# Looking for interconnected films
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [September 26, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910 "2003-09-26T04:33:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@CyberPundit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CyberPundit)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/21 "2003-09-26T16:21:34Z")
The cricket-loving duo of Caldicott and Charters in Hitchcock’s Lady Vanishes re-appear in Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich.
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### Author:  [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/22 "2003-09-26T17:01:35Z")
I was going to say _Trading Places_ and _Coming to America_ myself, so I guess I’ve got nothing.
In the latter film, Prince Akeem throws away a big wad of money to two bums who turn out to be the Dukes from the former film.
Come to think of it, you can probably find these connections among many John Landis movies. He likes to play around with things like that.
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### Author:  [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/23 "2003-09-26T17:25:45Z")
Lucas Belvaux created a trilogy of films where the same incidents are filtered through three different couples’ perspectives. Each film is a different genre (comedy, thriller, romance) and the lead couple in one film are supporting or incidental characters in the other two. Although they’ve received festival play, the films haven’t gotten theatrical distribution in the States yet (to my knowledge).
The three films (all in French) are: \*\*
[An Amazing Couple](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0234940/)
[On the Run](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0233418/)
[After Life](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0233230/)\*\*
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### Author:  [@NicePete](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NicePete)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/24 "2003-09-26T17:26:23Z")
How about _Smoke_ and _Blue in the Face_? BITF was mostly improvised after the making of Smoke and includes some of the same characters, but the plots of the two movies aren’t really related.
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### Author:  [@Helena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/25 "2003-09-26T17:27:40Z")
_The Greatest American Hero_ and _The A-Team_ both had Hamburger Heaven (with the Belly Buster and Tummy Tingler). I don’t know if Stephen J. Cannell used this in any of his other series.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/26 "2003-09-26T17:31:50Z")
**Manhunter** and **Silence of the Lambs** was the first pair that struck me – same characters and all, but very different directors and visions. And when SOTL came out, I don’t think anyone really thought of it as a sequel.
In **The Twilight Zone** movie, during the first sequence (directed by John Landis)etnam says “I told you guys we shouldn’t have fragged Neidermeyer!”, a reference to the character in **Animal House** (also directed by Landis), who, as the bit at the end notes, was “killed in Vietnam by his own troops”. It’s only a throwaway line, though, and maybe not a full-fledged connection.
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/27 "2003-09-26T17:49:43Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by groo \*
> \*\*Morgan Freeman played the same character (a policeman who’d authored a book on profiling or something) in **Kiss the Girls** and **Along Came a Spider**. \*\*
Similarly, much of the team that chased down **The Fugitive** were back as the stars of **U.S. Marshalls** , but I think in both this case and the Alex Cross movies cited by **groo** the films are closer to sequels than what’s asked for in the OP.
BTW, I thought both U.S. Marshalls and Along Came a Spider were better films than they’re given credit for.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@No\_Me\_Ayudes\_Compadre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_Me_Ayudes_Compadre)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/28 "2003-09-26T18:22:50Z")
I timed out four times trying to submit during which time **Cal** beat me to the Neidermeyer punch. Rather than stick around empty-handed…
Charlie Sheen stumbles into Papa Martin’s Apololypse Now world in Hot Shots Part Deux.
In most John Hughes films of the 1980s, teenagers go through all sorts of hell in Highland Park, er, Shermer, Illinois. I don’t recall any actual crossing over of characters, though.
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### Author:  [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/29 "2003-09-26T19:52:02Z")
IMDB lists movie connections-
[http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0113749/movieconnections](http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0113749/movieconnections)
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### Author:  [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/30 "2003-09-26T20:01:42Z")
**Becket** and **Lion in Winter** both have Henry II as a character played both times by Peter O’Toole.
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### Author:  [@ShelliBean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShelliBean)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/31 "2003-09-26T20:56:47Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Big Bad Voodoo Lou \*
> \*\*Two of my favorite shows, Law and Order and Homicide: Life On the Street, had two crossovers. Then Munch (Richard Belzer’s character on Homicide) became a regular cast member of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. So all of them are in a shared universe.
>
> (And I suspect Oz, the prison show, is in the same continuity too.)
>
> \*\*
I hope not - or else priests can magically become psychiatrists/profilers for the FBI and Keller has become a cop!
😃
The L&O series takes several characters from Oz, though. That might be a fun list to make! To start off, my two going from
Oz - L&O (any series)
Chris Keller = Elliott Stabler on L&O: SVU played by Christopher Meloni
Father ? = George Huang by BD Wong
Too much of a hijack?
