“They used to call it Apocalypse When,” recalls director Francis Ford Coppola. “It was just being portrayed as this wild, irresponsible picture.”

It’s not hard to see why. Tormented by a production that suffered one disaster after another, Coppola’s Vietnam War movie Apocalypse Now looked like it might never see the light of a movie projector.

Wrestling with a tricky subject matter was taxing enough, but Coppola faced numerous problems during production of his magnum opus – including torrential weather storms that destroyed expensive sets, a problem actor in Marlon Brando, and a runaway schedule – not to mention a runaway budget.

It’s a small miracle that Coppola was able to piece together the kind of film that was even viewable, let alone one worthy of an Oscar or two…