Movie Film Trivia

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
Not so much movie trivia as the two roles were on television, but American actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin have recently been in bizarre cases of life imitating art.

Last year, the College Admissions Scandal in America was big news across the world, with dozens of parents arrested and prosecuted with using less than honest methods of getting their children admitted to college, some prestigious colleges very hard to get into. Also charged were some college officials and government officials. I never thought I would be nostalgic for early 2019 and a time when a college admissions scandal was headline news, but given how bad 2020 is that is the case, however I digress.

Two of those arrested were Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. Huffman was charged with paying $15,000 to 'improve' her daughter's SAT score, and she pled guilty early, receiving a short prison sentence, financial penalties and community service. As an interesting side piece of trivia, Felicity Huffman's middle name is Kendall, and therefore her first two names match British actress Felicity Kendall.

The case against Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli involved far more money, and getting their two daughters into the University of Southern California on scholarships for the rowing team, even though neither girl was a rower. Loughlin like Huffman received a short prison sentence, financial penalties and community service, her husband also a prison sentence and fine.

The amazing thing is that in their best known roles - Huffman as Lynette in Desperate Housewives and Loughlin as Aunt Becky in Full House - both had storylines that involved dishonesty to get their kids into exclusive schools. In Desperate Housewives, Lynette and Tom want their sons to go to a pricey private high school but the only way to do this is by paying money under the table, and IIRC they decided against it in the end. In Full House, Jesse and Becky try to get their sons into an exclusive elementary school and with the assistance of Joey submit an application where the truth is bent and on some occasions completely broken. The dishonesty is discovered, but because Jesse and Becky come clean, things work out okay in the end.

Thinking about this scandal, in Huffman's case it is highly possible that the fixing of a test score might go un-noticed forever given the confidentiality of results etc. But in the Loughlin case and others that involved kids getting into college on sports scholarships even thought they did not play that sport, how could you maintain the masquerade for so long, given undergraduate degrees usually last four years? If a girl is attending college on a rowing scholarship despite never having rowed in her life, isn't there a better than 50 percent chance that one day somebody is going to question why she isn't rowing for the university team despite being on this scholarship? And even if this didn't happen while they were at college, it could still be picked up in all the years afterwards.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
When Superman and Superman II were made in the late 1970s, the character of Kryptonian super villain Non was not initially supposed to be mute, but a speaking character. Jack O'Halloran, the actor who played Non was perfect physically for the role, but a strong New York accent stood out sharply against the refined British accents of Terrance Stamp (General Zod) and Sarah Douglas (Ursa), so the decision was made to make Non mute.

Around the same time there was a similar decision in another famous film. Sandy in Grease (1978) was not originally supposed to be Australian (the character was not Australian in the stage musical) but Olivia Newton-John being Australian obviously had this accent, so the character was changed to Australian from this point on.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
The 2009 comedy film 'Old Dogs' had a high profile cast and was a commercial success but critical failure and a decade later is largely forgotten. However, the film seems to be one of those unlucky movies touched by the hand of fate. Three actors - Bernie Mac, Robin Williams and Kelly Preston - have all died prematurely, while co-star Lori Loughlin's life has been turned upside down by legal problems in recent years, the actress currently serving a prison sentence for her role in a college admissions scandal.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
Many of Steve Martin's best known movie roles have been playing the role of a father. Some notable films in which Martin played the father are Parenthood, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Father of the Bride, Father of the Bride 2, Cheaper by the Dozen, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, Bringing Down the House and The Out of Towners.

However, in real life Steve Martin who was born on 14th August 1945 (the day before VP day) only became a father in 2012 at age 67, when his wife gave birth to a daughter. Interestingly, Martin's co-star and on-screen wife in Father of the Bride and it's sequel, Diane Keaton, has often played mothers in films and while she has two children, both were adopted later in life. In the 2005 comedy/drama 'The Family Stone' in which Keaton played the family matriarch there is a photograph of a young Mrs. Stone pregnant with her daughter Rachel, but this was taken from a 1970s movie in which Diane Keaton played an expectant mother.
 

STFU Donnie

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 31, 2012
5,417
8,493
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Everton, Chiefs Kingdom
John Huston has directed some of the best and most revered films ever, including one of my all time favorites - The Man Who Would Be King.

But his most outstanding (and totally unique) achievement is surely this. In 1948 he directed The Treasure of the Sierra Madre for which Walter Huston won an Oscar. In 1985 he directed Prizzi's Honor for which Anjelica Huston won an Oscar.

