When I watch movies, I see a lot of mistakes that are done, and sometimes careless things are done for the sake of drama. Other times it’s ignorance.
And sometimes I find out trivia.
Here’s a whole bunch.
- Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – Charlie apparently was picked to win the factory right from the start. It’s a theory that apparently is shared by some of the child actors who starred in the movie. Ever notice that Slugworth is there right on the spot whenever anyone “Finds” a golden ticket?
- Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – The photograph of the elusive man who faked winning a golden ticket is Martin Bormann, Nazi.
- Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – there’s a play on words, also a Nazi conspiracy allusion – Fickelgruber’s Fudge is a play on words on Hitler’s name (shickelgruber). Apparently, Hitler gave up being a dictator to be a confectioner.
- A Bridge Too Far. Staff Sergeant Eddie Dohun and Captain Legrand Johnson are played by the wrong people. Eddie Dohun was a smaller man, and Legrand Johnson was physically much bigger. Johnson was more experienced in combat, Dohun hadn’t been in as much. Johnson was shot in the shoulder and head, and Eddie Dohun picked him up and carried the larger man to a jeep, then pulled a gun on a medic when the medic refused to operate. If the two actors had switched roles, it would have been more true to life.
- A Bridge Too Far – The scene where James Caan pulls the .45 on the doctor to operate on Johnson is a big oops – the safety is clearly on. I guess they never told Caan how to take the safety off of a Colt.
- Almost every war movie – actors blink while supposedly accurately shooting people. If you see them blink, they flinched… and missed.
- Godzilla – the scene of the reporters in the news office. The editor is one of the suit actors who played Godzilla. The reporter with the pencil behind the ear is the other one.
- The Seven Samurai – the entire cast is also in Godzilla. All the same actors. Both movies were filmed at the same time.
- Godzilla – legendary director Akira Kurasawa would stop by in breaks of filming his movie to watch the filming of Godzilla.
- Band Of Brothers – “Cowboy” John D. Halls is not the character John D. Hall, radio operator from New York. To save time, both characters were apparently combined, possibly by accident during a re-write. John D. Hall died when his plane was shot down. “Cowboy” John D. Halls, from Colorado, died at the Brecourt Manor assault.
- A Bridge Too Far – Colonel Stout is really Colonel Sink. The group of soldiers who are there when the Sonne bridge is blown up is actually Easy Company. Major Winters recalled the ludicrousness of making it through D Day to almost getting decapitated by flying timbers that just missed his head.
- A Bridge Too Far – the German spoken and the Translated subtitles sometimes don’t match. I have to watch scenes sometimes a couple of times, because I’m following German, not the subtitles. “Entshuldigen Sie…”
- Braveheart – There’s a scene where Mel Gibson is surrounded by a group of exceptionally hairy looking Scots. That’s the real Clan Wallace around him,
- Braveheart – a lot of the actors in Braveheart with key roles had never acted before. Their audition for the movie in several cases consisted of them sitting and talking with Gibson, who would just tell them they had the role.
- Patton. I’ve got a lot of good trivia for Patton. Hauptmann Staiger is giving a briefing on D Day footage. One of the generals trying not to yawn is actually the director of photography.
- Patton. Chet Hanson and Omar Bradley were on the set to watch filming. During one scene, they used Bradley to block the scene where Karl Mulden would sit. The scene accidentally made it into the final film. You’ll see a brief camera change and… the person in Karl Mulden’s seat is General of the Army Omar Bradley.
- Patton. The jeep driver in the “reincarnation” scene is the real Chet Hanson.
- Patton. When George Scott showed up for the first camera test and put on the uniform, Chet Hanson described it as “one minute he was an actor fellow, and the next second, we were in shock, because somehow he suddenly was George S. Patton.”
- A Bridge Too Far – the “Red Devils” trooper who swims the Rheine to tell Sosabowski that they need help. Except the real story was, it was a Commander, not a private.. and it wasn’t Sosabowki, it was Col. Sink of the 101st.
- BAT 21 – I stopped watching it when I realized that MACV-SOG was omitted from the film – and they were actually instrumental in finding the officer.
- BAT 21 – the infamous scene where Gene Hackman cries out, “people are dying all around me” is an invention. The real person had no problems killing the soldier with his knife.
Hope you enjoyed these – I’ll do more another time!
