# Complete BS movie trivia
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 14, 2003, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875 "2003-12-14T02:19:49Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/41 "2003-12-14T19:59:40Z")
All the current (and very recent past) interest in Shakespeare on film is due to the Bard himself. He is alive and well, living in the Pacific Palasaides. A brilliant scientist in his own right, he put himself in suspended animation in a secret chamber far underground near Loch Noch (who’s there?)
He programmed his apparatus to revive him whenever a nuclear device was detonated by the French. In addition to reviving current interest in his old works, he forever changed the face of TV by introducing the groundbreaking, pure genius work of art known as _Joannie Loves Chachi_.
He was also responsible for Ronald Reagan’s rise to political power.
btw, he looks nothing like what you would expect for a man of several hundred years of age. Because he also perfected a de-aging machine that looks suspiciously like a restored 1969 Camaro RS. He lives and writes under the name of Marcus Weezendanguer and has been stunt and body double for John Cusak in his last 12 films.
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### Author:  [@MacSpon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacSpon)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/42 "2003-12-14T20:00:51Z")
There was supposed to be an entire subplot in the movie _Titanic_ in which the Munsters were passengers on board the ship. Most of their footage was ultimately removed, but you can just glimpse Herman in one of the lifeboats.
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### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/43 "2003-12-14T20:55:52Z")
**Sir Richard Attenborough** originally intended his epic biography “ **Gandhi** ” (1982) to have all characters portrayed by the Muppets. Studio executives vehemently protested this decision as being disrespectful of the subject matter. Needless to say, they also nixed his idea of filming it in 3-D.
The special effects budget for the movie **“Capricorn One”** (1978) became so outrageous that it was decided it would be much cheaper just to send all 3 actors to Mars and film eevrything along the way. This is believed to have had deleterious effects on all 3 actors:
**Sam Waterston** went on to make the mega-turkey “Heaven’s Gate”, **James Brolin** went on to marry Barbara Streisand and **OJ Simpson** … well some things are better left unsaid.
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/44 "2003-12-14T21:03:15Z")
The motion picture adaptation of _The Outsiders_ actually had one of the largest-known production budgets of the day. However, it was agreed upon by all to spend the bulk of this windfall on extensive catering services and recreational activities between scene changes to acheive that “poor” vibe, irking those higher up.
In the film _Portnoy’s Complaint_, every action that appears dramatically licensed or is seemingly alluded to actually _did_ occur in the interest of realism.
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### Author:  [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/45 "2003-12-14T21:47:24Z")
In the chocolate sauce scene in _Psycho_, the sauce is actually human blood. Chocolate sauce does not look realistic in black & white.
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### Author:  [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/46 "2003-12-14T21:59:20Z")
Walt Disney learned about camera technology and filmmaking by observing his father, Bruno Disney, who produced and directed a series of “love shorts” — silent one-reel hard-core pornographic movies mostly made in Europe between 1909 and 1927 primarily to be shown in the lobbies of brothels to entertain and arouse the patrons while they waited for their women. Walt himself appears in several of them; for example, he can briefly be seen in 1915’s _Les trois nonnes et le chiot heureux_ playing the voyeuristic altarboy peering over the courtyard wall.
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### Author:  [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)
#### Post date: [December 14, 2003, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/47 "2003-12-14T23:10:07Z")
In **The Sound of Music** , the part of Marta was played by a young girl named Debbie Turner, who had responded to an open casting call. Shortly after filming completed, she vanished, and investigation revealed that the names and biographical information she and her “parents” had given were entirely faked. Why they felt it necessary to perpetrate this hoax, and what became of her, has never been determined.
It’s commonly believed that the famous “Indy pulls out a gun and shoots the sword-wielding guy” scene from **Raiders of the Lost Ark** came about because Harrison Ford was sick and tired of filming, and ad libbed what became a classic scene. This is mostly true. In fact, Ford was so exhausted and frustrated with numerous reshoots that he pulled out his prop pistol and pantomimed shooting _himself_, which inspired George Lucas to rewrite the scene as we now know it.
