Question: I have heard the following story about this film: one of the assistant producers met with Quentin Tarantino. Quentin talked about how much he liked the film, and the producer asked him which bit he liked best. He replied that he liked the lighthouse scene the best, and the assistant producer laughed out loud, and said that the main producer would be amused to hear him say that - because he pinched the scene from Reservoir Dogs. Is this really true?
Questions about specific movies, TV shows and more
These are questions relating to specific titles. General questions for movies and TV shows are here. Members get e-mailed when any of their questions are answered.
Question: In real life, would Drago have faced criminal charges after killing Apollo in the ring? After all he did it on purpose.
Chosen answer: Not really because he only intended on physically punishing Apollo, as do most fighters do when they are in a fight. In real life if Drago had pushed the ref aside like he did in the fight, it would have been stopped right then and there, and maybe Apollo would have lived.
Question: I heard that the famous scene where Jim Carrey makes "the most annoying sound in the world" was an ad lib. Any truth to this?
Question: What exactly is the significance of the narrator calling all the addresses that are in the information folders from his house after Tyler leaves? Was he trying to warn them of an impending danger?
Answer: After he realized Tyler's true nature at the hotel, Tyler made many phone calls. Jack called the same phone numbers and realized that they corresponded to the buildings mentioned on the Project Mayhem folders. He had to confirm this, so he called a couple different buildings. He tried to tell the building operators that something was up, but they're already assisting Project Mayhem and could not be dissuaded. In desperation Jack went to the police...
Question: Does anybody have a list of all of the ad parodies in the "reef city" version of times square?
Answer: I can't guarantee we found them all but we tried, limiting ourselves to Nationally/Internationally Relevant Name Brand Ads: Old Wavy for Old Navy, Coral Cola for Coca Cola, DSP for JVC, Gup for Gap, Fish King for Burger King, Martha Sturgeon for Martha Stewart, Starfish Tours for Star Tours, Symbols that seem to refer to Key Bank and the Phantom of the Opera, and finally DRESQ for Times Square itself.
Question: Doesn't the water tower fall completely to the ground during the buffalo stampede in the original theatrical release? It's missing in the DVD release.
Answer: Yes, the water tower did indeed fall completely over in the initial release. I saw it fall all the way to the ground and release a flood of water. What happened was that the tower fell on the rump of one of the buffaloes, and the buffalo stumbled and got up and continued running. Later the animal rights people objected to the scene, so it was removed from the DVD, and all that was left was the tower shown leaning over.
Answer: Footage of the water tower falling has NEVER appeared in the film. My first viewing of the film was in Cinerama in 1962 and the tower doesn't fall over. It doubtless was supposed to fall over but for technical reasons it didn't come out right, and so no footage beyond seeing it wobble a bit has ever been in the film.
This answer is incorrect. The original release did have the tower fall over completely. There's even a picture of the flooding after it falls over. It was since deleted. Http://www.daveswarbirds.com/HTWWW/deleted_scenes.htm.
I agree. The tower fell and water poured out. I saw this movie in Cinerama in 1963. For years later, I wondered why I never saw that scene in its entirety again. A shame that for a mistake that caused the unintentional death of an animal, the scene should no longer be viewed by anyone.
Answer: I saw the film in Cinerama the week it came out and the water tower didn't fall. I remember being puzzled by the shot of it falling in the souvenir program.
Question: How did Sonny know that the black limo driver was a cop?
Answer: He didn't. He just assumed the cops would try something like that, substituting a cop for the real driver. What he didn't anticpate is that they had substituted cops for everyone around the bus when it arrived, and when he replaced the black driver he would have to (unknowingly) pick a cop, regardless. Incidentally, this part of the story is completely factual, it actually happened that way.
Question: How did Reese know that Sarah was at the Tech-Noir bar. Is there a deleted scene with Reese where he finds out where she is or was it luck.
Answer: It's all in the film - Reese tails Sarah from the moment that she leaves her apartment. He's waiting outside the bar that she's in when she sees the news report and follows her down the road when she leaves - she sees him and gets scared, which is when she ducks into Tech-Noir. He sees her go in, then walks past, before turning back and entering himself.
Question: Why does Norton lie and say that he "has company" and then make De Niro wait longer during the robbery? Sure, Norton double crosses him later, but wouldn't making his partner wait put both of them in danger of getting caught since it delays them and increases their chances of getting caught?
