”I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

You know the saying, War is hell. Well, sometimes making a film about war is also hell, all kinds of hell. For the crew of Apocalypse Now, the 16 month shoot was an undertaking of grotesque proportions. Here are just a few of things that went wrong.
• Two weeks into shooting, Coppola had to recast the lead role, letting Harvey Keitel go and hiring Martin Sheen. Only to have Sheen become more of a liability as he was frequently drunk and in ill health, even suffering a heart attack near the end of shooting.
• After the film went severely over-budget and the studio wasn’t willing to hand over any more cash, Coppola had to invest millions of his own money just to finish the film.
• A typhoon destroyed most of the sets half way during production, thereby delaying the film even more.
• Coppola, frustrated with Sheen already, becomes helplessly annoyed when Brando shows up on the set late, drunk and 40 lbs overweight. On top of all that he hadn’t even bothered to read the script, forcing Coppola to re-write Kurtz’s entire introduction.

It’s a testament to youth that a teenager can look upon a vision of chaos, such as the set of Apocalypse Now was, and want to be a part of it. In fact, Lawrence Fishburne wanted the part of Tyrone ‘Mr. Clean’ Miller so much that he lied about his age. He was only 14 when he started the film in 1979; of course he was 35 when it ended.


Comments are welcome. Email us at reelmud@movieposter.com