So, he directed both his father and his daughter to Oscars. Pretty good! He didn't miss out himself, winning both Best Director and Best Screenplay for TTotSM.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
Everybody Loves A Clown (So Why Don't You?) is a catchy and well known song from American pop group Gary Lewis and the Playboys in the mid 1960s. Gary Lewis is the son of entertainer/actor/comedian Jerry Lewis, and Jerry Lewis had a particular problem with clowns, or to be exact one clown, a clown he played himself in an unreleased movie called 'The Day the Clown Cried'.

While not uncommon for comedic actors to seek a serious role, in the case of Jerry Lewis in this movie filmed in the early 1970s he played a clown who was living in Germany in the 1930s, and was both critical and mocking of Hitler's regime. The Nazis respond by throwing him into a concentration camp, where he is forced to entertain children with his clown act before the kids are sent to the gas chambers. It sounds like a very cheerful and uplifting movie, but the number of people who have seen it would be in the single digits. When watching the completed film, Lewis was apparently so horrified that he took legal action to ensure it was never released in his lifetime.

When Jerry Lewis died aged 91 in 2017, there was speculation that it would be screened. However Lewis's children stated that their late father's infamous film would never be released, and there are also copyright legalities and the poor quality and incomplete only known copy of the film ensure it could not be released anyway.
 

STFU Donnie

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 31, 2012
5,417
8,493
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Everton, Chiefs Kingdom
Everybody Loves A Clown (So Why Don't You?) is a catchy and well known song from American pop group Gary Lewis and the Playboys in the mid 1960s. Gary Lewis is the son of entertainer/actor/comedian Jerry Lewis, and Jerry Lewis had a particular problem with clowns, or to be exact one clown, a clown he played himself in an unreleased movie called 'The Day the Clown Cried'.

While not uncommon for comedic actors to seek a serious role, in the case of Jerry Lewis in this movie filmed in the early 1970s he played a clown who was living in Germany in the 1930s, and was both critical and mocking of Hitler's regime. The Nazis respond by throwing him into a concentration camp, where he is forced to entertain children with his clown act before the kids are sent to the gas chambers. It sounds like a very cheerful and uplifting movie, but the number of people who have seen it would be in the single digits. When watching the completed film, Lewis was apparently so horrified that he took legal action to ensure it was never released in his lifetime.

When Jerry Lewis died aged 91 in 2017, there was speculation that it would be screened. However Lewis's children stated that their late father's infamous film would never be released, and there are also copyright legalities and the poor quality and incomplete only known copy of the film ensure it could not be released anyway.

 

rank and file

Norm Smith Medallist
Jun 9, 2013
6,125
6,715
michael mitchell country
AFL Club
Richmond
Other Teams
bell park
Francis Ford Cop-Out has tweaked the beginning,ending and cut 20mins of Godfather 3.
Will watch,but it's a fair chance of still being s**t.
Screenshot_20201203-193618_Samsung Internet.jpg
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
The Christmas comedy 'Home Alone 2' features a character called Mr. Hector, who is the front reception manager of the Plaza Hotel in New York where Kevin checks in with his father's credit card after becoming separated from the rest of his family in Chicago. Played by English actor Tim Curry, the hotel manager is a prissy, condescending and supercilious man, who (probably justifiably) becomes increasingly suspicious of what is going on with Kevin, not least that Kevin's father has not been sighted as yet.

In one hilarious scene, the hotel manager sneaks into the room where Kevin is staying, only to see 'Mr. McAllister' in the shower, dancing around and singing. In fact the silhouette of Mr. McAllister is a blow up clown being controlled by Kevin, and the singing is of Kevin's Uncle Frank recorded earlier in the film. The hotel manager beats a hasty retreat when Kevin stops moving the clown around and plays Uncle Frank saying 'Get out of here you nosy little pervert', most dismayed at being taken for a homosexual voyeur by a guest.

This scene appears to reference two very famous roles previously played by Tim Curry. One is Frank N Furter from 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' in 1975, an insane bisexual transvestite most definitely into voyeurism, both with men and women. Secondly, that a blow up clown made to look like it was dancing was used as a prop in this scene seems to reference It in 1990, in which Curry played the evil Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The scene involving water also is significant, as many frightening scenes with Pennywise happened with water. For example, Pennywise lures Bill's younger brother Georgie to his death in a storm water drain; he takes the form of Ben's late father by the river trying to convince Ben that there was a big mistake and he was still alive in an attempt to get Ben to approach him; he kills the other bullies from Henry Bowers' gang in the sewers; the showers going haywire in the boys changing rooms at the school before the clown comes out of the drain to terrorize Eddie; and he torments Beverley in the bathroom when she has her period, spraying blood out of the sink that only she can see.
 
