Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: After Ernest Hemingway guided two extremely expensive (and failed) offshore excursions for original marlin-fishing footage, Warner Brothers settled for existing footage of a world-record marlin caught off the coast of Peru by Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. His taut, heavy-duty fishing line can be seen bouncing wildly, high in the air, in the scene where the marlin finally breaches (even though the Old Man's hand-line is pretty much stationary and angled low to the ocean surface).

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: During the film's formidable two years in production, actor Spencer Tracy lapsed back into alcoholism and found a ready drinking partner in author Ernest Hemingway. One night, while on one of their binges, the two even demolished a bar in Havana, Cuba, and the bar owner demanded that Warner Brothers Studios pay $150,000 in damages. Warner Brothers was so infuriated with Spencer Tracy that they were on the verge of firing him and replacing him with Ernest Borgnine. (source: "Spencer Tracy: Tragic Idol" by Bill Davidson).

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Spencer Tracy's hair was not naturally white when they first started filming "The Old Man and the Sea"; so, his hair was cosmetically bleached white for the part of Santiago. However, after a grueling two years in production and his lapse back into alcoholism, Tracy's hair naturally turned white by the time they finished the film.

Charles Austin Miller

Elegy - S4-E22

Trivia: In this episode, longtime character actor Sydney Lassick was cast to play Chuck Forsch, an over-sensitive and delusional patient in a psychiatric hospital. Eighteen years earlier, Sydney Lassick played a virtually identical delusional psychiatric patient, Charlie Cheswick, in the Oscar-winning film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975).

Charles Austin Miller

Small Potatoes - S4-E20

Question: We know that the chameleon Eddie Van Blundht can manipulate his unique extra layer of muscles to mimic male faces and physiques, thus hijacking their identities. However, Eddie can't mimic clothing, so he must hastily seek new clothing to go with each new identity. But when Eddie is on the run from Mulder and Scully, he abruptly mimics Fox Mulder and is seen wearing exactly the same tailored suit and tie that Fox Mulder is wearing on the same day. In fact, they even cross paths in the hospital while they are wearing identical tailored suits and ties. Question: where and when could Eddie possibly acquire an exact tailored suit and tie to match Fox Mulder's on such short notice?

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: The 2009 horror film "Dark House" was a much-lower-budget, B-grade remake of 1999's "House on Haunted Hill," with virtually identical plot, characters and motivations (i.e., a flamboyant amusement park mogul offers people money to stay in a technologically-rigged spook house that turns out to really be haunted). Interestingly, legendary horror actor Jeffrey Combs appeared in both films. In "House on Haunted Hill," Combs played the murderous ghost of a mad doctor who really haunts the house; in "Dark House," Combs played the flamboyant amusement park mogul.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: In the days before ubiquitous digital technology, the majority of visual effects in film were "practical" effects using stuntmen and props on wires, springboards, flash-pots, et cetera. In "Ladyhawke" (which was decidedly on the low-end of visual effects budgets), one of the most dangerous practical effects is seen when Matthew Broderick and Rutger Hauer have a heated discussion in the woods and seem about to part company. As Broderick turns to leave, Hauer's 53" longsword sizzles past the boy's left shoulder and embeds in a tree trunk, to Broderick's horror. In fact, the steel sword was real and hurtled to its target on a guide-wire, barely 8 inches from Broderick's back. If you slow-advance the scene, you can see the sword actually changing trajectory in-flight, it was so unstable. The sword came up in a Hollywood memorabilia auction in 2002 but was not sold. http://www.icollector.com/Rutger-Hauer-prop-special-effects-sword-from-Ladyhawke_i169815.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Over the decades, one persistent Internet rumor maintains that the tiger used in the first Beastmaster film died a horrible, lingering, 2-year death from skin cancer as a result of having his entire coat dyed black with toxic chemicals. As usual for Internet gossip, the details of this story are dreadfully confused, at best. According to director Don Coscarelli (speaking during an interview with author Staci Layne Wilson for her 2007 book "Animal Movies Guide," page 350), the film's executive producer brought in an animal handler who chose to dye more than one tiger black. Just to be clear, none of the tigers became diseased or expired from the non-toxic black vegetable dye. It was necessary, however, to anesthetize the tigers before applying the dye to their coats; and, unfortunately, one of the tigers simply never woke up from the anesthesia (a known problem with cats). Coscarelli felt horrible about the unexpected death; but, in fairness to him, the decision to anesthetize and dye the tigers was not his choice.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Near the end, as Lucy starts travelling backwards in time, she pauses in various periods of Earth's natural history. However, after she travels all the way back to the age of the Dinosaurs (at least 65 million years ago), she inexplicably travels forward in time by about 60 million years and meets an Australopithecine, one of humankind's earliest ancestors (that lived around 4 million years ago). She then resumes traveling backward in time to the beginning of the universe.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: Near the end, as Paul Shaffer judges the Battle of the Bands, the red stage curtain is closed and the stage is empty. We know that the Blues Brothers were the last performers, and they carried their microphone stands with them as they retreated behind the curtain; so, all sound gear and both bands are behind the curtain, and the stage is empty in front of the curtain except for Paul Shaffer. As Shaffer announces the winner, he ducks to his right and goes center-stage, where the curtain is instantly wide open again with band members and sound gear filling the stage all the way to the edge, which would be physically impossible to accomplish in the split-second camera cut.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: When Carrie Fisher first attacks the boys with rocket-propelled grenades at the hotel doorway, they dive for the sidewalk and are covered with debris. As they rise moments later and enter the hotel, their black suits and hats are covered in white cement dust. In the immediate next shot, as they climb the hotel staircase, their hats and suits have no dust whatsoever.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: During the mall chase, a semi-profile shot shows the squad car roll onto its roof and slide with a large panel of orange signage pinned under the roof. Camera cuts to a view of the officers inside the squad car, and there is no signage nor any other debris pinned under the car's roof. Camera cuts back, and the signage is again pinned under roof. Camera cuts back to frontal view, and the signage is gone again.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: One of the reasons that Eric Stoltz was fired from BTTF is because he took the role too seriously and had no comedic instinct. But there were other reasons, too. Following his method-acting chops, Stoltz was always in character; he insisted on being called "Marty" all the time, both on and off the set; and he was always trying seduce Lea Thompson, which made the cast and crew leery of him. Also, Eric would not fake a punch; he made full contact in fight scenes, because he believed it was the only way to achieve realism. Co-star Thomas F. Wilson (who played Biff Tannen) said he was very pissed off that Eric Stoltz kept slamming him full-force in the cafeteria scene, take-after-take, until Wilson's shoulder and collarbone were bruised. In fact, the much larger Thomas Wilson had planned to give Eric Stoltz an actual beating in the parking scene at the school dance, in revenge. Fortunately for Eric Stoltz, he was fired from the role of Marty McFly before they filmed the parking scene, or Thomas Wilson may have killed him. Once Michael J. Fox was hired, everything went smoothly.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Debbie Reynolds was severely intimidated by power-dancer Gene Kelly. Her feet were blistered and bleeding after just one day on the set with him. She sobbed about working with Kelly so much that her good friend Fred Astaire privately tutored her, gently, in the dance routines.

