FILM 1989: OVERLORD

FILM 1989: OVERLORD

TRIVIA: The movie featured more practical effects rather than the standard cgi effects most movies use. This was done to get a better reaction from the actors involved in the scenes where something gruesome would happen.

Confirmed by J.J. Abrams at the Paramount CinemaCon presentation on April 25, 2018, that the film is, in fact, not an entry in the Cloverfield franchise, despite initial speculations.

Operation Overlord was the code-name for the Allied operation for the Battle of Normandy, which launched the successful invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. This, alongside Operation Neptune, would become known as D-Day.

FILM 1875: ALIENS

FILM 1875: ALIENS

TRIVIA: Like most films, the movie wasn't shot in sequence. But for added realism, James Cameron filmed the scene where we first meet the Colonial Marines (one of the earliest scenes) last. This was so that the camaraderie of the Marines was realistic because the actors had spent months filming together.

When filming the scene with Newt in the duct, Carrie Henn kept deliberately blowing her scene so she could slide down the vent, which she later called a slide three stories tall. James Cameron finally dissuaded her by saying that if she completed the shot, she could play on it as much as she wanted. She did, and he kept his promise.

In both the standard and special edition versions, the fifteen minute countdown at the end of the film is indeed fifteen minutes.

Sigourney Weaver's Best Actress Academy Award nomination for this movie was the first ever for an actress in a role in an action movie.

None of the models or the original designs of the Narcissus (the Nostromo's shuttle) from Alien (1979) could be found, so set designers and model-makers had to reconstruct the model of the ship and the interior set from watching Alien (1979).

Budget constraints meant that they could only afford to have six hypersleep capsules for the scenes set aboard the Sulaco. Clever placement of mirrors and camera angles made it look like there were 12. Each hypersleep chamber cost over $4,300 to build.

Ripley's miniature bathroom in her apartment is actually a British Airways toilet, purchased from the airline.

The film takes place in 2179.

Having hired James Cameron to write the screenplay, 20th Century Fox then did the unthinkable when he left the production to direct The Terminator (1984): they agreed to wait for Cameron to become available again and finish the screenplay. Cameron had only completed about 90 pages at that stage, but the studio had loved what he had written so far.

Hicks was originally played by James Remar, but Michael Biehn replaced him a few days after principal photography began. The often given reason for Remar being removed was due to "artistic differences" between Remar and director James Cameron. But in episode #128 of the 'Sidebar' podcast, Remar states that he was fired from the production because he was busted for possession of drugs. He said this was in a period of his life where he said he had developed a terrible drug problem. Remar still appears in the finished film - he is seen for one shot when the marines enter the alien nest. Because he is seen from behind wearing the same armor as Michael Biehn, it's impossible to tell the difference between the two actors.

The various screens and displays, seen mostly in the backgrounds, are actually TV screens with a video running. The film was shot in the UK where televisions run at 25 frames per second, however, film is normally shot and projected at 24 frames per second! Filming the TV monitors at that speed would cause the TV screens to run out of sync with the film, so they would have flickered terribly. Instead, the shots containing the monitors were taken at 25 frames per second to keep the monitors in sync, so when these are then projected at the standard rate of 24 fps, they now run a bit slower than real-life.

The button on the control panel Ripley presses to shut the air lock doors on the ship at the end of the film is actually a "Hold" Button from a UK style "Fruit Machine" or "Bandit"!

The video screen park background at Gateway Station hospital is actually a still photograph of the gardens at Pinewood Studios, where the movie was made.

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

FILM 1480: THE GENERAL

TRIVIA: In the train crash a dummy was used as the engineer. It looked so realistic that the townspeople who had come to watch screamed in horror.

The first try at getting the cannonball to shoot out of the cannon into the cab caused the ball to shoot with too much force. To cause it to shoot into the cab of the engine correctly, Buster Keaton had to count out the grains of gunpowder with tweezers.