Apr 10, 2010
6,649
9,167
AFL Club
Fremantle
Other Teams
AFC Wimbledon
Lots of examples of stand alone movies becoming sequels and sequels becoming stand alone movies but I thought this one was interesting.

Arnold Scharwenegger's Total Recall (1990) and Tom Cruise's Minority Report (2002) are both loosely based on P. K. Dick stories but Minority Report was first being developed as a sequel to Total Recall.

From IMDB:

The Tom Cruise science fiction flick Minority Report (2002) which was based on the Philip K. Dick short story was originally going to be the sequel to Total Recall (1990) which Arnold Schwarzenegger would return as Quaid. Total Recall 2: The Minority Report would take place after the events of Total Recall (Which it would be revealed that it wasn't a dream) and the film would see Quaid now working for an elite law enforcement agency which mutants from Mars use their physic abilities to predict crimes before the crimes are committed and Quaid is forced to go on the run when the mutants predict that he is going to commit a murder in 48 hours and he sets out to stop the murder from happening and prove his innocence. Due to 5 years in development hell, Total Recall 2: The Minority Report was abandoned and became Minority Report (2002) and Total Recall (1990) was remade in 2012 with Colin Farrell as Quaid.






The version of Minority Report we ended up with is almost certainly the better result with the 2002 movie being a really solid action/sci-fi flick but I also think it could have been interesting to see how it was done as the sequel Total Recall 2: The Minority Report. The mutants and psychic abilities were all set up in the first movie and it could have created a sequel that wasn't just retreading the original plot.

Of course Quaid needing to go on the run after being accused of a single murder might be a bit of a stretch considering his death toll from the first movie.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
In the classic 1986 film 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Alan Ruck and Mia Sara played high school students in the same class, who as the best friend and girlfriend respectively of perpetual truant Ferris Bueller accompany him on his escapades through Chicago, staying one step ahead of Principal Ed Rooney the whole time.

However, in real life Alan Ruck who was born in 1956 would have been a high school senior in 1974, and at the same time Mia Sara (born in 1967) would have been in second grade in elementary school. Alan Ruck is closer in age to Jeffrey Jones, the actor who played Mr. Rooney, than to the age of Mia Sara.
 
May 5, 2016
43,464
48,498
AFL Club
Geelong
In the classic 1986 film 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off' Alan Ruck and Mia Sara played high school students in the same class, who as the best friend and girlfriend respectively of perpetual truant Ferris Bueller accompany him on his escapades through Chicago, staying one step ahead of Principal Ed Rooney the whole time.

However, in real life Alan Ruck who was born in 1956 would have been a high school senior in 1974, and at the same time Mia Sara (born in 1967) would have been in second grade in elementary school. Alan Ruck is closer in age to Jeffrey Jones, the actor who played Mr. Rooney, than to the age of Mia Sara.


Jeffrey Jones - the now convicted paedophile, if memory serves
 
Feb 11, 2012
1,856
1,950
Adelaide
AFL Club
Adelaide
Lots of examples of stand alone movies becoming sequels and sequels becoming stand alone movies but I thought this one was interesting.

Arnold Scharwenegger's Total Recall (1990) and Tom Cruise's Minority Report (2002) are both loosely based on P. K. Dick stories but Minority Report was first being developed as a sequel to Total Recall.

From IMDB:








The version of Minority Report we ended up with is almost certainly the better result with the 2002 movie being a really solid action/sci-fi flick but I also think it could have been interesting to see how it was done as the sequel Total Recall 2: The Minority Report. The mutants and psychic abilities were all set up in the first movie and it could have created a sequel that wasn't just retreading the original plot.

Of course Quaid needing to go on the run after being accused of a single murder might be a bit of a stretch considering his death toll from the first movie.

Also it would have ruined the ending of the original Total Recall. Settling the question of dream or not.
 

STFU Donnie

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 31, 2012
5,417
8,493
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Everton, Chiefs Kingdom
The Thing was released in 1982, which means it would have been filmed in 1981 - before either of the two (below) platforms even existed. I therefore find it amusing that the two characters who performed the famous blood test sequence were called ...






Mac and Windows.
 

STFU Donnie

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 31, 2012
5,417
8,493
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Everton, Chiefs Kingdom
This is more TV trivia than film trivia, and concerns the following clip of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Personally I always considered Martin to be a top notch performer, but I always detested Lewis. I simply couldn't put into words how unfunny I find him!

Anyway back to the clip and the trivia: The kid they bring on at the 5:55 mark to play the arm-wrestling machine is actually ....

Christopher Walken.

Seriously!


