Sorcerer
Short description
Sorcerer follows four men who have fled their homelands and are living in a remote South American town, each with a past he cannot return to. A Parisian financier, a New York robber, an Arab militant and a European fugitive are scraping by when an oil company offers a way out: drive trucks loaded with aged dynamite across jungle roads to a burning oil well. The explosive has become unstable and can detonate at the slightest jolt, while the route itself offers little margin for error.
William Friedkin directed and produced the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Walon Green. It was his fourth feature as director, arriving after The Exorcist and before Cruising. Roy Scheider leads as Scanlon, also called Dominguez, alongside Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amidou, Ramon Bieri and Peter Capell. The large credited cast and crew reflect the scale of a production shot across several countries, and the film is a remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear.
The budget of 22 million dollars was substantial, and the worldwide gross of around 9 million dollars fell well short of that outlay. Ratings tell a different story: 7.7 out of 10 on IMDb from 35,000 votes, 7.5 out of 10 on TMDB from 697 votes, and a critics' rating of 7.8 out of 10 from 56 reviews. Those figures point to a film that found a smaller but appreciative audience rather than a broad one.
What's left behind the scenes
- Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson were considered for the lead role, but neither wanted to make the long journeys (some filming took place in Paris and Jerusalem, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic). The choice of Roy Scheider, with whom Friedkin had previously worked on 'The French Connection,' was, according to the director, the biggest mistake of his career. Scheider, Friedkin said, is a good actor, but he isn’t a star, as every film for him is just another job. Actor Amidou, who played the Arab Kassem, was the only one who was approved immediately, sparing him from competition with other actors. The rest were only chosen after viewing four to six candidates for each role.
- The musicians of the German ensemble Tangerine Dream composed the music for the film without seeing it, and having only the script at their disposal.
- The church robbery scene featured in one of the prologues is based on real events that occurred three blocks from where it was filmed. A participant in that crime, Gerard Murphy, later became an actor and played the leader of the robbers in 'Sorcerer'.
- During the sound editing, the sound operator added a tiger's roar to the roar of the 'Sorcerer' truck's engine, and a jaguar's growl to the sound of the 'Lazarus' truck's engine. In addition, in some places, the creaking of the rope bridge is replaced by the sounds of a viola.
- Friedkin wanted Steve McQueen to play the lead role. McQueen was willing to accept the offer, but only on the condition that Eli McGrow, who was his wife at the time, would also appear in the film. Friedkin refused, and McQueen then declined to participate in the project. Later, Friedkin regretted not fulfilling McQueen's demands.
- Due to the subtitles used at the beginning of the film, viewers complained that they were not warned that it was a foreign film. To clarify the situation, special posters with the following text were placed in the cinema lobbies: “ATTENTION! To more fully reveal the characters of the main heroes, two episodes appearing at the beginning of the film were shot in foreign languages and are therefore accompanied by subtitles. Otherwise, 'The Sorcerer' is an English-language film.”
- Friedkin wanted the car crash in the prologue to look as realistic as possible. Ultimately, twelve cars were wrecked before the scene looked the way the director envisioned it. The rope bridge, specially constructed for the filming, was a rather complex structure with numerous safety devices and hydraulic lifts that allowed it to be moved. Building the bridge cost a million dollars. However, shortly after its completion, the river in the Dominican Republic, on which the bridge was built, completely dried up (this happened for the first time in history). As a result, the bridge had to be dismantled and rebuilt in Mexico. This required another million dollars. By some mystical coincidence, the once-turbulent river there also began to dry up rapidly. The film crew had to guard the site around the clock, as superstitious locals threatened to blow up the bridge, convinced that it was causing the river to become shallow. By the start of filming, the river had become very shallow and did not look threatening enough. However, the filmmakers no longer had the time or money to move the filming location. Friedkin then ordered the use of helicopters, wind machines, and giant hoses to create a strong current and downpour. The bridge turned out to be so unstable that, despite all precautions, a truck (often with an actor in the cab) slipped into the river five times during rehearsals and filming. Because of this, filming the episode on the bridge took three months. Friedkin once noted that it was the most difficult scene he had ever filmed.
- It was very difficult for cinematographer Dick Bush to work with Friedkin due to his incredible demands. After shooting half of the film, Bush left the project. He was replaced by John Stevens, a cinematographer from the auxiliary filming crew. Both Bush and Stevens are credited in the titles. Initially, Friedkin intended to shoot only one prologue dedicated to the main character, Jackie Scanlon. But then, both he and screenwriter Waloan Green came to the conclusion that in this case, viewers would immediately understand which of the characters would survive. Therefore, it was decided to shoot four different prologues. In foreign distribution versions of the film, the prologues were either cut, shortened, or moved to other places as “flashbacks.”
- Filming in the jungle was very often postponed (once due to a hurricane that completely destroyed the set), resulting in the initial budget of $15 million growing to $22 million.
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