ENTER THE DRAGON: ANGLING SAXON by JOSEPH KUBY

ENTER THE DRAGON could have been different. With Warner Brothers lacking confidence of Bruce Lee carrying a film on his own, it was only natural that they would have doubts about the title of the film. In 1972, the screenplay was called BLOOD & STEEL. The title on the clapperboard from January to April 1973 was ENTER THE DRAGON, but Warner Brothers were thinking about either calling it THE DEADLY THREE or HAN'S ISLAND. When you take a look at what was going to be the original poster, they might as well have called it ROPER & CO. if not DOPE ROPER. After all, the Golden Harvest film company eventually made a film called STONER. The film industry, especially Hollywood, is fickle. For example, THE SILENT FLUTE was released in Texas as DEATH TO THE FOURTH DEGREE before it was retitled as CIRCLE OF IRON. Such macho titling was unnecessary because the film was meant to be philosophical like David Carradine’s earlier project, the KUNG FU TV series. Speaking of, John Saxon appeared in the first episode.

Dave Friedman’s 2013 book, Enter the Dragon: A Photographer’s Journey, contained memos that showed that the Warner Brothers executives were thinking about having the film no longer being titled ENTER THE DRAGON. In an April 9 memo, producer Fred Weintraub told president Ted Ashley that it was important for the film to stand out from the imported Chinese movies in the eyes of theatre owners and the public. As Fred said in his April 9 memo, the WB co-production was: “…the first international martial arts film starring a Chinese actor, a Caucasian/American and a black/American actor.”

The August 1973 issue of the Black Belt magazine came out in June. In what was essentially the “June” issue, John Saxon was the cover story. The cover featured a still from the original version of the golf course fight scene in ENTER THE DRAGON where he fought three different guys altogether. In Bey Logan’s Bruce Lee and I (2018), it was revealed that John wanted to reshoot the fight when seeing first-hand how better the other fights were. There’s nothing wrong with the first fight scene not being special. Sammo Hung’s THE VICTIM (1980) is the perfect example of a film where each fight gets better than the previous one to the point that there is a world of difference between the first and final fights.

Back to John Saxon in ENTER THE DRAGON, he reshot his first fight on April 10, 1973. On April 3, co-producer Paul Heller sent a memo to Eric Weissman where he mentioned that Bruce wanted to film shots in the finale that he wasn’t able to film because of a groin injury. This occurred in late March. By the time that it was April Fools Day, the Americans had already gone home under the impression that principal photography was finished. John Saxon referenced Bruce’s groin injury in the June-released issue of Black Belt. On April 14, Bruce’s wife sent a letter to family friend Robert Baker where she wrote: “As you know, he tore his groin muscle and so has not been able to finish the last part of the film yet. But it’s getting better and they plan to finish up in the next few days. Bruce and I will probably be coming to the States the end of May.”

Back to the June-released issue of Black Belt, the John Saxon article contained the following editor’s note as an opening statement: “The motion picture referred to in the following story as ENTER THE DRAGON has undergone a name change as this issue goes to press. Scheduled for released by Warner Brothers in August, the film is now entitled THE DEADLY THREE.”

Even when the title was finally changed back to ENTER THE DRAGON, there was a TV spot where the billing order was John Saxon, Jim Kelly and Bruce Lee. When the trailer came out, this pecking order was reflected by having the narrator say Roper, Williams and Lee. The latter character was basically advertised as the one role that Bruce tried to get away from during his Hollywood years - the subservient Asian sidekick. The narrator says that Lee’s job is to keep Roper and Williams alive, but Lee has his own mission. In fact, he never interacts with Williams despite the fact that Jim Kelly was more devoted to Karate than John Saxon was (not to mention that Jim had the same struggle with racism in Hollywood that Bruce did). Even if Bruce was demoted in the cast, it’s really no different than agreeing to play second fiddle to James Coburn in THE SILENT FLUTE (although that film was cancelled before it was even cast).

