Dr Kildare faces up to the jungle

Press, 4 February 1987, Page 16

Dr Kildare faces up to the jungle

TIM WARD

reports

on the making of “King Solomon’s Mines.”.

One-time heart-throb actor, Richard Chamberlain, has made two multimillion dollar adventure films in the African bush. But he faced enough danger, action and excitement OFF the screen to provide the material for a dozen real-life movies. The star who found fame in the hospital corridors of “Dr Kildare” roughed it for seven months in Zimbabwe, filming the $4O million remake of H. Rider Haggard’s classic “King Solomon’s Mines,” which is at present screening in Christchurch, and a sequel, titled “Quartermain and the Cave of Death.” The adventures which took place off-camera included: • A herd of elephants stampeding towards Chamberlain. • Being pulled, feet first through a pool of crocodiles. • Hiring a witch doctor to stem floods that threatened to wreck the movie. • Suffering the hysteria of fans who had never set eyes on a Hollywood star before. • Facing the threat of kidnapping and malaria with other anxious members of the film crew. Zimbabwe’s worst rains for years threatened from the outset to halt the King Solomon movie. Underground streams flooded the set and turned it into a quagmire, while massive lightning bolts claimed many lives in the bush and made filming hazardous.

Days of delays took their toll on Chamberlain. The situation became so desperate that when he heard local extras blaming the flooding on the fact that they were filming on a sacred tribal burial site, he leapt into action.

On his orders, film executives hired a witch doctor to appease the spirits. He arrived on set, led a hand-clapping ritual, spread powder on the ground and fell into a trance to plead with the spirits. Within hours, the water

drained away and filming restarted.

Scenes involving wild animals created problems, too.

Chamberlain kept his cool under the blazing sun as a herd of elephants stampeded towards him and pythons slithered over his feet.

One stunt with crocodiles went \ disastrously wrong. A scene involved lowering 53-year-old Chamberlain into a croc pit.

Petrol bombs were exploded near the pit to liven up the beasts — but the noise proved too much for two crocs who died of heart attacks. Political unrest also had its effect on the film crew. .

Since January, 1986, when filming started, guerrillas had killed 29 civilians, raped 26 women and committed 139 armed robberies. Security was stepped up around the set

and excursions were limited for fear that Chamberlain would provide a target for kidnappers. The 250 cast and crew, who used more than 1000 extras a day, had to ward off the perils of malaria, too. Chamberlain’s co-star Sharon Stone revealed: “1 was bitten, burnt and put in hospital before I even got on set.” ' Even as he relaxed, Chamberlain encountered problems: with fans. "People are celebrity maniacs here,” he said. "I can’t walk into an hotel without there being an undercurrent of hysteria.” “King Solomon’s Mines,” a comedy-action epic, sees Chamberlain in the lead role of Alan Quartermain, a swashbuckling Indiana Jonesstyle adventurer. It differs from earlier versions in that the whole film is a gigantic spoof, says production executive

Lize Odental. “It is all tongue in cheek. For instance, Richard meets his beautiful co-star, Sharon Stone, iii a cooking pot as they are both about to be boiled by . cannibals.” No sooner had the final scene been , shot than Chamberlain had to prepare for the sequel. After a three-week break, he was back in the bush.

He earned, this tribute from Lize Odental: “Richard is one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, but he found the conditions very difficult. “He worked from fivein the morning until 7.30 atnight and always went back to his hotel room and locked himself in. "Because of the terrible weather we , were only to shoot a few minutes a day. We spent hours at a time just watching the rain and jumrtng at each "thunderbolt.*

—Copyright Duo.