Charles Austin Miller

Question: If Tuco seriously thought that The Man with No Name would shoot him, why did Tuco voluntarily stick his head in the noose? Death is death. Why choose hanging over gunshot?

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: While every other actor in this movie wears the same costume day and night, day after day, John Wayne's costume changes regularly, even between shots. For all daytime scenes, he wears an orange long-sleeved shirt with a contrasting blue neck-kerchief; in some night-time scenes, he wears a blue long-sleeved shirt with a contrasting yellow neck-kerchief; and sometimes his daytime neck-kerchief changes from blue to yellow in a matter of seconds, between shots.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: According to Robert Zemeckis, the kitchen scene with Michael J. Fox playing three characters simultaneously (middle-aged Marty McFly, his goofy son and bubble-headed daughter all sitting at the same table) was a nightmare to shoot. The characters required individual matte shots that were later spliced together into one scene, requiring many takes; so every visible object in the kitchen background had to remain perfectly stationary and consistent over several days of filming. Thinking ahead, Zemeckis ordered his property crew to hot-glue every single background object in the kitchen in-place, to prevent accidental movement. However, when they were well into filming the tricky scene, the studio was struck by an earthquake, which essentially destroyed the kitchen set, hot glue and all, requiring a rebuild and complete re-shoot.

Charles Austin Miller

Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Lee enters a restaurant in the Rome airport and, because he can't read the menu nor speak the language, he accidentally orders five bowls of Campbell's Soup. When the waitress first delivers the five bowls, the soups are very different colors than they are in subsequent close-ups. Disappointed but hungry, Bruce plows into the soup. Ten sequential close-up shots show him dipping his spoon into bright red, tomato-based soups; but, by the time the spoon reaches his mouth, the spoon is dripping creamy white soup, every time.

Charles Austin Miller

Factual error: The highly unstable explosive nitroglycerin plays a crucial role in the film, as it is painstakingly stolen and then used to obliterate a wooden bridge that separates the War Wagon from its armed escort. However, at the end of the film, a single bottle of this incredibly volatile stuff somehow survives to be stolen by an Indian brave who haphazardly snatches it (thinking it is a bottle of whiskey) and scampers away with it. Any one of the Indian's actions, from roughly snatching it to leaping off the wagon with it and impacting the ground, should have detonated the nitroglycerin. The leader of the Indian war party even chugs a mouthful of the Nitro and violently spits it out, the action of which should have exploded his head. But the nitroglycerin doesn't explode until the Indian leader finally throws the bottle to the ground.

Charles Austin Miller

Trivia: Actor David Niven was, in fact, terminally ill with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) when he appeared in both "Trail of the Pink Panther" and "Curse of the Pink Panther" before his death in 1983. Niven's illness was so debilitating that his voice often completely failed him while filming, such that it was necessary to hire celebrity impressionist Rich Little to overdub Niven's voice in both films.

Charles Austin Miller