LAKE CASITAS : Movie Cast Nearly Goes Into the Drink

Actor Bill Murray almost took an illegal dip in Lake Casitas while filming a Walt Disney movie with Richard Dreyfuss, cast members said.

They were filming a family-vacation comedy called “What About Bob?” on Monday when a pontoon boat bursting with actors sprang a leak, a film extra said.

“They were getting ready to go, and all of a sudden they noticed the boat was setting lower and lower, so everybody started scrambling to get ashore,” said Brad Hunter, a Long Beach extra hired to sail his catamaran as background scenery.

The crew had to call a crane to lift the boat out of the water for repairs.

“We could have pulled it out, but you can’t touch the water,” Hunter said.

Lake Casitas supplies drinking water to 50,000 area residents. The Casitas Municipal Water District is enforcing strict rules against wading or swimming in the lake until a new water treatment plant is built.

The film is scheduled to be shown in theaters next month, said Steve Hellerstein, transportation manager of Touchstone Pictures. The Disney subsidiary took 120 people and several dozen boats, trucks and trailers to the main dock to shoot a last-minute scene.

Doug Ralph, assistant park superintendent, said the crew paid the park’s standard $1,000 fee for the day. They also rented a barge, four pontoon boats and other craft from Casitas Boat Rentals and members of the Oak View Moose Lodge. But it was the company’s own boat that sprang the leak, Ralph said.

Most of the movie was filmed at Smith Mountain Lake in Virginia.