ENTER THE DRAGON in any incarnation would still have been a leg-up for Bruce’s goal to ascend Hollywood’s ranks. When he was in America from late May to early June of 1973 for a medical check-up, he reunited with friends and family. Bruce returned to Hong Kong on June 8, but he would have known about what was going on from Warner Brothers if not Black Belt since issues of that magazine would be released in the middle of a month. According to director Robert Clouse, Bruce had to finish dubbing ENTER THE DRAGON during his brief tenure in America. Warner president Ted Ashley cabled a telegram to Bruce’s Hong Kong address in June 7 informing him of the title being changed to THE ISLAND OF HAN. Linda Lee’s second book, The Bruce Lee Story (1989), featured a blurry version of the June 13 telegram from Ted whereas John Overall’s The Cream of BLR (2024) featured a clear version of the telegram where Ted referred to it as ENTERED THE DRAGON.

In the September 1973 issue of Black Belt (which came out in mid-July), there was a news item about Bruce being in America early June: “Bruce Lee flew into town recently and will be back in July to look for a place to rest his weary legs whenever he’s in L.A. on assignment.”

In the same news section, there was an accompanying statement: “Well, they've done it again. Warner Brothers' upcoming Bruce Lee-John Saxon-Jim Kelly flick now carries the title HAN'S ISLAND. First it was ENTER THE DRAGON then THE DEADLY ISLAND OF HAN, then THE DEADLY THREE. Don't be surprised if an entirely new name appears on the marquee at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (in Hollywood) on August 15, when the movie is scheduled for release.”

At least he got top billing. The release date was pushed back to August 19. Besides Bruce’s death on July 20, it gave more time to replace the poster which strangely reminds me of STAR TREK. If you were to judge a movie by its poster like a book by its cover, one would get the impression that Roper is James T. Kirk - leader and fighter who attracts more than one babe. Meanwhile, Bruce Lee’s Lee is Uhura - the communications expert (albeit he is a combination of Sulu and Spock). Like I said before, they might as well have changed the title to DOPE ROPER. This would have been an in-joke since the English dubbed version of Bruce’s THE BIG BOSS featured a classic one-liner: “Dope in ice?!”

Bruce Lee hated misinformation, and I can’t imagine how aghast that he was with the June-released issue of Black Belt. The article by Steve Jacques basically makes it look like John Saxon is more important than Bruce. Check out the use of the definitive in Steve’s sentence: “Saxon had never been called upon to employ his martial arts prowess in films until he was offered the starring role in ENTER THE DRAGON.”

Even Bruce’s role as fight choreographer is downplayed: “Saxon credits Bruce Lee with choreographing most of the action sequences but says many were the result of collaborative effort.”

Remember that Bruce was livid when director Lo Wei was quoted as saying that he taught Bruce how to fight for the camera in THE BIG BOSS (1971) and FIST OF FURY (1972). Imagine what Bruce must have thought when reading what Saxon said: “We all worked the routines out together. Bruce would throw us a basic idea and we'd evolve it from there with rehearsal after rehearsal.”

In Robert Clouse’s 1987 book, The Making of Enter the Dragon, there is a quote from Golden Harvest executive Andre Morgan about Saxon arriving on the set as if he was the star of the film. To be fair, producer Fred Weintraub admitted in his 2013 book (Bruce Lee, Woodstock and Me) that he implied (instead of outright lied) to Saxon that Roper was the main character. He didn’t say how, but I can imagine that Roper was described as roping in the white audience by being their representative - the outsider to a foreign land. It seems difficult to believe but ENTER THE DRAGON could easily have been re-edited to give Saxon more screen-time. Not only did he have two scenes that were removed from the film, but Bruce could easily have lost more of his own scenes like the graveyard scene and the opening fight scene with the aforementioned Sammo Hung. Bruce already had three scenes removed - the scene with the abbot, the scene where Lee first enters his room on the island, and the second meeting with Mei Ling.

