Category: Movies

Kristen Hunt and Mental_Floss presents 15 Chest-Bursting Facts About Alien.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY CALLED STAR BEAST.
When Dan O’Bannon was drafting the screenplay that would become Alien, he had a more unusual title: Star Beast. He didn’t like it, but struggled to find a better replacement until one late-night writing session. As he was typing dialogue in which the crew members discussed the alien, that word jumped out at him. He promptly ditched Star Beast for the more simplistic title, which he loved because it was a noun and an adjective.

5. RIPLEY WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE A WOMAN.
O’Bannon and Shusett wrote the entire cast as men, but they left a note in the screenplay that “the crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women.” Shusett admits they never dreamed of the lead being a woman, though. The producers made that call, believing a female Ripley would be more unique but also more palatable to their bankrollers. As Brandywine producer David Giler remembered, “Looking it over, [producer Walter Hill] and I thought, ‘Here’s this one character who’s not too interesting.’ And this studio—I hate to say this, but for very cynical reasons—this studio [20th Century Fox] is making Julia and Turning Point and they really believe in the return of the woman’s movie. [We’d] probably get a lot of points if we turn this character into a woman.”

12. THE ACTORS WERE GENUINELY SHOCKED BY THE CHESTBURSTER SCENE.
For the iconic scene where a chestburster shoots out of John Hurt’s torso, Scott wanted the best possible reaction from his cast. So he deliberately kept details hidden from all the actors, aside from Hurt. They knew a creature would emerge, they had seen the puppet, and they were more than a little suspicious of the raincoats they’d been given. But they had no idea what kind of gore was in store. Their reaction to the bloody burst is completely genuine. According to The Guardian, Yaphet Kotto (Parker) shut himself in his room right after the scene and wouldn’t talk to anyone.

Stacy Conradt and Mental_Floss present 14 Breathless Facts About Marilyn Monroe.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. SHE OFTEN REFERRED TO “MARILYN MONROE” IN THE THIRD PERSON.
Actor Eli Wallach once recalled that Monroe seemed to flip an inner switch and turn “Marilyn” on and off. He had been walking on Broadway with her one evening, totally incognito, and the next minute, she was swarmed with attention. “‘I just felt like being Marilyn for a minute,’” Wallach remembers her saying. Photographer Sam Shaw often heard her critiquing “Marilyn’s” performances in movies or at photo shoots, making comments like, “She wouldn’t do this. Marilyn would say that.”

5. SHE HAD A THING FOR INTELLECTUAL MEN.
Her marriage to writer Arthur Miller probably tells you that, but there’s more evidence. Monroe was once roommates with actress Shelley Winters, who said they made a list of men they wanted to sleep with, just for fun. “There was no one under 50 on hers,” Winters later reported. “I never got to ask her before she died how much of her list she had achieved, but on her list was Albert Einstein, and after her death, I noticed that there was a silver-framed photograph of him on her white piano.”

9. SHE HELPED ELLA FITZGERALD BOOK THE MOCAMBO CLUB.
The rumor has long circulated that Ella Fitzgerald was originally denied due to her race, but according to one biographer, race wasn’t the deterrent for nightclub owner Charlie Morrison; Eartha Kitt and Dorothy Dandridge had already played there. The problem was that Morrison didn’t believe Fitzgerald was glamorous enough for his patrons. A huge Fitzgerald fan, Monroe promised to be in the front row every night if Morrison would book her, guaranteeing massive amounts of press for the club. He agreed, and Monroe was true to her word. “After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again,” Fitzgerald said. “She was an unusual woman—a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”