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The highly-controversial Deer Hunter was released more than four decades ago and the movie has since etched its legacy as one of the landmark movies ever made on The Vietnam War. The 1978 classic also secured five Oscars and left a profound impact on how Americans viewed the struggles of war veterans returning home.
But behind the scenes, the experience for the cast was nothing short of life-threatening. John Savage, now 75, who portrayed Steven in the movie, had once opened up about the perilous conditions they faced while filming, revealing how close he, Christopher Walken, and Robert De Niro came to losing their lives during production.
Living on the Edge
John reflected on the extreme risks that were taken to ensure the film’s anti-war message was powerfully conveyed to audiences. In an interview with the UK’s Mirror, he emphasized that no modern studio would ever allow such dangerous conditions for their cast and crew.
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“The film is about life on the edge. The shoot was very much like that. None of us realized how much danger we were in — it felt like we were going to war just to make this movie,” he said.
According to John, Robert De Niro took on the role of a leader on set, ensuring that the film remained special under the direction of Michael Cimino. Yet, despite the precautions taken, John admitted that they were lucky to make it out of filming alive. “Bob, Chris, and I are lucky to be alive. We almost got killed,” he sighed.
The cast was shooting in Thailand during a time of instability, where armed groups and refugees roamed freely, and saw the production as a chance to make quick money. To counter the threat, Michael Cimino hired armed guards, but that wasn’t enough to prevent a dangerous incident that nearly cost them their lives.
The Helicopter Incident
During one particular scene, the actors found themselves suspended on a bridge, with metal safety cables connecting them to a helicopter.
John said, “We knew we were in trouble when the cables got cut. Amazingly, Chris, who is an athlete and a dancer, pulled himself up and into the helicopter, which flew up leaving Bobby and I hanging from the sliced cable in an absolute panic knowing this could be the end of our lives.”
“Bob was right next to me and it’s like, ‘S–t’, and he’s screaming in my face and I’m looking down, ‘What do we do? Should we drop — there’s rocks and s–t down there,’” John recalled. “I was calling Bobby by his character name, yelling ‘Michael, Michael, I’m not sure we should drop in the water there.’ Bobby yells at me: ‘Jesus Christ, John. Don’t call me by my character name. We’re f–king going to die here.’”
A Desperate Decision to Drop
Amid the panic, both actors decided to drop from the bridge. ‘God knows how, but we missed the rocks and the water took us to the side of the production boat below. We both stared at one another on deck,” John said. “Then we looked up to see that the helicopter was wavering as it was stuck to the cable on the bridge, but luckily somebody crawled out and pushed it off,” he says.
“Had that not happened, the ’copter could have crashed down on us too,” John explained. But the danger didn’t end there. As they clung to the logs in the water, the crew scrambled to prevent them from being crushed by the oncoming debris.
“The panicked camera team rammed the boat into the logs to stop us getting crushed or drowned,” John said. “The impact dislodged the camera and it fell in — the footage lost forever. Bobby somehow got out of the water, on to the log and used the boat to push our log away from the danger area.”
John’s story underscores just how close they came to disaster. Yet, somehow, they survived to tell the tale, and The Deer Hunter became a cinematic masterpiece that would go down in history for its haunting portrayal of the Vietnam War.
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