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/32 "2003-09-26T21:24:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by CalMeacham \*
> \*\*
> In **The Twilight Zone** movie, during the first sequence (directed by John Landis)etnam says “I told you guys we shouldn’t have fragged Neidermeyer!”, a reference to the character in **Animal House** (also directed by Landis), who, as the bit at the end notes, was “killed in Vietnam by his own troops”. It’s only a throwaway line, though, and maybe not a full-fledged connection. \*\*
Ask for Babs.
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### Author:  [@aleong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aleong)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2003, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/33 "2003-09-26T22:16:34Z")
Fans of Wong Kar-wai might be interested in the connection between 1991’s “Days of Being Wild” and his more recent “In the Mood for Love”.
In “Days of Being Wild”, a man named Yuddy (the late Leslie Cheung) romances and then jettisons a counter girl named Su Li-zhen, played by Maggie Cheung. The film also ends with an inexplicable shot of actor Tony Leung getting ready for a night on the town-- originally, there was supposed to be a sequel, but because of the poor box office of “Days”, the second film (which would follow Tony Leung’s character) never materialized.
A decade later, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung both appear in “In the Mood for Love” as two married people who learn that their spouses are having an affair with each other. Though this film also takes place during the Sixties, it is a later time period than “Days”. Interestingly enough, the maiden name of Cheung’s character, Su Li-zhen, is the same as that of the counter girl in “Days of Being Wild”. Perhaps the Li-zhen of this more recent film is the more mature incarnation of that counter girl, who still has the same emotional vulnerabilities after all these years.
Thus, “In the Mood for Love” might be considered a sequel of “Days of Being Wild”.
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2003, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/34 "2003-09-27T00:01:09Z")
The movie _X2_ features a brief shot of a computer screen displaying files of known mutants. One “Richards, Franklin” is one of them. Little Franklin is the son of the Fantastic Four’s Sue and Reed Richards, also by marvel comics.
If you can find a copy of the ill-fated _Fantastic Four_ movie, you’ve got a connection there. Sorta.
The new _Spider-Man_ animated series on MTV features a “Kingpin” character who seems to be modeled after _Daredevil_’s Michael Clarke Duncan.
And, come to think of it, the _Spider-Man_ series from the early 90s had a “Secret Wars” story arc, featuring cameos from just about all of the other Marvel characters who had cartoons at the time. Plus Captain America, minus The Hulk.
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### Author:  [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2003, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/35 "2003-09-27T00:22:27Z")
They used The Lizard in that “Secret Wars” story arc as a replacement, because a different animation studio was making a Hulk cartoon and had the rights tied up.
And The Kingpin had been a Spider-Man villain for years, longer than he was a Daredevil villain. But if he was black in the MTV Spider-Man cartoon, you can bet it was because of Duncan’s role in the DD movie.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2003, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/36 "2003-09-27T02:22:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Rabid Child \*
> \*\ ***Becket** and **Lion in Winter** both have Henry II as a character played both times by Peter O’Toole. \*\*
Technically, the latter was a sequel – since O’Toole deliberately played the role as a continuation.
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### Author:  [@aleong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aleong)
#### Post date: [September 27, 2003, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/37 "2003-09-27T20:28:54Z")
There are also all the films about the Qing-Dynasty exploits of Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hong. Over the past 60 years, more films have been about Wong Fei-hong than any other figure in Chinese history, covering almost every period of his life. Some of the more recent ones include the “Once Upon a Time in China” film series, Jackie Chan’s “Drunken Master” films, and “Iron Monkey”.
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### Author:  [@Lisa-go-Blind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lisa-go-Blind)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2003, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/38 "2003-09-28T04:24:46Z")
**This is Spinal Tap** and **A Mighty Wind** both center around a band portrayed by Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer. The name of the band in **A Mighty Wind** is “The Folksmen,” one of Spinal Tap’s early names.
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### Author:  [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2003, 10:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/39 "2003-09-28T10:25:49Z")
Bob Hope played Vaudville Entertainer Eddie Foy in the film _The Seven Little Foys_ . There is a scene in which Foy interacts with Vaudville Great George M. Cohen.
The film came out shortly after Cagney was a huge as Cohen in the film _Yankee Doodle Dandy_ . So, they cast Cagney to play Cohen in the cameo role in _Foys_ .
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### Author:  [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2003, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-for-interconnected-films/203910/40 "2003-09-28T14:07:09Z")
You consider 13 years “shortly”? 😉
I remember reading that Sergio Leone originally wanted the 3 men waiting for Bronson at the train station in _Once Upon a Time in the West_ to be Eastwood, Wallach, and Van Cleef.
> [@](#):
>
> Technically, the latter was a sequel – since O’Toole deliberately played the role as a continuation.
No, it technically doesn’t make it a sequel. They were two completely different adaptations from two completely unrelated source plays made by two completely separate film studios. The only thing relating them were the same famous historical figure, who happened to be the same actor. Not a sequel.
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