I once met a guy who actually liked **Gigli** (or is that pushing the bounds of implausibility too far?)
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### Author:  [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/48 "2003-12-15T00:06:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by NoClueBoy \*
> \*\*
> _It’s A Wonderful Life_ was originally produced in Romania using stop action animation of tin cans and artillary shells painted up to look like people. Adolf Hitler had the producers shot and the writers escaped to America where history was made one frame at a time with stop action animation of Jimmy Stewart who had already died.
> \*\*
While I normally appreciate your bastion of knowledge, **NCB** , I feel compelled to correct this slightly inaccurate statement per this [site](http://fff.fathom.org/pages/Joe_K/joesmovietriviagalore.txt):
> [@](#):
>
> So writes well-known critic F. Nord:
>
> “I’ve heard this one for years. My good friend Piet Hessler was there during the filming—the truth is that spent wooden bowling pins were used in lieu of shells. By happenstance, the bowling alley down the street had gotten their yearly shipment of new wood just as they were thinking of what to use instead of people, and the resemblance to a common human build was uncanny. Cans were used for children, dogs, etc.”
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/49 "2003-12-15T00:23:04Z")
Ah… :smack:
On rechecking my source, I see I misread “spent wooden bowling pins” as “137mm armor piercing artillary shells.”
Easy to do.
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### Author:  [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/50 "2003-12-15T00:32:14Z")
It’s not widely known, but – ever a stickler for realism – Charlton Heston insisted his own blood be used in the fountain for the final scene of _Omega Man_. He stored 17 units in his traveling wet-bar in preparation for the role. [I heard this directly from Anthony Zerbe, so I know it’s true.]
Also, _Bowling for Columbine_ is entirely Claymation.
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### Author:  [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/51 "2003-12-15T00:33:28Z")
I guess that old rumor probably has something to do with the verifiable and well known fact that Romanians often substituted 137mm armor piercing artillary shells when they ran out of bowling pins, which they did quite frequently in the pre WWII days, due to the government’s policy of “one frame only for wooden bowling pin use.”
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### Author:  [@joshmaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joshmaker)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/52 "2003-12-15T00:33:40Z")
The technicians from Industrial Light and Magic built a walking talking C-3PO robot for the first Star Wars movie. Alas, due to the RAM limitations of the time, it had trouble remembering its lines, and George Lucas had to hire Anthony Daniels to dub over the robot’s voice.
In 1932 Wilhelm Majors Burtt III, ostracized by his family due to his short stature, left home and set his sites on Hollywood. After seven years of menial roles in a variety of films, Wilhelm reached his breaking point while acting as a munchkin in the Wizard of Oz and committed suicide on film. Unfortunately for editor Blanche Sewell, Wilhelm’s suicide ruined the best take of the scene. Working to meet a deadline, Sewell merely edited out Wilhem’s blood curdling scream and hoped no one would notice the young actor dying in the background. Years later, Wilhem’s nephew Benjamin Burtt Jr discovered the original unedited footage and has since inserted Wilhems dying yell into several of the movies he has worked on (including Star Wars and Indiana Jones) as a macabre tribuite to his deceased uncle.
Also, did you know that when actress Virginia Gregg was unable to finish filming her critical part as “Mother” in the movie Psycho a quick thinking Anthony Perkins grabbed her costume and took her place? Unfortunately, confused audiences at test screenings easily saw through Perkins’ disguise. As a result, Hitchcock had to tack on an extra scene at the end of the movie in order to explain the casting change.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/53 "2003-12-15T00:40:02Z")
All of the slave roles in GONE WITH THE WIND were in fact played by white actors so as not to offend the NAACP. The lady known to the world as Hattie “Mammy” McDaniel, supposedly the first “African-American” ever to win an Oscar, was revealed after her death to have been born Tovah “Boom-Boom” Tsantarovic, a Croat drag queen best known previously for his one man show “Croatia? I Don’t Even Know Ya!”
