Director Francis Ford Coppola gives us the definitive Vietnam War film with this epic.  An all-star cast which includes Marlon Brando, Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper and Harrison Ford, brings Coppola's vision to the screen.
 
Martin Sheen stars as Captain Willard, a young Special Forces operative who is sent into the jungles of Cambodia to locate, infiltrate and "terminate" the command of a rogue Special Forces Colonel (played by Marlon Brando) who is carrying on his own "private war" with his band of AWOL military personnel and local natives.
 
This film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, and includes the haunting sounds of Jim Morrison and The Doors "The End." 

• Steve McQueen was the first to turn down the role of Captain Willard. Harvey Keitel was then cast as Willard. Two weeks into shooting, director Francis Ford Coppola replaced him with Martin Sheen.
• George Lucas was originally set to direct "Apocalypse Now" and planned to shoot the movie as a faux documentary on location in South Vietnam while the war was still in progress. Francis Ford Coppola, as the executive producer, tried to get the film with Warner Bros. The deal fell through and Coppola went on to direct The Godfather in 1972. By the time both men were powerful enough to get the film made, Saigon had fallen and Lucas was busy making Star Wars in 1977, so gave Coppola his blessing to direct the film himself.
• Marlon Brando was paid $1 million in advance. He threatened to quit and keep the advance. Francis Ford Coppola believed that Marlon Brando was familiar with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and had prepared for the role before the legendary actor arrived on the set. When Brando did come out (late), Coppola was horrified to find that Brando had never read "Heart of Darkness", did not know his lines, and had become extremely fat (Kurtz had always been written as a tall but starvingly-thin man). After some panicking, Coppola decided to film the 5'10" Brando as if he was a massively built, 6'5" brute (to explain Brando's size) and steered the camera clear of Brando's huge belly.  Coppola spent days reading Joseph Conrad's source novel out loud to Marlon Brando on the set. Marlon Brando so angered Francis Ford Coppola that the director turned over the filming of Brando's scenes to Jerry Ziesmer, the assistant director.
• Martin Sheen was actually drunk in the scene where Willard is drunk alone in his hotel room. All of Sheen's actions in that scene were a result of his real intoxication. When Sheen punched the mirror (which was real glass), he really did cut his hand as shown in the film. While drunk, Sheen also began sobbing and tried to attack Francis Ford Coppola. Martin Sheen had a heart attack during the filming and some shots of Willard's back are of doubles, including Sheen's brother who was flown out specially. Coppola was so worried that backing would be withdrawn by the studio and distributor if news of Sheen's heart attack leaked out, that he kept it quiet, even to the extent of explaining Sheen's hospitalization as being due to "heat exhaustion" in the official Shoot Schedule.
• The water buffalo (carabao in Filipino) that was slaughtered was real.
• Laurence Fishburne lied about his age (he was 14 at the time) when production began in 1976.
• Coppola invested several million dollars of his personal wealth after the film went severely over budget. He lost over 100 pounds during the making of this film as well as threatening suicide several times.
• The famous line "terminate... with extreme prejudice" is spoken by Jerry Ziesmer, who also served as the film's Assistant Director.
• The movie's line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." was voted as the #12 movie quote by the American Film Institute.
• Voted No.1 in Film4's "50 Films To See Before You Die".
• READ more trivia HERE at IMDB's webpage
  

• The tape player that "Clean" picks up to play his mother's taped letter has no batteries in the bottom.
• When Willard kicks The Chef's severed head off his legs his neck can be seen breathing in and out.
• READ more goofs HERE at IMDB's webpage
  

Trivia & Goofs above courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.

 
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