What's your favourite piece of movie trivia?

Where to begin? ...I would guess that one of my faves is that R. Lee Ermy famous for portraying the drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket was actually hired as a consultant. The guy who played Joker (Matt Modine) was supposed to be the DI. During a scene where Modine’s performance was less than believable to Ermy’s taste he stepped in to show him how to yell and was immediately cast into to DI roll

The set of the interior of Rick’s Cafe Americain for the film Casablanca was original, built especially for the film on the Warner lot. In the scene where Rick (Bogart) is descending the stairs, the German patrons in the dining room, many of them Nazis, are singing “Watch on the Rhine” then the French patrons begin to sing th “Marseillaise”. During post-production, director Michael Curtiz wasn’t satisfied with the scene and a year later called Bogie back to stand on the stairs in his tuxedo and nod in what became a 4-second shot in the movie. (Curtiz wanted Rick to nod to the bandleader who wanted to strike up the Free French national anthem to answer the Germans’ patriotic song).

But during that year the set had been totally dismantled and the space had been used for three other films and therefore the staircase, dining room set including the bandstand had to be rebuilt from scratch to make the shot.

Also, many of the Nazis in that scene were actually German and Austrian Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe. Many of those tears were real as they sang the Marseillaise.

That Boo Radley was played by Robert Duvall in To Kill a Mockingbird in his first role. Also, that the character of Dill in the movie and the book was based on Harper Lee’s childhood friend, Truman Capote.

The scene in The Abyss with the rat breathing the liquid wasn’t faked. The liquid used actually exists and was at one point used in intensive care units in ventilators although never really became a commonly used treatment. (it didn’t really work better than the alternative and was incredibly messy)

That while most people know that in The Graduate that Dustin Hoffman was driving the wrong way on the Bay Bridge to get to Berkeley, that he was also driving the wrong way through the Gaviota tunnel on his way to Santa Barbara. The tunnel is only for driving _away_from Santa Barbara.

In the movie “Terminator 2”, the special effects team had a special head they planned to use for the scene in which the T-1000 bashes Arnold’s head in with a steel ram rod.
Unfortunately during tests, the head looked too obviously like a rubber head being squeezed, so James Cameron had the only existing full metal animatronic hero prop being used in that scene, after which it was almost completely destroyed, but still planned on being used the very next day.
The SFX guys then had to scramble to try to fix it over night.

I studied film in college and love movies but not enough to go see The Cure for Insomnia (1987) which is the longest movie ever made at a total running time of 85 hours (5,220 min) . It premiered in its entirety at The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Illinois from January 31 to February 3, 1987, in one continuous showing.

Beauty & The Beast (Disney) is the only animated film to be nominated for Best Picture Oscar. There will never be another one. Why? Now they have a category for Best Animated Film.

@joejoemonkeyboy Not quite. Modine was never meant to play Hartman (the drill instructor). That role originally belonged to Tim Colceri. Furthermore, Ermey did had to aggressively petition for the role. He asked Kubrick for it and was denied. Kubrick then cast Colceri. But in the meantime, Ermey recorded a video tape of himself playing the role with a bunch of extras. Kubrick saw the video and changed his mind (recasting Colceri as the callous door gunner on Joker’s transport helicopter).

That Alfred Hitchcock made cameo appearances in most of his films. He’s pretty easy to spot, if you’re watching for him. Talk about distinctive looks.

T.a.r.d.i.s. time and relative dimensions in space. From Dr. Who.

I’ve always thought it was interesting that the bat scene in ‘The Shining’ took 127 takes to complete. Stanley Kubrick was apparently pretty tough with Shelley Duvall throughout the entire making of the movie.

I also like that the sock in the book scene (for lack of a better description) in ‘Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets’ was partly improvised. The actor who played Lucius Malfoy threw an ad-libbed line into the mix and little Daniel Radcliffe responded to it amazingly and without missing a beat. Pretty good acting for a kid his age.

@CunningFox, do you have a link for that story about Harry Potter? I’d like to see which part was ad-libbed.

@Jeruba My guess is the “We’re lucky to have you here to save the day” / “I always will be!” lines. They really seem out of place.

