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Press Materials ©1980 United Artists Corporation |
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"The Location: London, Miami, New York, and Belize" (Press Release 10/17/80) It was clear from the start that The Dogs of War was going to have a complicated shooting schedule. Even with the script skillfully pared down to reasonable screen time, the action ranged from Central America to New York, to London, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and West Africa. Logistically it would be an impossible task, and the cost would be mind-boggling. DeWaay, Irvin, and the production team devised a tightened schedule which, though it still needed location changes in three countries, utilized each in an artful way. Production began in America, in New York City. Two of the actresses involved, Jobeth Williams and Isabel Grandin, started and finished their roles in New York.
Next would come three weeks in London
for scenes set in the capital plus hotel rooms which could double
for continental sequences and a night of filming in Colnbrook High
Street near Heathrow Airport which, with a few deft changes, could
become for a few hours the custom post on the French-Belgian Then the company would move on to Miami which, in a dizzying ten days, would become in turn Central America, Italy and Spain. After that, the final move -- for the seven weeks in Belize where the major action sequences would be shot. Three countries would thus double as a total of seven: and there were times when a slightly bewildered cast and crew had to stop and remember not only where they were supposed to be, but where they actually were, and at which country in the film's story they had actually arrived. The Dogs of War commenced principal photography in New York on February 18, 1980 and completed it in Belize, Central America on May 24. The Dogs of War, a Norman Jewison-Patrick Palmer Production, stars Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger. It is produced by Larry DeWaay. Screenplay is by Gary DeVore and George Malko, based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth. Executive producers are Norman Jewison and Patrick Palmer. It is directed by John Irvin for release by United Artists, a Transamerica company. When the Special Effects are Super Special (Joe Lombardi of The Dogs of War) Special effects chief Joe Lombardi thought his most difficult assignment of all time was on Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now -- until he worked on The Dogs of War, United Artists screen version of Frederick Forsyth's best-selling novel concerning the planning and execution of a mercenary strike against a West African dictatorship. "The overall explosions on Apocalypse may have been bigger" says the rugged Lombardi, "but on Dogs we were working in confined spaces, and that's always trickier."
One of Lombardi's most spectacular
efforts occurs during the opening sequence of the film when a
lumbering DC-3 takes off from an air strip under constant
bombardment by Central American
The sequence was filmed at a glider port outside Miami and for the scene Lombardi and his crew laced a mile-length strip with explosive devices, each of which had to synchronize with the plane's progress down the bumpy runway. As it lifts ponderously into the air, a final holocaust breaks out beneath it. "It was a one-off really," Lombardi explains, "either it worked first time or days would be wasted getting it all together again. And we had a real plane with a crew, so no chances could be taken. Each of those explosions was timed to the millisecond, the last big bang most of all. If we fired too soon we might bring the plane down; if too late, we might miss the cameras." A sort of "ready-when-you-are-Mr. DeMille" situation enough to induce nightmares in even the most seasoned technicians. But, as the picture shows, Lombardi got it right the first time, and it is a memorable scene with which to open the action-packed drama.
Later in the movie during filming in
Belize, Lombardi and his team had an even trickier job: arming a
disused hospital set in the suburbs of Belize City and firing off
explosions, shell hits, bullet bursts, rocket flares and all the
other spectacular effects concerned as the mercenaries assault the
garrison of the dictator they have come to kill. "It's one thing to fire off in open country with no buildings around," Lombardi says, "it's something else when you've got houses and people nearby. We use blanks in the guns, but explosives are the real thing. There's no way you can wing it. It's planning, planning, planning. I tell the crew, if they get impatient with me, 'Do you want it done right, or do you want it done quick?'" The Dogs of War, a Norman-Jewison-Patrick Palmer Production, stars Christopher Walken and Tom Berenger. It is produced by Larry DeWaay. The screenplay is by Gary DeVore and George Malko, based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth. Executive Producers are Norman Jewison and Patrick Palmer. It is directed by John Irvin for release by United Artists, a Transamerica Company. (continue on to page 3)
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on these web pages were reproduced from the United Artists press kit
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