Film Anectodes and Other Movie-related Stories

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by danoyse

And Harrison Ford filmed a cameo for ET in a scene where he played Elliot's school principal, although only the back of his head was seen. In the scene, he's lecturing Elliot about the incident with the frogs, but when his back is turned, Elliot's chair lifts off the ground because at home ET was levitating things as an experiment.

The scene was, of course, cut from the film. But Henry Thomas was a huge Star Wars fan, and he was so excited to work with Harrison Ford that he took that day's call sheet home to show off to his friends.

Melissa Mathison also had a cameo as a school nurse in ET, but her scene was also cut.

Awesome I didn't know that.

Originally Posted by danoyse

Also, the little boy who played Danny Torrance was never told that he was starring in a horror movie. Stanley Kubrick was afraid of scaring him.

Cool On a related note, the little boy, Danny Loyd, is said to have been found by Leon Vitali, who played the part of Lord Bullingdon in "Barry Lyndon" and went on to become Stanley Kubrick's personal assistant.

Originally Posted by danoyse

In The Omen, the evil smile that little Damien smiles at the camera in the final scene wasn't intended. Originally, Robert Thorne succeeded in killing Damien, but after a screening someone suggested that "the devil win" at the end, so the ending was re-shot with Damien attending the funeral of his parents, then glaring at the camera.

Originally, the final shot was to be of Damien giving an evil look (not a smile) at the camera. But little Harvey Stephens, who played Damien and was about 6 years old at the time, got the giggles when they were shooting the scene and they couldn't get him to stop smiling. In fact, his smile reportedly got bigger because Richard Donner kept telling him "Harvey, don't smile...don't you smile!" which only made him giggle more.

In the end, the smile stayed. And it's still creepy.

Wow, great story. I didn't know it either and I love this movie and the creepy ending as well of course. Thanks, Danoyse.

[danoyse]

Aileen Quinn, who played the lead role in the film version of Annie, had previously appeared in the Broadway production of Annie as an orphan understudy - but never played Annie on stage.

Jack Wild, who played the Artful Dodger in the film version of Oliver!, had appeared in the London stage production of Oliver! as one of Fagin's boys - but was told he was too short to play the Artful Dodger on stage.

He got an Oscar nomination for playing that role in the film. Although he had to wear lifts in his shoes, since, even at 15, he was still shorter than 9-year-old Mark Lester, who played Oliver.

Also, the reason that Oliver sings like a girl in that movie is because his singing was dubbed by the music supervisor's daughter. Mark Lester couldn't sing.

[Secret Fawful]

The Harrison Ford cameo is on the Laserdisc edition of ET I believe.

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by danoyse

Aileen Quinn, who played the lead role in the film version of Annie, had previously appeared in the Broadway production of Annie as an orphan understudy - but never played Annie on stage.

Jack Wild, who played the Artful Dodger in the film version of Oliver!, had appeared in the London stage production of Oliver! as one of Fagin's boys - but was told he was too short to play the Artful Dodger on stage.

He got an Oscar nomination for playing that role in the film. Although he had to wear lifts in his shoes, since, even at 15, he was still shorter than 9-year-old Mark Lester, who played Oliver.

Also, the reason that Oliver sings like a girl in that movie is because his singing was dubbed by the music supervisor's daughter. Mark Lester couldn't sing.

[gwynplaine]

Spielberg's "Duel" was shot in 13 days
And it was a TV Movie in the US, but the film was released theatrically in Europe.

[danoyse]

When the internment camp was destroyed in Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale was supposed to jump up and down and yell as the fighter planes were bombing the camp.

Unfortunately, Bale (who was 13 at the time), got so caught up watching the set explode that he forgot to do any of it and just ran back and forth on the roof.

Since you can only blow up your set once, that was the only take they had to do it.

There's a clip of it on a behind-the-scenes documentary, and it was a great look at how incredibly patient Steven Spielberg is with child actors, when he was calmly asking Christian (who looked somewhere between furious with himself and close to tears) what had happened there.

