Walt Disney’s animated version of Pinocchio was originally meant to have been filmed in live-action. Test footage exists in which all the characters are played by Disney staffers, with the exception of the Blue Fairy, portrayed by Marlene Dietrich. Walt Disney himself plays both Pinocchio and Monstro the whale.
Although Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel became disillusioned with Hollywood after the controversial (to him) failure that was The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, he talked with producers in the final years of his life about adapting his book Oh, The Places You’ll Go! into a feature film. This project went nowhere, and has so far been left untouched since Geisel’s death in 1991.
In the late 1970s, Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz attempted to fulfill a lifelong dream by penning a script for a serious live-action film. The ludicrousness of a humor writer attempting to make a serious picture was not lost on Hollywood, and the whole idea seemed “laughable at best,” as Schulz’s longtime friend, animator and Snoopy voice Bill Melendez, described it in his autobiography, Yes, I Really Am A Mexican. The script for the project, often jokingly referred to as I’m Dying, Charlie Brown! has only been seen by Schulz and his wife Jean.
Sorry, Eve, but you’re only half right. A 1950 episode of the radio program “The Big Show” makes it quite clear that “Tallulah Bankhead” was really radio satirist Fred Allen. For that matter, her father and uncle, who were promenent figures in Mississippi politics, were also invented by Fred Allen, as preliminary versions of the character that became “Senator Claghorne”, or, as Warner Brothers cartoon fans know him, Foghorn Leghorn.
Robert Benchley’s entire film career was designed as a tax write-off.
“Citizen Kane” was first designed to tell the story of Stanford White, then Daddy Browning, and later Ely Culbertson. It wasn’t until 3 days before shooting began that they decided to base C.F. Kane (in large part) on W.R. Hearst.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by dwc1970 *[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.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
John Stewart and Dave Chappelle were the Wachowski brothers first pick for Neo and Morpheus in the Matrix, but they had to turn down the role due to a contractual obligation to appear in the filmed, but never released, “Half Baked 2: Bong With the Wind”
Also, watch out for Return of the King extended edition DVD which will contain a deleted scene of Elrond explaining to Bilbo his theory that Hobbits are not Mammals as is widely believed, but are in fact, viruses.
Originally in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandents” Mosses informed the Israelites that they could have the stone tablets when they were quote: “pried from my cold dead hands”.
The original model for The Baby in David Lynch’s Eraserhead ended up looking remarkably like Joseph Merrick aka the Elephant Man. It was suggested that he change it, which he did, but movie producers remembered this and later got Lynch to direct The Elephant Man.
Back to the Future is based loosely on a real Dr. Brown and his actual working time machine. Christopher Lloyd, who played Brown in the movies, spent time with him for research. In real life the time machine was a Volkswagen and is now under watch at Area 51.
The character of Clarice Starling created by Thomas Harris for Silence of the Lambs is in fact a real person working for the FBI, who was sent to talk to John Wayne Gacy in the 1980s. Her character also inspired Dana Scully in The X-Files.
The original ending scene in Planet of the Apes had the character “Taylor” (originally, “Tailleur”) discover a toppled hulk of the Eiffel Tower. This was an homage by the blacklisted writer Michael Wilson to the original books’ author, Pierre Boulle.
Super-patriot Charlton Heston, sick of the 1968 Paris student riots, made them change it to the Statue of Liberty.
Also, Roddy McDowell, in order to get into character for that film using “the Method,” insisted on engaging in only “chimp sex” during the entire shoot. Tragically, McDowell developed a taste for this practice, and was never able to engage in “human sex” thereafter until the end of his life.
Who the hell knows what he’s doing in the afterlife?
Final POTA trivia:
In the waterfall/pool scene in the beginning of the movie, Heston’s co-stars were so incensed by his constant playing of underwater grab-ass that they refused to speak to him except when saying their lines while the cameras rolled.
One little known fact is there was, in fact, only one Marx Brother. His name was Hymie Marx and through makeup, wigs and wardrobe he created the characters of Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo. The rest was done through split screen editing.
Also in several of his movies with less accomplished dancing partners Fred Astair’s dance numbers were done with one of the Nicholas Brothers in white face and drag.
In Amadeus they used a rare early recording of a concert whith Mozart conducting his own works in the scene where he is performing for the Cardinal of Saltzberg.
The classic “Seven Samurai” is actually a remake of a little known silent movie called "A Half-Dozen Policemen from Keystone.
In “Rocky Horror Picture Show” a young John Travolta worked as Tim Curry’s stunt double.
All of the huge technicolor biblical epics (TEN COMMANDMENTS, SAMSON & DELILAH, GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, Huston’s THE BIBLE, etc.) contain a code hidden every 412 seconds that was only apparent with the creation of the DVD. It mirrors “The Bible Code” prophecies exactly and also contains commentary in the voice of Metatron and a bodacious recipe for strawberry cordial.
The last words of Paul Lynde: “I admit it… I killed JFK… he was despiiiiicaaabllleee”, solving a then 20 year old mystery, but this truth was suppressed by Oliver Stone who already owned the film rights for the New Orleans Mafia version.
While filming THE LION IN WINTER Anthony Hopkins prepared for his role by actually raping 15 year old French noble boys and needlessly killing peasants in horse & sword raids on their hovels. When he confessed this to Peter O’Toole, O’Toole responded “Dear boy, did you learn nothing from Lord Larry? Why didn’t you just act?”
The real reason Greta Garbo went into seclusion: while filming NINOTCHKA she received an elixir for eternal youth from a peasant on the set. Because she couldn’t explain not aging in pre-facelift Hollywood, she bided her time before faking her long seclusion and death and re-emerging bigger than ever under the name “Johnny Depp”.
There’s a reason you’ve never seen Bea Arthur and Marlon Brando together.
Sound technology was perfected in 1917, but the reason movies remained silent for another decade was to hide the fact that Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Theda Bara and Fatty Arbuckle were all deaf mutes (though Pickford and Chaplin later supplied the voices of Charlie Brown’s parents).