In The Turning Point, the scene where one actress throws her drink into the face of the other (resulting in a great look of surprise on the throwee. Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine, IIRC) was apparently really a surprise. As rehearsed, there was no drink-throwing, and Herberet Ross, the dire ctor, instructed only the thrower about what was to happen. I’ve seen a rehearsal take with the same actors without the throwing.
Almost the entire film Beat the Devil was written as it was shot; the actors had no idea of the plot or even what the next day’s scene would entail, since it was being written (by Truman Capote) as they were doing the current day’s scene.
Same thing with Blair Witch Project. There was no script, IIRC, and the actors were told what to do by the director, without informing the others. So, when one of the actors admitted to throwing away the map, the reaction of the others was genuine.
From what I hear, Richard Hooker was in a perpetual state of pissed-offness at the tv-series. I bet he still cashed his checks, though.
In one of the first scenes between Kermit and Miss Piggy, she was annoyed and the script said for her to gently hit him. Frank Oz improvised Miss Piggy’s karate chop, and a great character was born.
Re: who said what in The Empire Strikes Back: Director Irvin Kerschner says he actually spoke the line.
In Conan, they used plastic trash bags full of sheep guts to simulate the gore being sprayed everywhere during sword fights. But Arnold really didn’t expect one such bag to be REALLY packed with violently erupting viscera, and his expression was so priceless, they kept in the movie.
Not a movie, but in the Babylon 5 DVD extras, Bruce Boxleitner and other cast members are providing commentary, and apparently they don’t always watch the completed episodes. A lot of scenes are filmed out of sequence, then put together in the right order after filming. There was one scene where Sheridan is talking with his father in a kid of dream setting, and Boxleitner remarked, “You know, I had no idea what that scene was all about during filimg. I didn’t realize Chance Howard (his father) was actually Kosh until now!”
There are loads of ‘free form’ sort of film making.
In Apocalypse Now, actors were frequently just give some note cards with a few instructions and suggestions.
The end of the movie with Brando was largely imporvised.
That would be shocking, since Tom is apparently built like a Ken doll.
In There’s Something About Mary there’s a scene where Ben Stiller is fighting with Mary’s dog, the dog laps at Ben, he jumps out of the way, and the dog flies out a second story window. Mary and Magda run to the window to look down and are supposed to act horrified. To get the reaction one of the Farley brothers was down below mooning them.
In Bladerunner Ridley Scott has said it was his intention that Dekar was a replicant. Harrison Ford however never assumed this or was told this and said he played the entire role as human.
According to the audio commentary on The Goonies the final set(the pirate ship) was kept under wraps from all the kids and they had not seen it until they came up from the waterslide and turned around to see the ship. The reactions were supposed to all be genuine. On the commentary track Corey Feldman says he and Sean Austin had sneaked onto the set and seen it beforehand and faked the suprise, but the rest of the cast said they were genuinely suprised when they saw it for the first time and it was captured on film.
Enjoy,
Steven
In Fight Club, during the scene at the end where Tyler Durdan has a pistol in The Narrator’s mouth, the rehearsals were done with a fake pistol… however, in the final take, they replaced the fake with a real pistol; so that when Edward Norton pulls the trigger, he really does shoot himself through the throat! Lending a great deal of realism to the scene.
OK, I made that up. But I got nothing and it would make a great story!
if you watch hurt closely during that scene, you’ll see him blink – after he’s supposed to be good and dead. 
In The Godfather, nobody knew from one day to the next what Marlon Brando was going to say, and neither did he, apparently. He constantly forgot dialogue and didn’t respond well to being corrected or prompted.
Wasn’t the scene with the “clown” joke ad-libbed too? Is this what the OPs after?
In another scene from Alien, related on the DVD cast commentary: just after Kane is brought back aboard the Nostromo(despite Ripley’s refusal to let him on board). When Ripley enters the sick bay and Lambert attacks her, Veronica Cartwright wasn’t supposed to actually slap Sigourney Weaver, and ‘Ripley’s’ surprise is genuine when she gets smacked.
In the infamous film Cruising, Karen Allen swears that she only received only pages of the script that specifically dealt with her character, and had no idea what the subject matter of the film was all about until well after all her shots were filmed. Director William Friedkin has heatedly disputed this, but given his own defensiveness about this film, I kind of lean toward believing Allen.
Stevenson appeared on the Tonight Show several times right after this, and he was clearly pissed about it. It was his desire to leave the show, but he seemed to think they were getting back at him by killing the character and making it final. I saw that with my own eyes.
I believe it about Hooker, though. If you’ve read his subsequent MASH books (as opposed to the books written by someone more based on the series) you can see his Hawkeye is nothing like the guy Alda played. In the clinic in Maine where they set up a clinic and bait shop, “Democrat” is used as a mild curse. In a trial in the final book Hawkeye tells a hilarious fable about meeting up with a dragon, and convincing the dragon to torch Hiroshima when the first A-bomb is a dud. Not exactly PC, and much harsher than even the first season Hawkeye.
I don’t recall Blake ever showing up in Hooker’s novels, but I think he did in the ghost-written novels.
In The Shining, the little kid didn’t know it was supposed to be a horror movie until years after it was shot.
I find that one hard to believe.
Huh, no shit. I thought that the scenes of him trying to escape from his daddy would have given it away- plus all those screaming reaction shots…
But maybe not.
ETA- at six or seven, he might have guessed it…