Taking Tiger Mountain (1982)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Blade Runner

Taking Tiger Mountain is a 1983 American science fiction film directed by Tom Huckabee and Kent Smith, and starring Bill Paxton in one of his earliest on-screen acting roles. Originally conceived as an experimental art film inspired by Albert Camus's 1942 novel The Stranger and a poem by Smith, the film was initially directed by Smith and shot in Wales. Aside from Paxton, the film's cast is made up of townspeople from the areas in which shooting took place. It was filmed without sound, with the intention of adding dialogue in post-production.

Production

In 1973, Kent Smith wrote a poem about the kidnapping of John Paul Getty III, which was loosely adapted as the initial script for Taking Tiger Mountain. Smith also drew inspiration from the 1942 novel The Stranger by Albert Camus.

Smith, who worked as an employee at Encyclopædia Britannica Films with actor Bill Paxton, journeyed with Paxton and University of Texas at Austin student Tom Huckabee to Morocco in 1974 to begin shooting the film. They brought with them leftover film stock from the film Lenny, as well as a leased Arriflex Techniscope camera and "probably a tripod", and intended to film in the city of Tangier.

Paxton's co-stars were residents of the towns in Wales where the film was shot, rather than professional actors. The film was shot in black-and-white and without sound, with the intention of having dialogue be dubbed in later. In 1979, Huckabee leased the footage from Smith to turn it into a film. Huckabee and Paxton decided to abandon the initial idea based on the Getty kidnapping, and enlisted the help of Paul Cullum to change the script.

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