# Things it took you a long time to realise about favourite movies. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 15, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803 "2008-11-15T01:58:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/1 "2008-11-15T01:58:51Z")
The alternate 1985 in \*Back To The Future II \*was a reference/tribute to _It’s a Wonderful Life_. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/2 "2008-11-15T02:20:32Z")
Not one of my _favorite_ movies, but there’s a scene in \*\*Dodgeball \*\*when Patches O’Houlihan invites Peter up to his room where he says he’s got some hookers waiting. Peter turns him down, and Patches calls him a queer and wheels off. I saw that scene two or three times before I realized that there most likely weren’t any hookers in Patches’ room and that Peter was right to say no. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/3 "2008-11-15T02:30:33Z")
Old movie from the 50’s, The Naked Jungle, with Eleanor Parker and Charlton(pre Moses) Heston. She’s a mail order bride, he’s a plantation owner in Brazil, with a well concealed inferiority complex. As a teen when I first saw this movie it took me a while to understand something Heston said. _“I was sixteen when I came to the jungle. I didn’t know anything about women. Later, they have a name for men who go into the villages at night. Nobody ever called me by that name.”_ Took me while to figure out that his character was supposed to be a virgin! Which is why he acted so oddly around his new wife, her being a widow and all. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/4 "2008-11-15T02:35:53Z")
The fat Asian dude in Austin Powers is named Random Task because he throws shoes. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/5 "2008-11-15T02:38:27Z")
> [@Fiveyearlurker](#): > > The fat Asian dude in Austin Powers is named Random Task because he throws shoes. I don’t know if I’m being whoosed or not, but the character’s name and trait are based on Oddjob, the deadly hat-tosser from _Goldfinger_. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/6 "2008-11-15T02:40:49Z")
I mentioned this before in some IMDB thread, but what the hell. Archie, the mohawked punk from **Repo Man** , was played by none other than [Miguel Sandoval](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2271976704/nm0762153). I don’t know how many times I saw this movie before I IMDB’d it, but it was at least three, and I never would have guessed. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/7 "2008-11-15T20:09:36Z")
That Kris in _Miracle on 34th Street_ really is just a nice old man with whiskers. The miracle is that the self-interests of all these different characters (Fred, Doris, Macy, Gimble, the judge, the political boss, and the old guy from Chico and the Man when he still worked in the post office) combined to save him – but not because he was really Santa Claus. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/8 "2008-11-15T20:21:39Z")
The archetypical small American city in (such films as) _It’s A Wonderful Life_ only came into being because of people who had no experience of archetypical small American cities, and who probably would have been made acutely uncomfortable in them. ---
**Author:** ![Asylum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/53a042/32.png) [@Asylum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asylum)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/9 "2008-11-15T20:30:16Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > That Kris in _Miracle on 34th Street_ really is just a nice old man with whiskers. The miracle is that the self-interests of all these different characters (Fred, Doris, Macy, Gimble, the judge, the political boss, and the old guy from Chico and the Man when he still worked in the post office) combined to save him – but not because he was really Santa Claus. > > –Cliffy It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but didn’t the movie end with them serendipitously finding a house, and when they went in they found Kris’s cane? Wouldn’t that make him Santa Claus? Or am I thinking of a different movie? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2008, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/10 "2008-11-15T20:35:32Z")
He is too santa! ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/11 "2008-11-16T07:18:57Z")
> [@Asylum](#): > > It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but didn’t the movie end with them serendipitously finding a house, and when they went in they found Kris’s cane? Wouldn’t that make him Santa Claus? Or am I thinking of a different movie? Nope, you got it right. “Maybe I didn’t do such a wonderful thing after all.” (I think the 1994 remake is more ambiguous about the whole thing, though.) ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 8:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/12 "2008-11-16T08:00:06Z")
