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[struth]

Strangers on a Train, 1951...



The final scene of the so-called "American" version of this movie had Barbara and Anne Morton waiting for Guy to call on the telephone. Sir Alfred Hitchcock wanted the phone in the foreground to dominate the shot, emphasizing the importance of the call, but the limited depth-of-field of contemporary movie camera lenses made it difficult to get both phone and women in focus. So Hitchcock had an oversized phone constructed and placed in the foreground. Anne reaches for the big phone, but actually answers a regular one. Hitchcock explained that "I did that on one take, by moving in on Anne so that the big phone went out of the frame as she reached for it. Then a grip put a normal-sized phone on the table, where she picked it up."

The stunt where the man crawled under the carousel was not done with trick photography. Sir Alfred Hitchcock claimed that this was the most dangerous stunt ever performed under his direction, and he would never allow it to be done again.

[struth]

Tombstone, 1993...



The line quoted by Doc at the end of the fight at the OK Corral is historically true, and was reported in the Tombstone papers reporting the fight. When confronted by one of the cowboys at point blank range, the cowboy reportedly said, "I got you now Doc, you son of a bitch!", to which Doc gleefully retorted, "You're a daisy if you do!"

Some years after the death of Doc Holliday, Wyatt was quoted in an interview as saying, "Doc was a dentist, not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew."

Robert Mitchum was signed on to star as Old Man Clanton. Prior to principal photography, he fell from his horse and injured his back, forcing him to quit the part. Instead, Mitchum provides the narration at the beginning and end of the film.

Wyatt Earp died in 1929 having never been so much as scratched by a single bullet. The fact his name is known above, for instance, Virgil's, the marshall of Tombstone at the time of the famous gunfight, is largely due to Wyatt's self-promotion. Before his death he walked in Hollywood circles, and John Wayne once claimed to have met him, apparently modelling his famous walk on that of Wyatt Earp.

[struth]

The Day of the Jackal, 1971..



During the filming of the final sequence where President Charles de Gaulle is presenting medals to veterans, the many extras were unaware of how close a resemblance actor Adrien Cayla-Legrand bore to the actual President. On the first take, when the President exits his limousine, most of the crowd gasped, and an elderly extra, who was playing one of the veteran soldiers, fainted in shock.

The novel/film adaptation of "The Day of the Jackal" caused the London Public Records and Passport offices to tighten their regulations to reduce the chance of anybody stealing and using a deceased person's identity, as the Jackal did. Frederick Forsyth said in an interview that he was aware that such things happened in the 1960s. (Several years later, it was revealed that the British Member of Parliament John Stonehouse, in a notorious case, had obtained what newspapers called a "Jackal passport" to escape retribution after faking his own death). However, no one in the British government took notice of this in spite of letters of caution from him to them until after this movie was released.

[struth]

Ghost, 1990...



The horrific sounds made by the "dark shadows" are really the sounds of babies' cries, played at extremely slow speed backwards.

The role of Molly Jensen was given to Demi Moore largely in part because Moore could cry out of either eye on cue.

When they were filming the chase scene at night in New York City, it was really cold, and everyone else was bundled up except for Patrick Swayze's character Sam Wheat, and since he's a ghost they didn't want his breath showing so they had him chew ice.

[Barry]

One of my favourite films.

Yesterday I watched 'The Whistle Blower' (1987) starring Michael Caine

,

tonight I'll start the Shogun box set:

[struth]

The Jungle Book, 2016..




The CGI character Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray) is so large and furry, he took almost five hours of rendering time per frame.

The animal characters were motion-captured and performed live on-set by puppeteers from the Jim Henson Company. For the on-set performances, Jim Henson's Creature Shop built elaborate life-sized puppets to act alongside Mowgli, and serve as eye-lines.

All the locations in the movie are computer generated visual effects. The story may have been set primarily in India, but the movie was completely shot at Los Angeles Center Studios in Los Angeles, California.

Lyricist Richard M. Sherman, who wrote songs for The Jungle Book (1967), composed a new verse for "Wanna Be Like You" for Christopher Walken, where King Louie declares that he is a Gigantopithecus.

[struth]

The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976..




The Gatling guns shown during the massacre of the surrendering confederates are not Civil War-period versions of that weapon. The Model 1861 Gatling was a .58 caliber weapon firing from individually-loaded brass or steel chambers, which were fed into the receiver via a hopper or chute attached to the side of the gun's housing. As a result, the gun's rate of fire was significantly slower than is shown in in the film. The guns shown in the movie were models of 1867 or later, which were chambered for fixed ammunition, usually 45/70 and fed through a stick magazine on the top of the weapon's receiver.

[struth]

Absolute Power, 1997..




Clint Eastwood has said of this movie's development: "I was sent the script by the production team at Castle Rock and I liked it immediately. It was written by William Goldman, who is one of the best screenwriters around. He had nicely tightened up the story from the book to fit into a movie format, while keeping the characters well defined and interesting people."

The cast includes two Oscar winners: Clint Eastwood and Gene Hackman; and four Oscar nominees: Ed Harris, Judy Davis, Laura Linney, and Richard Jenkins.

[struth]

Quatermass and the Pit, 1967..




A Sony CV-2000B Videocorder - a very early and primitive form of videotape recorder - is on display during the sequences in which the Martian race memory is both recorded and later played back to the skeptical military.

The original BBC serials were not shown on American television. As a result "Quatermass" was unknown to potential U.S. audiences. As was done with the previous two movie adaptations, the title was changed. Twentieth Century Fox released this in the United States as "Five Million Years to Earth" (1967).

[struth]

The Captain's Paradise, 1953..



The film was refused approval by the US Production Code on the ground it was immoral because the lead character was a bigamist. An extra scene was shot to say St James only lived with Nita in North Africa, he was not married to her, he was only married to Maud. This allowed the film to be released.

There were further issues with censors in the US. The film was banned in Maryland because it "made light of marriage".

Eventually further changes were made. A line referring to Guinness' character as a "saint" was cut, and an epilogue added to the end which stated the film was only a fairytale.

The movie was seen widely in the USA.