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THE beefy Englishman lying beside the hotel pool had started knocking back sangria at 8am.

At 10 he moved on to daiquiri cocktails and by noon he was popping champagne corks.

The extraordinary display of kamikaze boozing took place in Baghdad when it was the lair of Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein.

Astonished locals were witnessing the British film industry’s own Weapon of Mass Destruction – hellraising actor Oliver Reed.

The star, whose approach to drinking could induce shock and awe, was in the Iraqi capital to make Clash of Loyalties, the weirdest film of his colourful career. The bizarre story is recalled tonight in a TV documentary.

Vanity

Clash of Loyalties was Saddam’s ham-fisted 1980 attempt to bring out a blockbuster epic that would rival Hollywood. It was a doomed vanity project about the birth of modern Iraq, with a budget of £25million.

The movie was dogged by problems from the start and was never released. It lay in rusting film reel tins in the Surrey garage of producer Lateif Jorephani for years.

Armed with Saddam’s money, Jorephani hired a 160-strong British cast and crew. By grim irony, the film’s battle scenes were shot as Iraq was plunged into a bloody real-life conflict with Iran that claimed more than a million lives.

Two weeks into filming, Saddam invaded Iran and fighting on a massive scale went on for almost a decade. But the he actors were getting £1,000 a week – very good money in 1980 – and soldiered on. Jorephani had considered Day of the Jackal star Edward Fox for the lead role of British officer Colonel Gerard Leachman. But instead he plumped for Oliver, who had made his name in a string of films including Women In Love. The problem was, Olly had a legendary taste for booze. And he began hitting the bottle duri ng t he f l i ght f rom Heathrow to Iraq. Fellow cast member Mark Penfold, a stalwart of British TV dramas since the 1970s, recalled: “Most of us were in economy. After an hour, word came that Oliver was inviting us into first class.” By the time the plane l anded, many of the cast were roaring drunk. But they sobered up when they saw they were being escorted by a fighter jet and soldiers were guarding the airport.

As they settled into their Al Mansour Hotel, the truth dawned. War clouds were gathering and they were in the middle of it. Penfold, a veteran of The Bill and Downton Abbey, said: “I thought, ‘What have I got myself into?’”

But the war did not stop the drinking, especially when production delays left people kicking their heels in their hotel.

Cast member Stephan Chase said: “Oliver Reed and boredom is not a good mix. At 8am in the morning he ended up poolside with this enormous bowl of sangria. By 10am the daiquiris came out. By 12 we were into champagne.”

Helen Ryan, who starred as explorer Gertrude Bell in the female lead role, added: “For Olly, it was a chance to drink as for the film’s Iraqi techn a terrifying time. Produc “They kept getting calle

“Then we would find th would have to shoot thei caused us huge problem

Chaos

Stunt director Vic A arrived in Baghdad after movies like Superman an Jones, only to find himse two months to shoot cavalry charge. He said: “concern was that after two I hadn’t seen any horses

“I was told to go a