I couldn't find that clip, but this was the final scene - the first few seconds was the part he screwed up. Spielberg fixed it by adding close ups and additional shots of him jumping up and down. It still ended up being one of the best scenes in the movie:

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[C. Lee]

Speaking of EMPIRE OF THE SUN.....I remember watching Siskel and Ebert review it, and Ebert complained about how unrealistic the scene was, where Bale crosses the wire crawling through the mud and is almost stepped on by a Japanese guard who doesn't see him.....a couple of days later I see J.G Ballard (whose personal experiences were the basis of the movie) on some show talking about the movie. He said one of the best scenes for him was the fear and suspense played by Bale as he crawled through the mus and was almost stepped on by the guard...he said it really brought back the memories of that.


Sometimes critics need to just be quiet when they don't know what they are talking about.

[danoyse]

Originally Posted by C. Lee

Speaking of EMPIRE OF THE SUN.....I remember watching Siskel and Ebert review it, and Ebert complained about how unrealistic the scene was, where Bale crosses the wire crawling through the mud and is almost stepped on by a Japanese guard who doesn't see him.....a couple of days later I see J.G Ballard (whose personal experiences were the basis of the movie) on some show talking about the movie. He said one of the best scenes for him was the fear and suspense played by Bale as he crawled through the mus and was almost stepped on by the guard...he said it really brought back the memories of that.


Sometimes critics need to just be quiet when they don't know what they are talking about.

That's like critics who complained about the scene in Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell's wife lost her wedding ring down a shower drain on the morning of the launch as being too hokey...

...when she actually did lose her wedding ring down a shower drain on the morning of the Apollo 13 launch. (it was later recovered)

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by danoyse

When the internment camp was destroyed in Empire of the Sun, Christian Bale was supposed to jump up and down and yell as the fighter planes were bombing the camp.

Unfortunately, Bale (who was 13 at the time), got so caught up watching the set explode that he forgot to do any of it and just ran back and forth on the roof.

Since you can only blow up your set once, that was the only take they had to do it.

There's a clip of it on a behind-the-scenes documentary, and it was a great look at how incredibly patient Steven Spielberg is with child actors, when he was calmly asking Christian (who looked somewhere between furious with himself and close to tears) what had happened there.

I couldn't find that clip, but this was the final scene - the first few seconds was the part he screwed up. Spielberg fixed it by adding close ups and additional shots of him jumping up and down. It still ended up being one of the best scenes in the movie:

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

Great story

Originally Posted by C. Lee

Speaking of EMPIRE OF THE SUN.....I remember watching Siskel and Ebert review it, and Ebert complained about how unrealistic the scene was, where Bale crosses the wire crawling through the mud and is almost stepped on by a Japanese guard who doesn't see him.....a couple of days later I see J.G Ballard (whose personal experiences were the basis of the movie) on some show talking about the movie. He said one of the best scenes for him was the fear and suspense played by Bale as he crawled through the mus and was almost stepped on by the guard...he said it really brought back the memories of that.


Sometimes critics need to just be quiet when they don't know what they are talking about.

Haha! Good one too.
I agree.

Originally Posted by danoyse

That's like critics who complained about the scene in Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell's wife lost her wedding ring down a shower drain on the morning of the launch as being too hokey...

...when she actually did lose her wedding ring down a shower drain on the morning of the Apollo 13 launch. (it was later recovered)

[danoyse]

In Arsenic and Old Lace, Mortimer Brewster's deranged brother Jonathan was the victim of a drunken plastic surgery that had everyone saying he now looked just like Boris Karloff.

Boris Karloff originated the role of Jonathan Brewster in the play. And that running joke was part of the play too, which always got a big laugh since he actually was Boris Karloff.

[danoyse]

The Courthouse Square set that was used for Hill Valley in Back to the Future was also the set used for the town of Kingston Falls in Gremlins. The gremlin-infested movie theater that Billy and Kate blow up is the same one that Marty crashes the DeLorean into when he returns from 1955.

During the opening credits in Gremlins, a movie theater marquee displays the titles "A Boy's Life" and "Watch the Skies". Both were early working titles for ET. ("Watch the Skies" was also a possible title for a Close Encounters sequel.)

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by danoyse

In Arsenic and Old Lace, Mortimer Brewster's deranged brother Jonathan was the victim of a drunken plastic surgery that had everyone saying he now looked just like Boris Karloff.

