What's your favourite item of movie trivia?

That in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (with Gene Wilder, not Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Depp), the faces on all the actors when they first enter the room where everything is edible and the chocolate river are their real, initial reactions. Before that they had never seen the room. Also, the kids were terrified of the boat ride down the river and through the tunnel.

Ronald Reagan was supposed to play Rick in Casablanca

in pulp fiction all of the clocks are set to 4:20

:( There is a persistent myth that that all the clocks in the movie are set to 4:20 (although, certainly all the clocks on the wall in the pawn shop are set to 4:20). However, in at least two scenes it is obvious that this is not the case. In the “Bonnie Situation” while Jimmy, Vince and Jules are drinking coffee in the kitchen, the clock clearly reads 8:15. Secondly, when Vince and Jules go to retrieve the briefcase, it is “7:22 in the a.m.”. The significance of the time 4:20 is that it is slang for smoking marijuana. (IMDB)

@richardhenry: thanks for letting me know what the significance of 4:20 is.

@tennesseejac There’s definitely an emphasis on it.

I dig all the theories regarding Pulp Fiction and what’s in the case, what the band-aid on the back of Marcellius’s head is all about, and other fine points.

Also love the cameos people (mainly directors) throw in their own films. Quentin Tarantino, M. Night Shamalamadingdong, Stephen King… others?

As for amusing, I was looking at an office complex once and the guy leasing the place said the building was previously used as storage and some scenes in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I have no idea if it was true or not, but it seemed an odd piece of trivia to advertise the place with.

Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) is the actor who plays the voice of the spaceship in Flight Of The Navigator

Harrison Ford played the school principal in E.T., but his only scene was cut because Spielberg decided his presence would be too distracting.

In The Blues Brothers; there’s a scene where the brothers go in to a bank, watch closely and you’ll see the bank employee taking the money from them is Stephen Spielberg. And I thought it was funny in Pet Cemetery (which was a horrid film), that Stephen King played the minister at the funeral.

Sophia Coppola was not only in Godfather Part III, she was actually one of only seven actors in all three movies.

In the movie Jaws, Robert Shaw, who played Quint, does a monologue about surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. What I love most about this, besides the scene itself, is that it was never in the script. Shaw showed up drunk that day and when they did the scene he just suddenly rambled off this now famous speech. Speilberg, being Speilberg, just kept the cameras rolling and viola, accidental genius.

In Die Hard, Bruce Willis enters the ceiling area wearing a white tank top, and emerges wearing an olive green one. Supposedly ‘dirty’...but it is clearly a different shirt.

In Die Hard II, which is supposed to take place at Dulles Airport near Washington, DC a bank of pay phones has the Pacific Bell logo on them (clearly not on the east coast!)

Cary Grant uses his real name (Archie Leach) in His Girl Friday, when his character talks about what happened to the last guy who crossed him. He also describes Ralph Bellamy’s character by saying, “He looks like that actor… Ralph Bellamy!” Both were improvised lines by Grant on the set.

Also, John Cleese uses “Archie Leach” for his character’s name in A Fish Called Wanda in homage to Grant and to that film.

In Some Like it Hot, Tony Curtis imitated Cary Grant for when he was playing the millionaire in the movie. Cary Grant saw the parody of himself and stated, “I don’t talk like that.”

While on the topic of Cary Grant…

Supposedly, Cary Grant became drawn to the role of Ernie Mott in None But the Lonely Hunter. He was eager to play him, and for the first time in his career, he really dug deep to act the part.

The movie bombed. Grant didn’t make another movie for a whole year.

(from a book by Pauline Kael)

I LOVE Cary Grant!

Me too!

Alfred Hitchcock has a brief cameo in all of the movies he directed.

North by Northwest…nuff said.

@funkdaddy, Oliver Stone, Orson Welles (somewhat), Alfred Hitchcock, Marty (sometimes) – cameos. Oh, and John Huston.

I miss Alfred Hitchcock…Good evennnning.

Make and model of Dirty Harry’s hand gun and make and model of Steve McQueens chase car in Bullitt. .

@tennesseejac: Compliance!

The original Superman (1978) movie Christopher Reeves dubbed over young Clarks voice to make it more the same, so while Jeff East appears on screen it is Reeves voice

Kurt Russell, Nick Nolte, Christopher Walken, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Bill Murray and Perry King were all candidates for the role of Han Solo in the movie Star Wars.

That my mother danced and had bit parts in 15 movies in 1932 and 1933 with MGM. She danced behind Ginger Rogers, Kay Francis, Ruby Keeler, Mae West, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell; she sat on Jimmy Cagney’s lap when he was a song and dance man; she and Cary Grant lay under a Conestoga wagon and fired muskets at Indians; she wore a leopard skin bikini and walnut juice skin dye and carried a spear as an Amazon.

Skfinkel, Ben and Finkelitis are aware of this.

My mother cannot remember the name of her new boyfriend but can still sing most of the lyrics of “We’re in the Money,” from Golddiggers of 1933. She also does a nice “Shuffle off to Buffalo” in her ankle support and tie oxfords.

@gailcalled: That is certainly the most incredible movie trivia I have ever had the pleasure of reading about! How fun those stories must have been to hear; and it also explains where you got your feisty attitude! :)

@gailcalled – That’s amazing!

It was fun but simultaneously difficult for her two daughters. First, she wanted life to be like a movie script with no problems and a happy ending, and secondly her reliance on her extraordinary beauty made her value system something we had to wrestle with. My brother felt differently, but she treated him differently, as she did all males.

@gailcalled Steven King has also been in every movie he made.

And yet again, I have to lament the fact that Gails 98 year old mother has a boyfriend and I don’t!
<———still young..

@chyna; She is only 94 and can’t always remember his name; but HE is 83, Viennese, dashing and has all his hair and a charming accent.

Don’t despair; perhaps some day your prince will come.

@ everyone AWESOME stuff

@gailcalled – That is truly amazing trivia. Thank you so much for sharing that.

This is a really great question.

- In toy story when BUZ and WOODY are lost at the gas station and standing under the truck, they render the scene with woody’s feet below the ground so the two would see more eye to eye.

- In Monsters, when Sully ane Mike Wazowskie banish the bad guy through the door to the mobile home, the pizza planet delivery truck from both Toy Story movie’s is parked outside

- In Jaws, the reason you don’t see the shark that much is because the thing kept breaking.

@Bri_L Glad to see you’re back! I was missing you :)

@augustlan – Thanks much! Good to be missed.

@gailcalled – The pre-Code period when your mother worked is one of my favourite periods of American film history. When I first saw many of those movies as a young teen, I thought, Whoa, the old days weren’t the boring days I thought they were!

True. The women stars and dancers (excepting Mae West and Kate Smith) were very slender and had the breasts they were born with. Much of the costumes for them were cut on the bias and very revealing without bras, which they usually eschewed. The dancers often worn lots of chiffon with a few strategic embroidered flowers or bunches of sequins.

Not much sex however, save the obligatory clinch and then fade-out.

My neighborhood theater had a Barbara Stanwyck pre-Code film festival. I hadn’t been much of a fan except for Ball of Fire and The G-String Murders (certainly not her TV grand dame stuff) but those early 30’s movies were great-very daring subject maater.

In The Big Lebowski you never actually see the Dude bowl.

@gallileogirl Didn’t know that about Ron Reagan. Thanks. My all time favorite movie (and I must admit it probably wouldn’t be if I was thinking about “trickle-down” economics every time I watched it). Man, what an awesome question.