Animals WERE harmed in the making of this movie

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Thought this might be of some interest to some of you.

The credits are almost over and a familiar phrase flashes across the screen: “No animals were harmed in the making of this movie”. The words are so familiar they have become part of popular culture.

The American Humane Association is the only organisation allowed to bestow the disclaimer on a movie after trade-marking the first four words. They’ve been working to ensure animal actors – such as Uggie the dog in ‘The Artist’ or the equine thesps in ‘War Horse’ – have been treated humanely on movie sets since 1940, when a horse was needlessly killed during the filming of ‘Jesse James’.

They monitor as many films and TV shows as possible – though the trend towards shooting outside the US means more and more big-budget Hollywood films escape their jurisdiction.

On-set observers monitor scenes featuring animals and give the film a rating based on how well they are treated. Those judged “Outstanding” now get the famous credit, while the films which are merely “acceptable” are allowed to put “American Humane Association monitored the animal action” .

Projects are rated “unacceptable” when film makers ignore safety rules and animals get hurt or even killed. The rating has been extremely rare in recent years and can only be found on a handful of films, but some are extremely famous or surprising.

We looked at the AHA’s database of film reviews to find which films were denied the famous credit and why. They include…

Snow Buddies (2008)
The film: A straight-to-DVD sequel to Disney’s ‘Air Buddies’, about five mischievous golden receivers. Not a classic.
What happened? Basically, five puppies died on set. Disney unknowingly used underage and ill dogs during production, and several had to be put down after contracting parvovirus. Dogs used on movie sets must be at least eight-weeks-old, and these weren’t. The breeder who supplied the poor creatures was charged with fraud for falsifying health documents. Not the best PR for a Disney flick.

Speed Racer (2008)
The film: Misjudged attempt by Andy and Lana (formerly Larry) ‘The Matrix’ Wachowski to bring animation ‘Speed Racer’ to the big screen.
What happened? This notorious flop was a shambles behind the camera as well. Firstly, five piranhas died for unknown reasons on set. Then one of two chimps playing comedy relief ape Chim-Chim bit the hand of a young actor standing in for Paulie Litt (Spritle Racer) for no reason. Finally, towards the end of filming, the chimp’s trainer hit him “in an uncontrolled impulse”.

The Lord of the Flies (1990)
The film: Duff adaptation of William Golding’s classic book about boys stranded on a desert island.
What happened? The AHA doesn’t go into much detail here, but apparently puffer fish were killed while shooting scenes in Jamaica. No laws were broken, but it was still a needless loss of animal life.

Vampire’s Kiss (1988)
The film: Mental Nicolas Cage effort; he plays an advertising exec who thinks he’s turning into a vampire. Famous because…
What happened? …it features a scene where Nic’s character eats a live cockroach. He did this for real, and then did another take. The AHA was not impressed.

One Man’s Hero (1999)
The film: Forgotten historical drama about Irish gang the St Patrick’s Brigade – who caused trouble in Mexico back in the day. Stars Tom Berenger.
What happened? The AHA weren’t on set for this, but they reckon (after several anonymous tip-offs) that horses were tripped with wires during production - which is illegal. The producers did not co-operate and - even worse - slapped the ‘No animals were harmed’ disclaimer on the credits without permission. Speaking of which…

The King’s Speech (2010)
The film: Oscar-winning yarn about King George VI and his stutter.
What happened? We're almost certain no critters were actually harmed in this, but the film got into bother for the unauthorised use of their famous credit. The AHA weren’t on-set and threatened legal action. Producers said they didn’t realise the phrase was copyrighted. This is rated ‘not monitored’.

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

The film: Classic almost mute fantasy flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the buff warrior-king.
What happened? Serious abuse of horses throughout the film – at one point a nag falls over pointed spikes. It was shot in Spain, which (at the time) had rather lax laws about animal welfare. The AHA were not allowed onset but organised a protest outside cinemas on its release. Sequel ‘Conan the Destroyer’ was also deemed unacceptable for camel abuse.

First Blood (1982)
The film: First and by-far the best ‘Rambo’ film that starred Sylvester Stallone as a mentally damaged Vietnam war vet.
What happened? An animal care official on set saw rats burnt by an actor, thrown against a wall and “squeezed” by production staff. Apparently the director and crew were laughing at the abuse. Not nice.

Fast & Furious (2009)
The film: Lesser instalment of petrol-head action franchise.
What happened? There’s a cockfighting scene. It was shot in Mexico – where the blood sport is legal – and the film’s producers wouldn’t pay for the AHA to fly out and oversee the sequence (according to their site anyway). After watching the footage they reckon the birds may have actually been fighting - in violation of their rules - and invited the public to complain to studio Universal.

Apocalypse Now (1979)
The film: Trippy Vietnam War epic starring Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando.
What happened? The finale saw Willard (Sheen) hack Kurtz (Brando) to death while natives sacrificed a water buffalo with machetes. The footage of animal slaughter was obviously real and it got the ‘unacceptable’ rating.

Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The film: Nihilistic western starring Christopher Walken that is infamously Hollywood’s biggest-ever flop.
What happened? All sorts - and most of it horrible. Without going into too much detail, there were cockfights, chicken decapitations and a horse was “blown up”. One owner sued for the injuries his horse suffered and the case was settled out of court. An upshot was that the nastiness prompted Hollywood unions to contractually authorise the AHA to oversee animal actors, so at least the beasties didn’t suffer in vain. Another reason not to watch a truly awful film.
http://uk.movies.yahoo.com/animals-w...his-movie.html

This is the link to the No Animals Were Harmed database.

http://www.americanhumanefilmtv.org/...view-archives/



People make me sick.

