Nazi footage 'dismays' Alec Baldwin
Actor Alec Baldwin says he wants to be removed as narrator of an
Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary, saying film-makers went too far by including images of Nazi rallies.
In a posting on
The Huffington Post website, Baldwin wrote that he agreed to narrate the documentary,
Running With Arnold, about the Terminator actor-turned-governor's political rise based on a reading of the script.
But he said that when he saw the film as he recorded the tracks, he was "somewhat dismayed by some of the images".
"The film-makers hammer Schwarzenegger over his private behaviour and his record as governor," Baldwin wrote, noting he was not a supporter of the governor. "
But Schwarzenegger deserves to be treated fairly and the film's images of Nazi rallies were over the line.
The California governor's office would not comment.
Baldwin wrote that he asked that his voice be removed and said he returned payment. He also had his lawyer issue a cease-and-desist demand against the film-makers.
Producer Mike Gabrawy said Baldwin had the script for more than a month and that they tried several times to set up screenings with the actor, even delaying recording the narration to accommodate him.
The film includes a photograph of
Kurt Waldheim, the former president of Austria, Schwarzenegger's native country, who was invited to Schwarzenegger's wedding but did not attend. In the photo, Waldheim is dressed in his
Second World War Wehrmacht uniform. Another image in the documentary showed the Nazi party paperwork of Schwarzenegger's father, Gabrawy said. Other images of the
Third Reich had been replaced.
Gabrawy said he learned Baldwin did not want to be associated with the film days after the narration was recorded.
"What's really shocking about this situation is that this is not really a critical look at Arnold -- there's a lot more we could have done to be critical," he said.
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