Mmmroar

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

Look at that face. He's hilarious. A big parrot had swooped in from Zealandia and landed on the roof outside the living room window. The parrot was HUGE and beautiful, brown on top with red under his wings.

I think it might have been a kaka. Maybe.

So this is Jasper's "WTF?!?" look. Unfortunately, we were not quick enough off the mark to get a photo of the parrot.

In other news, I watched a documentary called, "Roar: The Most Dangerous Film Ever Made" on Animal Planet.

I have actually seen the movie "Roar", back in the 80's. It was an okay family movie about beautiful lions, but even as a 12 year old I remember thinking that it didn't seem to be about very much.

It turns out it was the passion project of Tippi Hedren and her husband Noel Marshall. She was obviously a big star from "The Birds" and "Marnie". He was a Hollywood agent who had made a packet by investing in "The Exorcist" and with all that demonic money burning a hole in his pocket he decided to make a film about a LION MAN doing lion research in Africa.

Oh, and he decided to write the film. And star. And direct. 

(He was not a director. Or a writer. Or a movie star. Or a lion man.)

So he needed lions for his film, which was to be shot in California and not Africa. He started buying up lions that people had as pets in the USA which, being the 1970's, were surprisingly easy to come by. Soon, he had over 100 of them. 

Lions. Pet lions. Not tame. But also not afraid of people. 

Aaaaand he decided the film would star not only his wife Tippi, but also their children (Melanie Griffith included). And the crew talked about his wild, obsessive, ego-tripping that included doing multiple takes and actually getting the lions "worked up" so they would be more ferocious and lion-ey on camera. 

Call me cynical, but I'm assuming that cocaine MAY JUST have played a part in the production of this film.

So, you may be saying, "How many people died during the making of this film?" The answer is surprisingly none, although about 70 people were injured, including Tippi Hedren who broke her leg falling off an elephant.(Did I mention the elephants? They had elephants also.) Melanie Griffith had to have plastic surgery after getting scratched across the face, the director of photography was scalped by another playful lioness and Noel Marshall got bitten through the hand on one occasion and the leg on another and had to be treated for gangrene.

It was an amazing story of arrogance and stupidity, that made me cross. Especially when some lions ran away in panic during a flood, and ended up getting shot by the local sheriff. 

The only thing I liked about the story was that after the five-year shoot ended (it was supposed to take 9 months) Tippi divorced Noel and refused to give up the lions. Refusing to palm them off to zoos and such, she continued to run the reserve they had built for the making of the film. All the remaining lions got to live out their lives there (and the elephants). She gave up her acting career to take care of them, and still adopts "pet" wild animals to this day (she's got Michael Jackson's tigers from when he sold off Neverland).

Now she does work to try and curtail the "pet" trade in exotic animals. Good on her.

So it was nice end to a silly tale. And lions were still just beautiful. Jasper got extra hugs after.

S.