 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
The 2018 Australian film 'Swinging Safari' starred Guy Pearce and Kylie Minogue as an unhappily married couple. It wasn't the first time that they had acted together, with both starring in the soap opera Neighbours in the late 1980s.

Another cast member, Julian MacMahon, got his start in 'Home and Away' in the late 1980s and very early 1990s, which at the time also counted Dannii Minogue among its cast, with Julian MacMahon and Dannii Minogue married for a few years in the mid 1990s.

Rahda Mitchell and Jeremy Sims also had roles in Neighbours and Home and Away respectively but much later, Mitchell in the mid 1990s and Sims in the late 2000s.

The sixth cast member Asher Keddie was not from a soap opera background, but she does have a more obscure link to the Minogue sisters. In the mid 1980s Asher Keddie, then aged 9, appeared as a contestant on the variety show 'Young Talent Time', with Dannii Minogue a member of the YTT team at that stage.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
The classic 1975 horror film 'Jaws' and its 1978 sequel 'Jaws 2' were filmed at Martha's Vineyard, but the setting is a fictional beachside town in the New York/New England area named Amity.

Around the same time, a very real Long Island town on the South Shore with a similar name would be forever associated with horror movies. This of course is Amityville, where the eldest son of the DeFeo family shot to death his father, mother, two brothers and two sisters in violent and mysterious fashion in their home on Ocean Avenue, and the family to next move into the house were driven away by terrifying supernatural happenings. A film about these events - 'The Amityville Horror' -was made in 1979.

In one scene in Jaws at the beach a Dutch Colonial house with quadrant-shaped top floor windows - just like the infamous Amityville horror house - can be seen in the background. And Murray Hamilton was in both films, playing the Mayor in Jaws and Jaws 2, and a priest in The Amityville Horror.
 
Last edited:
Sep 6, 2005
144,446
94,353
AFL Club
Fremantle
A Nightmare on Elm Street is based on a true story.
A 12 yo boy was having constant nightmares and decided one night to stay awake and not fall asleep.
He failed, and ended up asleep.
When he woke up, his parents found four razor slashes across his chest.
Police who investigated said the slashes were not self-inflicted, and there was no sign of a break in.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
Jaws from 1975 is a classic horror film, while Jaws 2 in 1978 is generally regarded as a good sequel.

The other sequels in the 1980s were not nearly so successful. Jaws 3D in 1983, set at a Florida marine theme park and which starred a young Dennis Quaid and Lea Thompson, failed to make an impact while Jaws - The Revenge in 1987 often appears on lists of worst movies of all times.

Jaws 3D is a sequel to Jaws and Jaws 2. It features Michael and Sean Brody the now adult sons of main Jaws characters Martin and Ellen Brody, both young men working at the marine park. Their parents do not appear, but they are referenced as having left Amity New England and moved to Colorado (I wonder why?).

However, Jaws The Revenge in 1987 is a sequel to Jaws and Jaws 2, but completely retcons Jaws 3D out of existence. Ellen Brody, recently widowed, returns in a major role with the Brody family still living in Amity on the New England coast, and Mike and Sean have completely different jobs and lives than seen in Jaws 3D.
 

emuboy

Premiership Player
Dec 17, 2006
4,359
4,600
The Southern Hemisphere
AFL Club
Collingwood
Other Teams
South Fremantle, Sturt
The two American lead roles in the classic 1981 horror film 'An American Werewolf In London' were David Naughton (David) and Griffin Dunne (Jack), Jack killed by the werewolf and becoming un-dead, and David cursed to be become a werewolf himself after surviving the attack. Off-screen, a tragic coincidence would link the two men in coming years; each was closely associated with an actress who would be killed by a violent and obsessed man.

In the case of Griffin Dunne, this was his younger sister Dominique Dunne, best known for playing Dana Freeling in Poltergeist in 1982. Dominique Dunne was killed by her ex-boyfriend, after a heated argument in the driveway turned lethal.

David Naughton in 1986 began starring in a sitcom called 'My Sister Sam', which ran until 1988. Also in the cast was Pam Dawber (from Mork & Mindy), several jobbing actors and a promising teenage actress named Rebecca Schaeffer. The show was a pretty harmless sort of family sitcom common at the time, and would probably be completely forgotten today if not for one thing. During the show's run, young Rebecca Schaeffer had attracted the attention of a male fan, who became increasingly obsessed with her, writing her mail and sending her gifts turning to stalking. In 1989 after the show had ceased production, the stalker arrived at Schaeffer's house, shooting her dead when she answered the door.

In something of an eerie premonition of doom, the lyrics to the theme song of 'My Sister Sam' begin 'Everything starts with a knock on the door, you don't know what it is, but you know who it's for ..."
 
Back