Корни небес (Korni nebes)

1958 film by John Huston

The Roots of Heaven is a 1958 American adventure film made for 20th Century Fox, directed by John Huston and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. The screenplay by Romain Gary and Patrick Leigh Fermor is based on Romain Gary's 1956 Prix Goncourt winning novel of the same name. The film stars Errol Flynn, Juliette Gréco, Trevor Howard, Eddie Albert, Orson Welles, Paul Lukas, Herbert Lom and Grégoire Aslan. Huston later said that Roots of Heaven "could have been a very fine film. And largely owing to me was not a good film at all."

In French Equatorial Africa, crusading environmentalist Morel sets out to preserve the elephants from extinction as a lasting symbol of freedom for all humanity. He is helped by Minna, a nightclub hostess, and Forsythe, a disgraced British military officer hoping to redeem himself.

William Holden was mentioned as a possibility for the lead part of Morel, as was James Mason. Holden wanted to take the role but he was under contract to Paramount, which would not permit him to make the film unless he signed another contract, but he refused. The lead role was taken by Trevor Howard. Errol Flynn signed to play a key support role but was given top billing. Flynn left the cast of the play The Master of Thornfield to appear in the film. Flynn and John Huston had famously brawled at a Hollywood party more than a decade earlier. Juliette Gréco, who had appeared in Zanuck's version of The Sun Also Rises and became his lover, was signed as the female lead. Eddie Albert and Paul Lukas rounded out the main cast. Orson Welles signed on for a cameo role.

Shooting took place mainly on location in French Equatorial Africa over five months in the Belgian Congo and Chad in the Northern Cameroons, where the elephants were located. The cast and crew suffered from heat, malaria and other tropical diseases. Temperatures would routinely reach in the day and degrees at night, and people would shower four or five times per night. Some days required a four hour drive to the location and back, and all water was transported to the set by aircraft. and the company reported 900 sick calls from a cast and crew of 120. Flynn mentioned the challenges of the location with affection in his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways (1959). Zanuck said "I would never make a picture there again" but he was proud that "[t]here is not one dubbed line, transparency plate or process shot in the whole picture." Welles filmed his part over two days at a Paris studio. His rate was normally $15,000, but he was not paid because he wished to reciprocate Zanuck for helping Welles fund Othello (1952). Huston later said: "I still don't want to have to work with a producer again but if I had to, I'd certainly choose Darryl. He's been very good, co operative and decent throughout."

The film was edited in London rather than Paris so that Zanuck could be near Gréco, who was making a film there.

The film opened at the Palace Theatre in New York City.

The Los Angeles Times wrote that "John Huston may have bitten off more than he could chew in 'The Roots of Heaven', but much of it makes for thoughtful mastication it sometimes seems too strange to be real." Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times that "[t]he first two thirds of 'The Roots of Heaven' looks like a highly potential adventure film" but that "the final third of the film goes down the drain"—a conclusion "the more disappointing—and strangely surprising, indeed—because the elements, up to this point, have seemed so beautifully under control." Filmink called the film "possibly the first big budget studio film about an eco terrorist (unless you count Tarzan movies)."

The sounds of the TIE fighter from Star Wars, and later Star Wars films, were created in part by reusing and altering the recordings of aggravated elephants vocalizing in later scenes in The Roots of Heaven. The sound director for Star Wars Ben Burtt described that due to the film being produced by 20th Century Fox, Burtt and his team had access to a vast array of older properties produced by the studio from which they could retrieve sounds from. Burtt has stated that most of the sounds in Star Wars are original and were created for the film, though a small number of sound effects were indeed pulled from the library of classic 20th Century Fox films.

The film was first released on Blu ray in 2011 by Twilight Time (home video label) in a limited edition of 3,000 units. The only special feature on the disc is an isolated score track.