Yoda’s furious fight scene at the end of STAR WARS 2: ATTACK OF THE CLONES was filmed by dressing a hyperactive Jack Russell Terrier in a green body stocking, strapping a flashlight to his neck, and taping pork chops to Christopher Lee while offstage several stagehands blew whistles. As he jumped around and attacked spastically, CGI artists overlaid the more familiar Yoda over the greenspace.
PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE is based on sworn testimony.
GODFATHER 2 began life as an ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW reunion in which the life of Andy Taylor was paralleled to the rise of his father under the Jim Crow Laws of the early 19th century and Barney mistakenly thinks Opie tried to have him killed for squealing on him for only putting 3 cents into the charity box. When Howard “Ernest T. Bass” Morris wasn’t able to make the movie due to contractual obligations, his role fell to Lee Strasberg and gradually the rest of the Godfather gang fell into place, though Abe Vigoda had been cast as Tessio from the start in both projects.
In the original IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, it was revealed that Clarence was actually a homeless refugee from a CIA mind control experiment and that George’s “vision” was the result of some LSD Clarence slipped in his drink. The movie ended with George being convinced the Christmas tree was a tentacled monster trying to eat him, traumatizing Zusu and setting up a sequel that eventually became FRAILTY.
Original choice for the role of Obi Wan Kenobi in STAR WARS: Redd Foxx. (“Hey Luke, your daddy left something here for you… it was a light saber… but I sold it.”) Original choice for Princess Leia: a 19 year old Harvey Feirstein. (“I just want your help for our rebellion… is that so wrooing?”) Original choices for Han Solo & Chewbacca: Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, but it fell apart at the last minute because Dean Martin got sober.
Speaking of the Rat Pack: Original choice for DRIVING MISS DAISY- Sammy Davis, Jr., and Lucille Ball. They only shot the scene in which Hoke tells her “Listen, babe, I’m as upset as you bout the Temple bombing, cause those cats are my tribe too…”, to which Miss Daisy responds “Waaaaaaaaaah!”
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### Author:  [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/54 "2003-12-15T05:20:54Z")
**Margaret Mitchell** author of **Gone With The Wind** contrived one of the greatest hoaxes of all time. Her entire book was based on a totally fictitious war which appeared to her in a dream.
In order to increase the appeal of this rather long tale, she convinced studio executives that such a war actually occurred in US History. Not wanting to appear ignorant and uneducated, the studio executives played right into her hands as they said “Oh yeah _that_ Civli War”. It wasn’t until several _weeks_ after the release of the film was it revealed that the story was totally fictitious !!!
The studio execs (not wanting to appear even dumber than they were) launched an incredibly involved scheme to rewrite American history, complete with newly printed revisionist American History textbooks and a retraining program for all of America’s teachers.
Guess it was successful because we all were taught about the Civil War in school right? :: nudge nudge ::
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 6:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/55 "2003-12-15T06:02:24Z")
The original screenplay for _2001_ called for the second monolith to be found on Saturn, but filming permits were prohibitivly expensive, so production was moved to Jupiter.
The original ending to _The Wizard of Oz_ had Dorothy decide to stay in Oz with her new friends, followed by a shot of a catatonic Dorothy locked up in a Kansas sanitarium. The ending was scrapped for being, in the immortal words of producer Mervyn LeRoy, “the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”
Due to changes made to her book for the film version of _Interview with a Vampire_, author Anne Rice had a $2,000,000 hit put on star Tom Cruise.
During a script dispute on the set of _War and Peace_, famously autocratic director King Vidor had screenwriter Robert Westerby flayed and branded.