Boris Karloff originated the role of Jonathan Brewster in the play. And that running joke was part of the play too, which always got a big laugh since he actually was Boris Karloff.

One of my favorite running jokes in the film

[gwynplaine]

Alfred Hitchcock was once stopped at the French border by a suspicious customs official. After being asked what his profession was, Hitchcock answered "producer." The official then demanded: "And what do you produce?"
-"Gooseflesh," Hitchcock replied.

[danoyse]

Originally Posted by gwynplaine

Alfred Hitchcock was once stopped at the French border by a suspicious customs official. After being asked what his profession was, Hitchcock answered "producer." The official then demanded: "And what do you produce?"
-"Gooseflesh," Hitchcock replied.

Nice.

I've read that when he originally showed Psycho to the censors, they told him that he had to edit the shower scene because they could see Janet Leigh naked in some of the shots (she wasn't when they filmed the shower scene).

Hitchcock brought it back to them without editing a thing, and suddenly the people who claimed to have seen nudity said it was fine, but people who didn't see anything the first time were now claiming they saw nude shots that needed to be edited out.

Not sure how entirely true that is, but I remember reading it somewhere.

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by danoyse

Nice.

I've read that when he originally showed Psycho to the censors, they told him that he had to edit the shower scene because they could see Janet Leigh naked in some of the shots (she wasn't when they filmed the shower scene).

Hitchcock brought it back to them without editing a thing, and suddenly the people who claimed to have seen nudity said it was fine, but people who didn't see anything the first time were now claiming they saw nude shots that needed to be edited out.

Not sure how entirely true that is, but I remember reading it somewhere.

Haha Cool

[gwynplaine]

At a party one evening, John Huston picked a fight with Errol Flynn.
Flynn quickly landed two punches and had Huston laid out flat on the ground before graciously helping his opponent up.
Revived by a splash of cold water and a shot of bourbon, Huston started throwing punches again, and promptly found himself back on the ground. Again Flynn helped him up, and again Huston was punching again, only to hit the floor once more.
At last Flynn emptied a bucket of water on Huston and waited for him to come around. Then he offered a word of advice: "John, you have no chance. I was a professional fighter. Please don't be a fool." Huston, however, remained undaunted. "When Errol said that to me," he later remarked, "I knew I had him!"

[danoyse]

Since it's coming out on blu-ray tomorrow:

Newsies, the 1992 Disney musical film based on the 1899 newsboy strike in New York City, was not originally supposed to be a musical. But with the huge success Disney was having with animated musicals like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, Jeffrey Katzenberg decided Newsies would be a perfect project to turn into a live action musical.

Unfortunately, the film was about to start production, so they only had about 4 months to write the music and teach their main cast - most of whom had no musical training - how to sing and dance.

Sadly, the movie failed miserably at the box office. Composer Alan Menken won a Razzie for Newsies on the same night he won two Oscars for Beauty & the Beast.

But then Newsies became a cult hit on home video, popular enough that it eventually earned back its budget, and inspired tons of unauthorized stage productions in community theaters and schools. Alan Menken saw his own daughters perform in a stage production at their summer camp.

Disney Theatricals, who reported that Newsies had been one of their most requested properties for years, finally staged an official production at NJ's Papermill Playhouse. It was intended to be a 'pilot' production that would be licensed out afterwards, but the production was so popular that it wound up going to Broadway.

Its advance sale was 5 times more than what the film grossed at the box office, and has been playing to standing-room only crowds. Last week, it won two Tony Awards.

Flop that it was, many of the kids starring the Broadway production have credited Newsies as being the movie that got them into performing. According to the liner notes of the cast recording, Jeremy Jordan, who plays the role Christian Bale played in the film (and has desperately tried to disassociate himself from since), has been wanting to play that role since he was nine years old. Jordan got his first Tony nomination for his performance.

So you never know where a movie that tanks might end up.

[gwynplaine]

^

_ While in America promoting "Lawrence of Arabia", Peter O’Toole befriended controversial stand-up comedian Lenny Bruce. One night O’Toole took Omar Sharif to see the comic perform and afterwards the boys hit the town. In the early hours they staggered back to Bruce’s home where the comedian shot up in front of his two guests.