This is where the past and the present dictated Bruce Lee’s future. About THE BIG BOSS (1971), James Tien’s character was supposed to have been the protagonist until it became quickly apparent that Bruce’s character should take over. The Chinese are sensitive about losing face, so both James and Bruce had some of their scenes removed including what James had filmed with the original director. As for Bruce’s present situation, he was having a difficult time convincing the director of WHEN TAEKWONDO STRIKES that Jhoon Rhee should be the star over Angela Mao. On the day before he was declared dead, Bruce told Jhoon in a phone call that he had won the argument with director Huang Feng, but the film was released in September 1973 with Angela getting top billing.

In Linda Lee’s first book, Bruce Lee: The Man Only I Knew (1975), she claimed that her husband’s final days were not among his happiest. In Tom Bleecker’s 1996 book, Unsettled Matters: The Life and Death of Bruce Lee, he claimed that the owner of the Shaw Brothers film company (Run Run Shaw) gave an interview where he implied that Bruce had taken his own life. It should be noted that John Saxon did not attend his funeral in Seattle unlike Jim Kelly. Robert Clouse remembered directing Jim’s BLACK BELT JONES when he found out that Bruce had died. As for Saxon, Clouse had still not spoken to him since the filming of ENTER THE DRAGON by the time that it was 1987. He was planning on interviewing him, but their paths ended up intersecting anyway. In 1988 (which marked the release of Clouse’s Bruce Lee: The Biography), Saxon was hired to be the narrator of a documentary called THE DEADLIEST ART: THE BEST OF THE MARTIAL ARTS FILMS (a Golden Harvest promo piece). Clouse was interviewed, but not by Saxon.

Clouse had actually fallen out with Saxon during the making of ENTER THE DRAGON. Like William Shatner in STAR TREK, Saxon wanted to come out on top when it came to the dialogue by stealing lines from the other actors. This becomes apparent when you read Mike Roote’s novelization. Clouse was so aggravated that he changed the ending. Because Saxon had already filmed his other scenes including the shot where Roper is sitting by himself after the battle is over, Clouse didn’t worry about him walking off set. The original ending, which was filmed, had Lee and Roper walk alongside each other as they survey the damage of Han’s tournament. They had already shot the shot of Roper sitting by himself, so it was easy to film Bruce’s final shot at the last minute. That’s when Saxon knew that he was finished.

In an interview for the August 1980 issue of Martial Arts Movies, Fred Weintraub was asked if Bruce ever saw the final cut, to which he responded by saying: “No, certainly not complete. After we finished shooting, he wanted to add a front piece, the Shaolin Temple scene. He came back to the States and I showed him the rough cuts, but I never showed him the final because I changed the film quite a bit. All of those flashbacks weren't in the original script and neither was the ending. At first, the story began in the States, then it introduced the characters, and then to Hong Kong. After my cut, the story began in the harbor. After Bruce, the story began at the Shaolin Temple.”

In Bruce Lee, Woodstock and Me, Fred wrote: “In the original version, the action of the film began in the U.S. where we met Roper and Williams and followed them to Hong Kong. I thought it would work better to start in Hong Kong, where we'd be introduced to Bruce first and show the events that brought Roper and Williams there in flashback."

Speaking of July 1973, Weintraub wrote: “His sudden death hit me like a ton of bricks. Bruce was 32 years old and never saw a final cut of the film that would make him immortal.”

When you look at the rejected poster for ENTER THE DRAGON, another title could have been ROPER AND ROPE. Bruce was at the end of his rope in July 1973. In Fiaz Rafiq’s Bruce Lee Conversations (2009), Hong Kong citizen Ted Thomas claimed that he last spoke to Bruce about a month or two before he died. Referring to ENTER THE DRAGON, Ted said: “I had a feeling it was a movie he wasn't happy with.”