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### Author:  [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/56 "2003-12-15T07:14:03Z")
Prior to his dramatic film debut, **Hercules in New York** , Arnold Schwarzenegger worked long hours with a speech coach, in an attempt to lose his Austrian accent.
He was so successful that most theater goers simply couldn’t believe the voice they were hearing actually belonged to the man they saw on the screen.
As a result of this, his voice had been over-dubbed by noted voice actor Harold Lipschitz in every film appearance he’s made since.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/57 "2003-12-15T08:30:03Z")
_City Slickers_ was originally conceived, and written as, a sequel to _When Harry Met Sally_. Most traces of the original story were lost during the development of the final screenplay…all that remains is casting of Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby in leading roles; and a “throwaway” line (deleted for time in the theatrical release, but due to be restored for the DVD) that mentions that “Mitch”'s wife Barbara’s maiden name was “Albright.”
Joseph Goebbels was an assistant scriptwriter for _Metropolis_, using a pseudonym. In his later career, he claimed that he’d taken the job for “catharsis” after his “particularly hurtful” breakup with his favorite mistress.
Q. What do _Being John Malkovich,_ _The Hunt for Red October_, and _Miracle on 34th Street_ have in common? A. They’re all filmed in “real time.”
_Freaky Friday’s_ Lindsay Lohan was born in 1965. Her youthful appearance is the result of an exceedingly rare genetic condition known as _antigeria_…an affliction that leaves it’s sufferers effectively immortal.
The “flashback” footage in _The Quiet Man_ is the actual footage taken from an aborted film project of John Wayne’s…a film that was canned after Wayne actually _did_ kill his sparring partner, accidentally, and on film. The look of shock and horror on Wayne’s face is completely genuine.
The family of the slain stuntman, one “Joe Chill,” actually _requested_ that the “death reel” be used in a film, as a final tribute to Chill’s work.
_Akira_ is an adaption of _Madame Bovary_.
Disney’s _Sleeping Beauty_ had to be heavily reedited before it’s initial theatrical release, because of the MPAA’s concern about the “obvious lesbian subtext” between Flora, Fauna, and Merriweather.
This so enraged Walt Disney that he ordered his animators to subtley insert dozens of Swastikas, Hammers and Sickles, and abstract renderings of raised middle fingers into the background plates of the film, mostly disguised as tree branches or cracks in stone walls. They remained undiscovered until 1978.
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### Author:  [@Casey1505](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Casey1505)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/58 "2003-12-15T14:33:06Z")
(I forget which poster has the relative sig line, but…)
Krakatoa _is_ east of Java. The maps are all wrong. Prior to the film’s release, the maps and almanacs all reflected their proper geographical position, but map reading was becoming a lost art, and business was slipping. Cartographers at a holiday party drunkenly decided to make a little change, screw with peoples heads. When the effects of the alcohol served at the party had worn off (Jager bombs, I believe), billions of maps had already been printed, and it was more cost effective to leave the “error” in place. This mistake has been a running joke in the map making industry ever since.
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### Author:  [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/59 "2003-12-15T17:08:00Z")
[ul]
[li]Most movie themes are recognized by their music. Did you know most of them also have lyrics? These include _Back to the Future_, _Indiana Jones_, and _Jaws_.[/li][li]South park was originally animated with Claymation™.[/li][li]The original _Matrix_ script was written for Neo to swallow the blue pill. Out of impulse, Neo reached for the red pill. Rather than redo the shot, this scene was left alone. In an interview afterwards, Keanu Reaves explained that red is his favorite color.[/li][/ul]
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### Author:  [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)
#### Post date: [December 15, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/complete-bs-movie-trivia/218875/60 "2003-12-15T17:23:18Z")
_The Women_ (1939) was actually performed by look-alike hookers from a Hollywood bordello who resmbled Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, et al.
And there was no such person as “Tallulah Bankhead.” That was actually famed female impersonator T.C. Jones, who invented her for a career boost.
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