Answer: Norton already has an advance plan to prevent himself from getting caught. The delay is both to fluster DeNiro, and to prevent him from having enough time at the moment of the double-cross to come up with an alternate to handing over the prize without getting caught himself.
Question: Whatever happened to the little girl that Cal pretends is his daughter (I think) so he can get into the lifeboat? I didn't see her in the lifeboat with Cal in later scenes.
Answer: In one of the deleted scenes it shows an extended version of the Titanic survivors getting on the Carpathia. As you watch it you see the little girl being carried aboard. You can check it on youtube. I think its something like Titanic deleted scene extended Carpathia sequence.
Answer: In the montage scene after Rose is rescued when she looks up at Lowe waving the green light there's a shot of Cal accepting a flask, the woman he handed the girl to when getting on the life boat is still holding the girl as she sleeps. Presumably she stays with that woman.
She does. She appears in the steerage section on the Carpathia.
Answer: On the Carpathia both in the deleted scene and in the regular cut you can see her in the steerage section when Cal comes down to look for Rose. But I believe she looks slightly different from earlier because I believe it was the sister of the original actor playing her at that moment.
The One With Two Parties - S2-E22
Question: When Phoebe has taken Mrs. Greene to the bathroom, Chandler says to Monica, "Think, what would Jack and Chrissy do?" Who are Jack and Chrissy?
Answer: Jack and Chrissy are two of the three main characters from "Three's Company." They, along with their roommate Janet, always got into weird situations, mostly involving misunderstandings about what was going on. They always came up with completely off-the-wall ways to get out of the situation.
Question: What is the name of the song playing when Will and Anna are walking through the private gardens?
Answer: It's "When you say nothing at all" by Ronan Keating.
Question: During the fight scene with Dooku, Obi-Wan is knocked down and Anakin stops Dooku from delivering the fatal blow. My question is this: when Obi-Wan picks up his lightsaber and throws it to Anakin, Dooku is standing right over him, why not just reach up and stab Dooku and end it all right there? Is there any reason for him not to do this?
Answer: What, you don't think that Dooku would sense that coming? He's a powerful Sith Lord, considerably above either Anakin or Obi-Wan in power at that time - he'd easily be able to sense it coming and deflect it. Obi-Wan would know that - better to give his lightsabre to Anakin to give his uninjured cohort a more formidable attack.
Question: I know this is probably one of the most asked questions ever in the Star Wars universe, but I can never get a straight answer. Why doesn't Chewbacca receive a medal at the end of A New Hope. I mean, he was there the entire time Luke and Han were (who did receive medals).
Answer: Star Wars wise, Chewbacca did receive a medal, but his was not presented publicly. Film wise, it was felt that adding Chewbacca to the scene was too cumbersome and detracted from the main characters.
Question: I realize how much the wedding ring must have meant to Mae Braddock, but I don't see why she would not have pawned it, rather than send her children away or become sicker because they could not pay for the heat?
Answer: In that case, you apparently don't realise how much the ring means to her.
Question: Why would they use real leeches? Isn't that a danger to the actors?
Answer: Leeches are not dangerous, just disgusting. While fairly easy to remove, leeches will fall off by themselves when they are full. They are not known to transmit any diseases though the wound can get infected just as any other scratch might.
Question: Is Keaton really as bad as Kujan says? Did he really kill all those people and set up all those deals? He didn't seem so bad to me.
Answer: What we're seeing in the film is a Keaton who's trying to reform, inspired by his relationship with Edie Finneran. Kujan has no particular reason to lie about Keaton's earlier exploits and it certainly seems from what's said in the film that Keaton was a major criminal in his time. True, many of these statements are taken from Verbal's tale, so they cannot be taken as being definitive, but they must contain a reasonable element of truth or Kujan, who is clearly familiar with Keaton's file, would have picked up on it.
Answer: While mostly accurate, there is one non-applicable element to the Chosen Answer on this one: everything Kujan says about Keaton is not part of Kint's fairy tale, as he is in the real world.
Question: What is the song that is being played with Quentin Tarantino as he is first appeared in the bar. (Mostly the lyrics in it are "ohs" and "ahs").
Answer: It is called "Pass The Hatchet", and it is written by Ray Theriot, Roger Leon Jr. & Earl Stanley Oropeza. It was performed by Roger & The Gypsies. If you buy the soundtrack CD, it is on there, too.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Chosen answer: Specific aspects of direction may be from Reservoir Dogs, but the scene itself plays out almost exactly the same as in the book.