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Press Materials ©1980 United Artists Corporation |
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The Dogs of War Production Notes (Press Release 10/17/80) THE DOGS OF WAR are the mercenaries, the professional soldiers of fortune who roam the globe selling their services to the highest bidder, often impervious to the morality of the assignment and its political integrity. With war erupting almost daily in some part of the world, the United Artists presentation of The Dogs of War, directed by John Irvin and based upon the acclaimed best-seller by Frederick Forsyth, becomes a timely probe of the psyche of mercenary soldiers who, once hired, home in on their targets like long range missiles, unerring in the swift and uncompromising execution of their task. The Dogs of War, however, is not just one more motion picture about mercenaries with blazing guns and bared teeth. It looks closely at one particular mercenary, American-born Jamie Shannon, the organizer and leader of a stunning strike against an impoverished West African dictatorship, a strike financed by a mysterious, ambivalent industrial conglomerate. As played by Christopher Walken, Jamie Shannon is, you might say, the thinking man's mercenary, who begins to see further than the hairline of his gun sight, no longer prepared to kill merely for the crumpled bank-notes thrust in his hip pocket or the numbered account in a Swiss bank. Starring with Christopher Walken in The Dogs of War, as his mercenary colleague, is Tom Berenger.
Other leading roles are played by Colin Blakely, Hugh Millais, Paul Freeman, Jean Francois Stevenin, Maggie Scott, Robert Urquhart, Jobeth Williams, Isabel Grandin, Winston Ntshona, Christopher Asante, Thomas Baptiste, George Harris, and Illario Bisi Pedro.
Gary Devore and George Malko adapted the Forsyth novel for the screen. The executive producers are Norman Jewison and Patrick Palmer. Jack Cardiff is the director of photography. Ever since the Forsyth novel zoomed into the best-seller lists in 1974 film-makers have been eager to translate it for the screen, but unlike the other two adaptations of his novels -- The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File -- The Dogs of War proved peculiarly elusive. There were progressive scripting difficulties which led to re-writes and inevitable postponements. But above all was the problem of the locations. The story is set in a fictitious West African state, not quite fictitious enough for any country in that tension-wracked area of the world to allow a film crew in. Besides, with the political situation about as predictable as the weather during an English summer, no producer with any sense would consider going there. When executive producer Norman Jewison and United Artists decided to try one more time to get the project off the ground in 1979, Jewison entrusted the task to his long-time production supervisor Larry DeWaay with the promise that if he got it going he could cut his teeth as a producer. DeWaay needed no more incentive. The 37 year old bearded American met up with British TV director John Irvin on the strength of the polished work Irvin had done on bringing John Le Carre's complicated espionage novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the small screen. But, more than that, DeWaay had discovered Irvin's history as an award-winning documentary director. He had worked with mercenaries. In Africa. It was a meeting of minds seldom equaled in the transient world of movie making. Barred from the African continent, DeWaay and Irvin turned their restless eyes westward for location possibilities, toured some fourteen Caribbean countries, and even ventured into the Indian Ocean before eventually making landfall in the tiny British colony of Belize, formerly British Honduras, and now maintaining an uneasy grip on the irregular coastline of Central America. As soon as DeWaay and Irvin emerged into the 100 degree heat, picked their way carefully across the scorched tarmac and bumped their way into town across roads with potholes as deep as shell craters they had only to stare at each other in smiling wonderment to realize that -- provided the locals were friendly -- they had found their fictional West African state of Zangaro. And the locals were friendly, indeed eager. So were the authorities, aware of how a prosperous film company might aid the lackluster Belizean economy. And in many other ways was Belize ideal. A predominantly black population, a coastline simply made for the climactic scenes when the mercenaries slide ashore under the cover of darkness, and above all, a single-story collection of yellow brick buildings, a mere stone's throw from the water's edge -- and ideal to portray the dictator's stronghold. The piece de resistance was an empty mental institution -- and there would be plenty of cracks made about THAT in the weeks that followed. The Belizeans would be only too happy if the filmmakers wanted to blow up "Sea View" as the place was called. They had wanted to do it themselves, only they couldn't afford the costs of demolition. Now these insane film people were prepared to do it -- and pay for the privilege. Scarcely able to believe their good fortune, DeWaay and Irvin returned to England and penciled preparations for a February 1980 start. (continue on to page 2)
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