The next thing they knew the living room was full of cops and they were being bundled into vans and taken to the local police station. The drug squad had had the place under surveillance for some time. Sharif called Sam Spiegel for help. The producer sent lawyers to bail the pair out but O’Toole was so taken with new friend Lenny that he refused to leave without him.

“Sam was going out of his mind,” Sharif recalled. “And finally we got Lenny Bruce released with us.”

(Read this in a fun book called "Hellraisers", an account of the crazy and very inebriated lives of O'Toole, but also Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed.)

[gwynplaine]

According to Fritz Lang, Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a big fan of "Metropolis", called him to his offices and asked him to be the head of German film studio UFA. Lang subsequently said that it was during this meeting that he decided to leave for Paris and that he fled that very evening. Maybe not rigorously how it happened, but still a cool story.

[Brain Damage]

This thread is superb. Keep em coming

[dgnightwing]

• Francis Ford Coppola tried very hard to get the original king of gangster cinema, James Cagney, to come out retirement to play Heyman Roth in Godfather 2. Cagney loved the first film, and really enjoyed the script, but had no desire to come out retirement (despite desperate pleas from Coppola). It was during this time that Al Pacino suggested his former acting teacher, Lee Strasberg, and thus, one of the greatest villians in the history of film was created.
• Robert Zemeckis filmed the first half of Cast Away, and then shut production down for a year to allow Tom Hanks to lose weight and grow his hair and beard. During that time period, Zemeckis filmed What Lies Beneath with the same crew to ensure that they would all be available to film the second half of Cast Away.
• Not really sure about this (especially since Nolan has said Ledger was his only choice), but I remember hearing rumors that Christian Bale got really drunk after the Batman Begins premire and was telling everyone Sean Penn was going to play The Joker. A year later, rumors came out that Sean Penn had turned down the role before Ledger (this was a few weeks after Ledger was cast).

[gwynplaine]

Originally Posted by Brain Damage

This thread is superb. Keep em coming

Thank you, Dear Sir. Much appreciated

Originally Posted by dgnightwing

• Francis Ford Coppola tried very hard to get the original king of gangster cinema, James Cagney, to come out retirement to play Heyman Roth in Godfather 2. Cagney loved the first film, and really enjoyed the script, but had no desire to come out retirement (despite desperate pleas from Coppola). It was during this time that Al Pacino suggested his former acting teacher, Lee Strasberg, and thus, one of the greatest villians in the history of film was created.
• Robert Zemeckis filmed the first half of Cast Away, and then shut production down for a year to allow Tom Hanks to lose weight and grow his hair and beard. During that time period, Zemeckis filmed What Lies Beneath with the same crew to ensure that they would all be available to film the second half of Cast Away.
• Not really sure about this (especially since Nolan has said Ledger was his only choice), but I remember hearing rumors that Christian Bale got really drunk after the Batman Begins premire and was telling everyone Sean Penn was going to play The Joker. A year later, rumors came out that Sean Penn had turned down the role before Ledger (this was a few weeks after Ledger was cast).

[gwynplaine]

In 1936, Salvador Dali, a huge fan of the Marx Brothers work, met Harpo Marx in Paris. Some time later, Harpo was surprised to receive a Christmas gift from the famed Surrealist artist. It was a harp - with barbed wire strings.

The next year, Dali visited Harpo in California to suggest making a Daliesque Marx brothers film. Among the oddities featured in Dali's script? Flowers blooming from an armchair and Groucho Marx, as Buddha, answering a telephone with six arms. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Giraffes on Horseback Salad was never made

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

Man, that would have been awesome.

[gwynplaine]

^ Yes it would have.

_ Yul Brynner personally chose Steve McQueen to co-star with him in "The Magnificent Seven", it wasn’t long before the two were at odds with each other and by the time the movie was completed, neither one was speaking to the other off camera. Steve had wanted the part badly enough that he crashed a car to get some time off from his TV series Wanted Dead or Alive and while he was “recuperating” from the accident he was able to film The Magnificent Seven.