with the balls of that Phantasm blow, but times one hundred. So I, of course, hired Roger to do the pyro effects on The Beastmaster. Roger did not disappoint. He started with pipes submerged in the moat, through which diesel fuel would be pumped to bubble up through the water. For this one gag, Roger and his large crew of pyro techs placed dozens of steel mortars along the edge of the moat, each loaded with a black powder bomb topped with a bag containing several gallons of gasoline. It would be one hell of an explosion.

If you have watched any of my films you can quickly tell that I am in love with Hollywood movie fireballs. I try to put one in every movie (whether necessary or not!). Over the years I’ve worked with some great pyro effects technicians and in the process have learned that gasoline is definitely the only way to go. The black powder charge is simply used to lift the gasoline in the air, disperse it, and then, when it is fully atomized, ignite it. This creates the constantly expanding, roiling red-and-gold fireball effect. In colder weather the fireball stays low to the ground, and when warmer, it can lift very high. Prior to the shot, the challenge for the director and pyro tech is how to assess that temperature so as to correctly frame it for camera. Sometimes this just becomes a lucky guess, hoping the fireball won’t just blow right through frame and not be visible. One hates to waste a good fireball!

Steve Boyum put together a crew of ace stunt players to double the actors in the explosion shot, including himself doubling for Marc, Jeannie Epper doubling for Tanya, and another legendary stuntman, Bob Minor, standing in for John Amos. A search was underway to find someone small enough to double our young prince. Steve finally found a volunteer, an ex-military, first-time stuntperson who was just diminutive enough to make a good match for young Josh Milrad. The challenge for all these stunt performers was that the actors were mostly clad in loincloths, so there could be no protective fire suits under their wardrobe. Usually for a fire gag, the stuntperson always wears a full Nomex fire-protective jumpsuit under the wardrobe. The only workaround was to cover the stunt players in Zel Jel, a specially designed and Academy Award–winning heat-absorbing gel that would allow them to get intimate with flames without their skin burning. The problem with the Zel Jel is that it sucked up heat, so once it was applied to bare skin, the stunt performers would quickly lose body heat. A funny thing I have noticed is that after burn stunts, the stunt performers will always be shivering—not because they are afraid, but because the Zel Jel causes hypothermia. These courageous folks brave not only fire but ice too, and frequently in the same gag. It was imperative that the Zel Jel be applied immediately before that shot, and there could be no delay.

John Alcott had five cameras in place to record the action. Everyone was ready and it was time to get serious. It sometimes feels a little morbid, but on major stunts it is essential to always have an ambulance with EMTs backed in as close to set as possible, doors wide open, engine running, with a clear path to the nearest highway. Our assistant director Jim Sbardellati gave the nod and the utility stunt guys started slathering gel on the stunt doubles. The set was cleared and Roger George armed his detonators. The stunt actors moved up to an area near the bridge that Roger had declared would be “safe” for them. Cameras started rolling and you could hear all the camera assistants screaming down the line, “A Camera speed! B Camera speed! C Camera speed! D Camera speed! E Camera speed!” It was time to shoot. Sbardellati cried, “Action!” into his megaphone.

Roger George thumbed the detonator and the night instantly turned to day. It was a simply humongous explosion and, amazingly, the stunt performers stood their ground. Well, three of them did. I later learned that the new stuntman, upon detonation, turned and ran for his life. And who could blame him? Roger George had created a veritable thermonuclear explosion right there on our set in Simi Valley. I felt the heat of the blast on my face and I was a good fifty yards away. Steve Boyum, doubling Marc Singer, heroically stayed right by the bridge alongside the stalwart Jeannie Epper, standing in for Tanya. The fearless Bob Minor, tracing John Amos’s path, actually charged right toward the blast. Best of all, no one was injured despite the fact that after the blast, residual fiery debris rained down all around them. Once cut together it was the epic explosion sequence I always hoped for.

After we shot the explosion our fire work was by no means completed. Then followed a week of shooting action right beside the flaming moat. For a full week of nights we shot right in front of this flaming inferno as our heroes battled the marauding barbarian army. The actors had been especially bitter at the beginning of our shoot because they had to frequently work outside in cold windy weather wearing only skimpy loincloths. Frequently we had to interrupt takes due to their shivering. But for these night shoots, when Roger George lit the diesel jets, it warmed up quickly and you could actually see sweat on the actors’ bare skin.

*   *   *

As we neared the end of the shoot we traveled to location on the Colorado River and the Valley of Fire for the final two days. Other than some scenic shots of the Beastmaster and his animal team running through the majestic rock formations, on the last day there we had two major sequences to film. One was the finale sequence in which Tanya surprises Marc and they embrace at the end of the film. The other was a vision sequence in which the Beastmaster sees through his eagle’s eyes some of the bad guys transporting Tanya along the cliffs of the river. The challenge was that both scenes needed to be shot in late afternoon and the locations were eighty-seven miles apart.

