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VERY heavy film, hard going in the last 1/3, but can anyone tell me if it was a REAL buffalo that was hacked into 3 at the end when Brando was 'getting his'?
The US film companies pride themselves on 'no animal was harmed during the making of this film' but as it was shot in Thailand, dunno if that counts.
Anyone NOT seen it, I urge you to skip that particular scene.

im sure i spotted a young harrison ford in the beginning talking to martin sheen,never saw it all.

The buffalo thing was real. I read somewhere about the guidelines for animal treatment/cruelty, and apparently it is allowed to "instantaneously" kill an animal in making a film. That scene was used to illustrate the point.

Link to above

Yes I'm afraid it is the real thing. This was the ritualistic annual sacrifice made by a tribe that the crew found and were allowed to film. I think it was passed because it was not done specifically for the film but rather a sacrifice that this particular tribe carried out each year anyway and that the film crew happened to be around at the time of year when this happened.

And for what it's worth I think 'Apocalypse Now' is overrated except for some virtuoso sequences.

Coppolla's best by far are The Godfather and The Conversation IMHO.

I agree with you, Terry. Mainly due to the sacrifice scene, I've never been able to bring myself to watch it again. Very intense, and a film that the critics rave about (rather like Raging Bull, another movie that made me feel very uncomfortable).

The Conversation is the most under-rated film of the 1970s, with a central performance by Hackman which should have won him greater acclaim---not to mention an Oscar.

Robert Duvall's finest hour.

At the time Apcoplyse Now was released the predecessors of the BBFC would have had to take into account the requirements of The Cinematogaph Films (Animals) Act 1937 which made it illegal, and still does, to show films in Great Britain which an act of animal cruelty is shown, if that act was staged for the purpose of making the film. There are exemptions for sporting films so it is ok to show, for example, a bullfight. For the purpose of the act it is irrelavant whether the film is a British or foreign production. The act must still be on the statute books as the penalties were increased in 2003.