There’s the scene in _The Princess Bride_ where Westley dies and The Kid interrupts the story. Westley can’t die, he has to kill Prince Humperdinck. The Grandfather tells him that Humperdinck lives at the end. I always watched that scene as The Grandfather stringing The Kid along; not pleased at the interruption and trying maintain some suspense for the end of the story. But everything he says is true. At the end of the story, Humperdinck lives. ---
**Author:** ![maggenpye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecc23a/32.png) [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/13 "2008-11-16T08:11:12Z")
It wasn’t till a relatively recent thread here that I learned the Mayor in _Spin City_ was also Brad in _The Rocky Horror Picture Show._ I didn’t even need to check, having seen the TV show for years and the movie multiple times, it was blindingly obvious - I’d just never thought about it before. Then _TRHPS_ came on the telly a week or so ago and I finally realised that, not only are Riff-Raff and Magenta portraying the ‘American Gothic’ couple at the wedding (which I’d already known), but Frank-N-Furter himself is the priest. ---
**Author:** ![critter42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@critter42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/critter42)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/14 "2008-11-16T12:43:12Z")
In the RHPS vein: _Ever After_ is one of our favorite movies - we’ve seen it at least a dozen times, but I’ve never paid attention to the credits and had no idea that Pierre Le Pieu (the slimy dude Danielle - Drew Barrymore’s character gets sold to) was played by Richard O’Brien (the aforementioned Riff-Raff for you RHPS virgins out there…) until a couple of months ago. We watched it again recently and this time I closed my eyes and it was obvious Riff-Raff and Le Pieu were the same person… I also thought the line about her father teaching her to be an excellent swordsman was interesting given the actress’ swashbucking lineage ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/15 "2008-11-16T13:55:50Z")
It may have been obvious to others, but Toshiro Mifune’s scenery chewing all during the first half of _The Seven Samurai_ I thought to be just that - scenery chewing. All the giggling and mugging and whooping was amusing, but I didn’t make the connection. Then it clicked (duh) - he’s acting like that because he’s the son of farmers, and he knows why the villagers are acting the way they do. He knows that they’re hiding because they’re afraid of samurai and afraid for their daughters. He knows the alarm bell will bring them out. He knows they have food and stolen armor hidden. He’s doing all that smirking because he’s in the know and the samurai aren’t. Now when I see the movie I see him in a completely different light, and every move and facial tic he makes during the first half is clear to me. Kurosawa and Mifune - what a brilliant duo! ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/16 "2008-11-16T14:03:03Z")
In the movie _Big Fish_, there’s a scene where Ed visits a backwoods southern village and there’s a guy playing a banjo on the porch. It’s not just a reference to a similar scene in _Deliverance_ - the guy playing the banjo is Billy Redden, the kid who played the banjo in the earlier movie. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/17 "2008-11-16T18:23:49Z")
> [@Cliffy](#): > > That Kris in _Miracle on 34th Street_ really is just a nice old man with whiskers. The miracle is that the self-interests of all these different characters (Fred, Doris, Macy, Gimble, the judge, the political boss, and the old guy from Chico and the Man when he still worked in the post office) combined to save him – but not because he was really Santa Claus. > > –Cliffy You think all those things would have come together if he hadn’t been A Potent Force For Good? No way. He was the real deal. ---
**Author:** ![Cliffy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/59ef9b/32.png) [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2008, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/18 "2008-11-16T19:20:26Z")
> [@Asylum](#): > > It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but didn’t the movie end with them serendipitously finding a house, and when they went in they found Kris’s cane? Wouldn’t that make him Santa Claus? No, it just makes him a dude who knows how to browse the Real Estate section. –Cliffy ---
**Author:** ![Nan\_Sequitur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e36b37/32.png) [@Nan\_Sequitur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nan_Sequitur)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/19 "2008-11-17T00:02:41Z")
That moment happened while watching _It’s a Wonderful Life_ for the umpteenth time a couple of years ago. The terrible influenza epidemic from young George’s childhood was the pandemic of 1918. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803/20 "2008-11-17T03:00:05Z")
> [@Nan\_Sequitur](#): > > That moment happened while watching _It’s a Wonderful Life_ for the umpteenth time a couple of years ago. The terrible influenza epidemic from young George’s childhood was the pandemic of 1918. :smack: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-it-took-you-a-long-time-to-realise-about-favourite-movies/472803.md?page=2)