Based on a true incident during the Civil War. In April 1862 Union agent James J. Andrews led a squad of 21 soldiers on a daring secret raid. Dressed in civilian clothes, Andrews and his men traveled by rail into the Southern states. Their mission was to sabotage rail lines and disrupt the Confederate army's supply chain. At the town of Big Shanty, GA, (now known as Kennesaw, Georgia) the raiders stole a locomotive known as "The General." They headed north, tearing up track, burning covered bridges and cutting telegraph lines along the way. William Fuller and Jeff Cain, the conductor and engineer of "The General," pursued the stolen train by rail and foot. They first used a hand-cart (as Buster Keaton does in the film), then a small work locomotive called "The Yonah," which they borrowed from a railroad work crew, and finally a full-sized Confederate army locomotive called "The Texas," which pursued "The General" for 51 miles--in reverse. During the chase Confederate soldiers were able to repair the sabotaged telegraph wires and send messages ahead of the raiders. Andrews and his men were intercepted and captured near Chattanooga, TN, by a squad of Confederate troops led by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest (who, after the war, was one of the founders of the Ku Klux Klan). Tried as spies, Andrews and seven of his raiders were hanged (a special gallows was built to hold all eight men). The rest of the raiders were traded in a prisoner exchange. In 1863 the survivors of the mission were awarded the first Medals of Honor (Andrews and the raiders who had been hanged later received the medal posthumously). Although this film is a comedy, the incident was later filmed by Walt Disney as a drama, The Great Locomotive Chase (1956), with Fess Parker--a Southerner, born in Texas--as Andrews.

Buster Keaton always said that this was his favorite movie.

Buster Keaton wanted to use the real locomotive "The General", which was at the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St Louis Union Depot in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The railroad initially permitted him to do so, even providing him with a branch line to film on. However, when it became known that the film was to be a comedy, the railroad withdrew permission and Keaton had to look elsewhere.

The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film. Therefore, many of the versions of this film available on the market are either severely (and usually badly) edited and/or of extremely poor quality, having been duped from second- or third-generation (or more) copies of the film.

For the scenes with the opposing armies marching, Buster Keaton had the extras (which included Oregon National Guard troops) wear the gray uniforms of the Confederacy and march in one direction past the camera, then he had them change uniforms to the Union blues and had them march past the camera in the other direction.

The film's hard-edged look was inspired by the battlefield photographs of Matthew Brady, which captured the carnage of the Civil War in shocking detail.

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FILM 1231: THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

TRIVIA: Colonel Saito was inspired by Major Risaburo Saito, who unlike the character portrayed in the film was said by some to be one of the most reasonable and humane of all of the Japanese officers, usually willing to negotiate with the POWs in return for their labor. Such was the respect between Saito and Lieutenant-Colonel Toosey (a substitute Nicholson) that Toosey spoke up on Saito's behalf at the war-crimes tribunal after the war, saving him from the gallows. Ten years after Toosey's 1975 death, Saito made a pilgrimage to England to visit his grave.

During shooting, Alec Guinness continued to have doubts about his performance and the direction he was getting from David Lean. To put Guinness at ease, Lean decided to show the actor a rough cut of certain sequences. One night, Lean ran over an hour's worth of footage for Guinness with the actor's wife and son also attending. During the screening, nothing was said. At the end, the Guinness family thanked Lean and promptly walked out, leaving the director without a clue as to what to think of their reaction (or lack of). Later that night, Lean received a visit from his lead actor who told him that he and his family had decided that Nicholson was the best thing that Guinness had ever done.

For the scenes where William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Geoffrey Horne and the native girls had to wade through swamps, they were wading through specially created ones. The real swamps in Ceylon were deemed to be too dangerous. Nevertheless, the leeches in the recreated swamps were real.

There were no facilities on the island of Ceylon to process film rushes so the day's filming had to be flown to London to be processed and then flown back out to Ceylon.

Laurence Olivier was offered the part of Colonel Nicholson but turned it down in order to direct The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) instead. In retrospect, Olivier said that it was a sensible decision to go off and do love scenes with Marilyn Monroe rather than tough it out in the jungles of Ceylon with David Lean.

When the film was first released in theaters, Alec Guinness's name was misspelled in the opening credits, using only one 'n' in his surname. The error has since been corrected.

Howard Hawks was asked to direct, but declined. After the box-office failure of Land of the Pharaohs (1955), he didn't want a second one in a row, and he thought the critics would love this movie but the public would stay away. One particular concern was the all-male lead roles.

FILM 1176: IP MAN

TRIVIA: Although not mentioned in the film Grandmaster Yip Man was actually employed as a police officer during the Japanese invasion.

Although it's the first film centering around Yip Man, the idea of doing a Yip Man biopic have been conceived for as long as 30 years. Donnie Yen was actually slated to play Yip Man in the supposed first biopic that was about to go into production in 1997. The film would've also featured Stephen Chow playing an adult Bruce Lee. However, only one day of shooting took place before the project was canceled.