The only one of these movies I've seen is The King's Speech (though I have Vampire's Kiss on DVD) and I'm pretty certain I'll never watch the rest of them.



Predator is another, though I'm not sure if the disclaimer is at the end of the credits or not.
The scene with 'Mac' sticking a knife into the scorpion then using his boot to remove it from the blade.
Although, director McTiernan clearly admits in the DVD commentary that they did kill an animal for the movie.

There is one film I'm aware of that actually doesn't have the disclaimer at the end: Arachnophobia (Jeff Daniels).

It's obvious that some of the thousands of spiders used were injured or killed during the film. Some of them are clearly seen getting stepped on.
I waited till the end of the credits and the disclaimer isn't there. So some movies do take responsibility for their actions.

Still interesting to find out that Hollywood lies about holding up animal rights.



http://ryanestabrooks.com
The Moment of Truth is a fictional film about real life bullfighter but he actual did fight the bulls, stab them, etc. in the film.



28 days...6 hours...42 minutes...12 seconds
Dogs are one thing, cockroaches are something I could care less about.
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i'm SUPER GOOD at Jewel karaoke
i think if it's creatures that i'd also kill in real life if i happenstance upon them (scorpions, spiders, cockroaches) then i don't give a flying fooey.
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I think some of those old Walt Disney movies were guilty of animal abuse. I don't remember scenes that involved hurting an animal, but in some of those scenes I'm sure that some of those animals were badly frightened.



White Wilderness is the one famous for starting the lemmings commit suicide myth. I've heard a few things about them driving Landrovers at them to force them off the cliff, people throwing them off the cliff, etc, though I'm sure I heard something on QI recently about how that may not quite be the whole truth. I can't remember it now, but yes, way back when, people treated animals pretty horrendously to get a shot.



Cannibal Holocaust lol, I still can't believe that movie was successfully made!



What happened? The finale saw Willard (Sheen) hack Kurtz (Brando) to death while natives sacrificed a water buffalo with machetes.
the scene where the buffalo was cut lasted for like half a second (if I remember well) but yeah,it was creepy. :/
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This kind of stuff should either be banned completely, or special effects should be used. Use a good-looking CGI dog to kill, if you can afford it, if not, leave the real ones alone.



What abou Cannibal Holocaust? There was definitely some animal cruelty going on in that movie...



Dogs are one thing, cockroaches are something I could care less about.
I wholeheartedly agree with you here, TheUsualSuspect. Cockroaches are disgusting; they multiply much too fast, and, unlike dogs, deserve to be exterminated.
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Look up "The Adventures of Milo and Otis" (1986) on Google, the second search suggestion includes the phrase "animal cruelty." I think that speaks for itself. I won't go into too much detail, because I don't think I can do a much better explanation than the Nostalgia Chick's video or Wikipedia's blurb on it, but basically it was a Japanese film that got released to the US in English at some point. Most of the animal violence was removed for the English release if I understand correctly, but in the Japanese version it was just awful. A cat went over a waterfall, a dog fought a bear... all shot on film and used in the movie. Milo and Otis ended up being portrayed by quite a few different actors over the course of the shooting.



We've gone on holiday by mistake
One Man’s Hero (1999)
The film: Forgotten historical drama about Irish gang the St Patrick’s Brigade – who caused trouble in Mexico back in the day. Stars Tom Berenger.
What happened? The AHA weren’t on set for this, but they reckon (after several anonymous tip-offs) that horses were tripped with wires during production - which is illegal. The producers did not co-operate and - even worse - slapped the ‘No animals were harmed’ disclaimer on the credits without permission. Speaking of which…

Conan the Barbarian (1982)

The film: Classic almost mute fantasy flick starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the buff warrior-king.
What happened? Serious abuse of horses throughout the film – at one point a nag falls over pointed spikes. It was shot in Spain, which (at the time) had rather lax laws about animal welfare. The AHA were not allowed onset but organised a protest outside cinemas on its release. Sequel ‘Conan the Destroyer’ was also deemed unacceptable for camel abuse.

Heaven’s Gate (1980)
The film: Nihilistic western starring Christopher Walken that is infamously Hollywood’s biggest-ever flop.
What happened? All sorts - and most of it horrible. Without going into too much detail, there were cockfights, chicken decapitations and a horse was “blown up”. One owner sued for the injuries his horse suffered and the case was settled out of court. An upshot was that the nastiness prompted Hollywood unions to contractually authorise the AHA to oversee animal actors, so at least the beasties didn’t suffer in vain. Another reason not to watch a truly awful film.
These are the worst ones imo, especially "One Man's Hero" given that it is a relatively recent picture.

If some fish or insect got hurt then I can't say that I'm really bothered.

To be honest I was expecting the examples to be a lot worse.

The Puppies one is a shame but not really the fault of the film maker/producer.

Bullfighting/live slaughter of Bulls is part of Spanish Tradition, not saying that I condone it but they have been doing it for hundreds of years and still do it. I think it's unfair to point the finger at the film industry for that one.

How about the Music Industry with Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a live Bat, and yes he did really do it. Now thats what I call cruel.



How about the Music Industry with Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a live Bat, and yes he did really do it. Now thats what I call cruel.
That was a mistake, as he was onstage and didn't know/think it was a real bat.



The dove, however... He was completely off his head.

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