The final sequence was shot at one of the most beautiful locations on the planet, Rainbow Vista, in the Valley of Fire State Park. John Alcott worked his magic that day to achieve some stunning imagery as Dar and his black tiger crest a rise and reunite with Tanya. As they kiss, my shot list called for a helicopter shot as the eagle swoops in over them and we witness their embrace through its eyes.

Paul and I had not had much luck with helicopters during location scouting. For our final scout we brought along Paul’s wife Jacalyn and my fiancée Shelley for the ride. As we were flying through the Colorado River canyon, searching for locations, I remembered that when we had scouted the river by boat I had seen some vintage cable crossings where US Geological Survey researchers had stretched steel cable across, some thirty feet above the water. Our chopper was zooming down this same canyon, about thirty feet off the river, when I just casually mentioned to the pilot that I thought there might be some cables in the vicinity. Suddenly my stomach was in my throat as the helicopter shot straight up, just clearing one of these cables by mere inches. Upon landing, my future wife ordered that if I wanted to marry her, I was never to set foot in a helicopter again. I agreed and then unfortunately had to immediately break that promise, to get the final shot in the film.

That final shot, performing the “eagle-eye” view, called for the helicopter to fly up over a rock formation to reveal Marc and Tanya, and then swoop down at and around them as they kissed. Usually Chuck Bail would ride in the helicopter with second unit cameraman Joel King, who would hang out the door strapped to his Tyler mount. Since this was the final shot of the movie, I took over, wanting to make sure we got it right. I strapped in and we took off and did a rehearsal, which looked good. Since we were swooping in from above there was no place for an animal trainer to hide, so we had to leash the tiger to the rocks. The trainers wedged one of its favorite cooked chickens in between the rocks and the big cat ignored the helicopter and chowed down on some lunch during the shot. We did a take and it looked great, although later I found out that rather than kiss Marc, Tanya was screaming right in his face, terrified the prop wash from the chopper would blow them both off the rocks. Joel gave me the thumbs-up, so I called print and the pilot quickly set us down on the ground. I’ve never ridden in a helicopter since.

With the finale in the can our plan kicked into gear to get that last shot by sunset. The helicopter took off and started toward the location eighty-seven miles away. Meanwhile, over at the Colorado River location, Roberto Quezada, working as a one-man guerilla operation, had been there the entire day preparing. On his own he had recruited students from the nearby vicinity to stand in for the priests and slaves who would appear in the shot. Roberto had brought nine sets of wardrobe in his trunk and he handed them out to the students, including an auburn wig for the gal who would double Tanya. The location was a “miners walkway” in which planks had been bracketed into the sheer rock face about twenty-five feet above the river. Prior to the shot Roberto had to carry wood down to the location and lay new planks over the rotted old planks so it could be traversed safely.

As the helicopter left the Valley of Fire, Paul and I immediately took off by car, hoping to get within view of the location before the shot. We were pushing a hundred miles an hour on the desert highway in our rental car, convinced that with the helicopter stopping for fuel it would give us time to get there.

At the location, Roberto had a walkie-talkie and right on time he heard the chopper pilot informing him that they had arrived on the scene. As the sun was setting, Roberto and the students, wearing their robes, clambered down the cliff to the walkway.

About the same time, Paul and I arrived at Willow Bay Marina on the Arizona side of the border, hopped in a rental motorboat, and gunned it upstream toward the location.

The pilot informed Roberto they were ready for a take and Roberto lit four wood torches and handed them out to his student-extras. As the sun slunk below the horizon, the helicopter swooped in and Joel King rolled film as the extras marched along the planks on the canyon rock face. They did several takes and as the night closed in the torch flames became more visible. As they were doing the final take, our little motorboat rounded the bend and Paul and I were able to watch the marching torch-lit extras and the chopper swooping by. From where we sat it looked perfect.

The helicopter banked and headed back for home base as Roberto and his student crew packed up, heading for a nearby bar to celebrate. Bravo to Roberto for pulling off a terrific solo job!

Paul and I turned our little motorboat back downriver toward the docks. The Beastmaster had finished principal photography and Paul and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Motoring down the Colorado River at magic hour, surrounded by its vast natural beauty, I suddenly realized a remarkable thing—for the very first time in my life, I had completely forgotten that this day was in fact my twenty-eighth birthday. The shoot was over, but the challenge of making a good movie of The Beastmaster was just beginning.