In his movie “Psycho,” Alfred Hitchcock wanted the sound of a knife plunging into a human body to be realistic. So the props department brought in several types of melon to stab behind Hitchcock’s back as he listened. When they finished, he said “Casaba.”

Why not just stab a dead pig?

Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre were both based on the same true story.

@Jeruba, yes it’s the scene that @filmfann mentioned. I can’t seem to find a video clip of it though to link to.
Lucius Malfoy says “Let us hope that Mr. Potter will always be around to save the day.”
And Harry says back “Don’t worry, I will be.”

@CunningFox that makes sense. Completely out of character for both.

Too many to mention, there’s the famed scene where Joe Pesci completely improvised the whole “Funny, how? Like a clown?” Ray Liotta looks fucking lost.
One of my faves though is nothing really special or remarkable, but it really floats my boat. If you watch Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven, in scenes where he’s on camera but has no dialogue, he’s constantly fidgeting, with his hat, his face, patting his horse. He said later in his career that he, being a relatively unknown newcomer, wanted the audience to notice him, their attention drawn to him even when the established star of the film Yul Brynner held centre stage.
It works, anyone who enjoys it should look out for his behaviour next time they watch the movie, like I say, nothing particularly exciting, but it works for me, impressive stuff.

I like how Disney hides easter eggs. For instance, you can see Toy Story toys in Boo’s room in Monsters inc.

I’ve been thinking about this question since it first appeared because as the responses so far prove, there are just too many great choices.

So I pick the great auto chase episode in the the movie Bullitt, considered by many to be the best ever filmed. The bloopers in that sequence are glaring, and would never be tolerated in editing today, where the viewing public has access to pause & rewind. If you live in or are familiar with San Francisco, it’s fascinating to watch the cars race from block to block in the city. The scenes are so riveting that you fail to notice that most of those blocks are actually separated from one another by miles, as the cars instantly switch back and forth through the city. There are a couple of points where the editing failed in that the chase footage was allowed an extra second or 2 too many, and the unavoidable resulting crash is obvious. And then there’s the multiple use of the same prop vehicles on the roads. There’s one hilly sequence where the same green Volkswagen Beetle gets sped past at least 4 times on different blocks. The hard working beetle is seen laboring up the hill toward the racers, and as the hot pursuit flies past and squeals around a corner there’s the same little car heading in the same direction as the pursuit, and the racers swerve around it.

In Psycho, filmed in black and white, Hitchcock’s technicians spent 4 days trying different combinations of liquid for the blood spatter in the shower scene. They tried everything from animal blood, to a mixture of glycerin and food coloring, to marinara sauce from the Kraft table. They would splash it, film it while it dripped down a tiled wall, wait for development, view it, and he refused it more than 30 times. Although they filmed around it, Hitchcock couldn’t film the shower scene until they got it right and he was going nuts. Finally Hershey’s chocolate syrup filmed with a red lens filter did the trick.

@Espiritus_Corvus why would he have needed a red filter?

@Lightlyseared I was wondering the same thing. If the final product was black and white, I don’t get why they would use a red filter anyway.

It brings out the contrast; the finer edges of the grey scale. When using b&w film under bright light, a red filter brings out the things that may be bleached away and defines dark things better. For example, when shooting outside under a bright sky, a red filter will bring out the clouds whereas they may not appear at all and the sky in the background of your shot will appear flat and uninteresting. When shooting the chocolate syrup under bright light on a white surface, you want each drop of the splatter to stand out, while it became diluted and washed down the drain—or why bother? Hitchcock wanted that scene burned into everyone’s head forever. And it was. It totally freaked everybody out.

Bullitt’s on right now. God, I love sound of those engines as they explode on takeoff. McQueen had a Cobra under his hood and the other guys had a Hemi. No glasspacks, that’s the real deal you hear. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Ten minutes of speed shifting, down shifting, double clutching… I’ve read that McQueen insisted on doing his own stunt driving which gave the suits and the insurance company a heart attack. It is said they made him put up his own bond to insure the movie before they’d let him drive. I find that hard to believe, but it sounds like pure McQueen. The best car chase ever.

My Dad was the consultant on Bullet for the car tires. They wanted someone who was well respected in the racing community, and my Dad knew his shit!