FILM 1938: EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

FILM 1938: EDWARD SCISSORHANDS

TRIVIA: The idea for the movie was inspired by a drawing Tim Burton had done when he was a teenager. The drawing depicted a thin, solemn man with long, sharp blades for fingers. Burton stated that he was often alone and had trouble retaining friendships. "I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason, I don't know exactly why."

Winona Ryder dropped out of The Godfather: Part III (1990) to appear in this film. Reportedly, it was Johnny Depp who actually convinced her to do so.

Edward says only 169 words in the film.

The role of The Inventor was written specifically for Vincent Price.

Vincent Price's role was intended to be larger, but the veteran actor was very ill with emphysema and Parkinson's disease, so his scenes were cut to a minimum.

Tim Burton has never intended to make a sequel as he said it would rob the film of its "Purity".

The entire story is meant to be seen through Edward's eyes, which is why the neighborhood looks so "fantastical."

Although Tim Burton said this isn't his greatest film, he said it is his favorite of all his films, and the score is Danny Elfman's favorite of all his soundtrack compositions.

Johnny Depp had to lose a reported 25 pounds for the role of Edward Scissorhands.

Johnny Depp stated that he "cried like a baby" when he first read the script.

The little blonde boy on the Slip 'N Slide, at the beginning of the film, is Nick Carter of The Backstreet Boys. Though uncredited in the film, Carter himself has confirmed this in several interviews.

O-Lan Jones arranged and actually played the organ music her character Esmeralda performs on-screen.

Edward's hair is based on Robert Smith of The Cure's hair.

This film marks the first time that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp worked together. They ended up becoming good friends since this film.

Gary Oldman was offered the title role, but he turned it down.

Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder dated throughout filming of this movie, and became engaged during the same year (1990).

Alan Arkin (Bill) says when he first read the script, he was "a bit baffled. Nothing really made sense to me until I saw the sets. Burton's visual imagination is extraordinary".

Tim Burton hired Caroline Thompson, then a young novelist, to write the Edward Scissorhands screenplay as a spec script. Burton was impressed with her short novel, First Born, which was "about an abortion that came back to life". Burton felt First Born had the same psychological elements he wanted to showcase in Edward Scissorhands. "Every detail was so important to Tim because it was so personal", Thompson remarked. She wrote Scissorhands as a "love poem" to Burton, calling him "the most articulate person I know, but couldn't put a single sentence together".

During the scene where Edward is cutting the neighborhood ladies hair, the song playing is from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Johnny Depp would later go on to play Sweeney Todd in another collaboration with Tim Burton.

When Peg looks in her rear view mirror at Edward's castle for the first time, the castle she sees is a small study model from the art department, held up on a C-stand.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

Caroline Thompson wrote Peg based off her own mother, who used to bring home strangers. She based the women in the neighborhood off people she grew up around.

DIRECTOR TRADEMARK: Tim Burton: [music] Music by Danny Elfman.