Dog's name in Dambusters remake causes headache for filmmakers

It is not the full-scale replica of a Lancaster bomber nor the special effects that are causing problems for the makers of a multimillion-pound remake of the classic British war movie The Dam Busters.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy director Peter Jackson is producing the £21 million movie, to be filmed in Britain and New Zealand, and he has promised to be true to the original story.

However RAF hero Guy Gibson, head of the mission that destroyed German dams during the Second World War, had a dog called Nigger and filmmakers are now wondering whether they dare utter the N-word in 2009.



The canine with the politically incorrect name, who featured in the 1951 book The Dam Busters, was mentioned 12 times in the 1954 film starring Sir Michael Redgrave.

Executive producer Sir David Frost, who bought the rights to the book by former prisoner of war Paul Brickhill, asked actor and screenwriter Stephen Fry to come up with an alternative name for the dog but said he had rejected Fry's suggestions.

"Guy sometimes used to call his dog Nigsy, so I think that's what we will call it," Frost said. "Stephen has been coming up with other names but this is the one I want."