Category: Trivia

15 Fun Facts for “Young Frankenstein”

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Young Frankenstein, despite turning 40 years old this year, remains one of the funniest movies of all time.

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the release of Young Frankenstein, Mental_Floss presents 15 Fun Facts for Young Frankenstein’s 40th Anniversary by Marc Mancini.

Here are my three favorite facts…

2. STAR AND CO-WRITER GENE WILDER CONVINCED BROOKS TO FORGO HIS USUAL CAMEO APPEARANCE

Like Alfred Hitchcock, Brooks usually gave himself a part in his own films, from Blazing Saddles’ loopy governor to the wine-selling Rabbi of Robin Hood: Men in Tights. These characters regularly broke the fourth wall and “winked” at the audience, something Wilder felt would clash with Young Frankenstein’s tone. So, as a condition of his taking on the lead role, Wilder made Brooks agree to remain off-camera.

However, the director did provide some howling

6. SEVERAL PROPS HAD PREVIOUSLY APPEARED IN THE MASTERFUL 1931 FRANKENSTEIN FILM

Taking his feature-length tribute to the next level, Brooks included much of the faux labequipment used in that earlier picture.

 

9. GENE HACKMAN SPECIFICALLY ASKED WILDER FOR A PART INYOUNG FRANKENSTEIN BECAUSE HE “WANTED TO TRY COMEDY”

According to the movie’s Blu-Ray commentary, Hackman—who’d been thrice nominated for an Academy Award (and won one in 1971)—learned about Young Frankenstein through his frequent tennis partner Wilder and requested a role. Ultimately, ‘Harold’—the lonely blind character he briefly portrayed—sparked one of the most memorable sequences in comedic history.

22 Things You Might Not Know About The Breakfast Club

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Kate Erbland gives us 22 Things You Might Not Know About The Breakfast Club.

My two favorites…

08.  Emilio Estevez was originally slated to play Bender, but Hughes couldn’t find anyone else who was right for the Andrew role, so Estevez ultimately switched and the Bender gig went to Judd Nelson.

10. Other actresses that could have played Claire [Molly Ringwald’s part]? Robin Wright, Jodie Foster, and Laura Dern, who all auditioned for the part.

Source: Mental_Floss.

39 Things We Learned from the Banned “Dr. No” Commentary

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Film School Rejects presents 39 Things We Learned from the Banned “Dr. No” Commentary  by Kevin Carr.  Here are five of my favorites…

1. The iconic James Bond theme was not in the original picture. The score had “Underneath the Mango Tree” as Bond’s theme, and Young thought “that’s a really stupid idea” because eventually they would make a James Bond movie without mango trees. John Barry was referred to him, and he wrote the recognizable theme without even seeing the film.

7. It took ten takes of Bond tossing his hat onto the coat tree to get the shot. In later films, Connery became good enough to hit the mark on the first try.

23. When the Three Blind Mice try to assassinate Bond in the parking lot, Hunt did not have a shot of the passing car’s headlight that distract them from following through because Young never shot it. In order ot make the shot work, Hunt flared the film on the actors in post production to show the flash of light.

31. Young discovered Ursula Andress in a pile of photographs on the desk of a producer. He asked if he could keep the photo and took it to Cubby Broccoli to find her for the role of Honey Ryder. They cast her primarily because of her looks and never had a formal audition or test of her acting ability.

34. Ursula Andress was overdubbed by actress Nikki Van der Zyl because her accent was too thick and the filmmakers could not understand all of her lines.

Movie Easter Eggs: X Marks the Kill

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One of the great reoccurring treats at JoBlo.com is Movie Easter Eggs.  Movie Easter Eggs are hidden messages, jokes and nods to other films that are hidden within a movie.

One of the Movie Easter Eggs covered this week is that in the movie The Departed.  Director Martin Scorsese…

…paid tribute to Howard Hawks’ original 1932 version of SCARFACE in which the director included a bunch of Xs in scenes to imply that a character was going to end up dead.

You can see the X’s in The Departed  scenes.  Click over and you can see the X’s in Scarface  as well as Movie Easter Eggs for Kill Bill,  Die Hard with a Vengeance,  The Simpson’s Movie  and Back to the Future.

41 Things We Learned from the “Dracula” Commentary

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Kevin Carr at Film School Rejects provides 41 Things We Learned from the Dracula  commentary.

Here are five of my favorites…

16. Dracula’s infamous line “I never drink wine” was not in the book or the stage play. However, after it became popular from the film, it was added to the dialogue of the stage play.

20. Several scenes in the script described fangs for Dracula, however Lugosi never wears them. Even though the Count in Nosferatu had fangs, the vampires from the early Universal films did not have them.

25. Originally, Stoker planned to call the title character Count Vampyr. However, he stumbled upon the history of Vlad Tepis and his name Dracula (meaning “son of the Devil”).

32. The shot of Renfield crawling at the fainted maid is not as sexual or violent as it first appears. In fact, he is trying to catch a fly that has landed on her. This was edited out of the English-language version but left in the Spanish-language one.

34. Originally, Lugosi was not considered for the role in the film. Trade papers suggested Conrad Veidt (the sleepwalker in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). The studio wanted Lon Chaney, and they ended up offering him a three-picture deal which included a talkie sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. However, Chaney died before this could be done. After several other considerations, Lugosi got the role with a $500 per week salary.