Apocalypse Now
According to the script forApocalypse Now, Colonel Kurtz was a lean, mean fighting machine, butMarlon Brandoarrived on set weighing more than 300 pounds. “I can’t get a super 4-X Green Beret combat [costume],” directorFrancis Ford Coppolamoaned.
To hide the actor’s girth, Coppola and cinematographerVittorio Storarodressed Brando in black pajamas and shot the movie scenes mostly in shadow, which wound up adding to Kurtz’s aura of mystery and madness.
Nowadays product placement is all the rage. But not every company gets excited about seeing their goods in movie scenes. According to the screenplay forE.T., Elliott was supposed to woo the tiny alien into his home using M&Ms—not Reese’s Pieces. But Mars, the maker of M&Ms, balked at the opportunity.
When Hershey agreed to let its candy be used, no one at the company had yet seen the movie in its entirety. The subsequent promotional tie-in campaign was the biggest in Hershey’s history, and sales of the sweet stuff tripled in the first two weeks of the film’s release.
Taxi Driver
ScreenwriterPaul Schraderenvisioned taxi driver Travis Bickle as an unstable vigilante who descends into madness. Much ofTaxi Driver’s dialogue was intentionally vague, giving the actor room to improvise. In fact, according to the script, at one point Travis simply “speaks to himself in the mirror” in one of the classic’s most famous movie scenes.
In preparing for the role,Robert DeNirodebated Travis’s actions and articulations with directorMartin Scorsesefor hours. Scorsese set up the mirror scene such that DeNiro spoke into the camera. He posed and preened, twirled his gun and muttered, “You talkin’ to me?” with increasing urgency. The movie scene became the most-quotable moment in the film.
The Shining
Living in England and petrified of flying, filmmakerStanley Kubrickdidn’t get to examine the hotel in Oregon whereThe Shining’s exteriors were filmed. Nor was he familiar withEd McMahon’s famous catchphrase fromThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: “Here’s Johnny!”
So in the movie scene whereJack Nicholsonshouted it while squeezing through a broken door and attempting to kill his wife (played byShelley Duvall), Kubrick nearly axed it out completely.All told, the scary movie scenes took three days to be filmed, with Nicholson chopping down around 60 doors and Duvall going through over 125 takes. The intensity took its toll: Duvall lost clumps of hair from stress.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Months into a shoot in Tunisia,Harrison Fordhad had enough: he just wanted some solid bathroom time to deal with a terrible bout of dysentery. Yet the script forRaiders of the Lost Arkcalled for an elaborate movie scene fight between the intrepid Indiana Jones and a sword-wielding assassin, which would require multiple days of shooting.
Ford’s stomach had other plans, so the actor and directorSteven Spielbergdevised a different ending. A truly fatigued Jones watched his would-be killer deftly twirl a silver blade, then pulled out his gun and shot him in the gut. End scene.
Annie Hall
The funniest movie scenes in a film whose screenplay is among the funniest of all time weren’t written that way. Pressured to partake by his girlfriend,Annie Hall(Diane Keaton), the neurotic Alvy (Woody Allen) picks up a box of cocaine to inspect. Then he sneezes, turning the white powder into a ginormous cloud.
No one knows exactly what happened, except for the fact that the sneeze was sincere, caused by a reaction to the fake powder. Search for “the sneeze scene fromAnnie Hall"on YouTube, and you’ll get videos with titles like “Never do drugs with Woody Allen!” Good advice.
Midnight Cowboy
As accidental movie scenes go, this one is the stuff of legend. Lacking enough money to shut down the street, the crew ofMidnight Cowboyshot around NYC traffic, resulting in one particularly close call. As the two hustlers, played byJon VoightandDustin Hoffman, crossed the street, deep in conversation about the types of women who pay for sex, a taxi zoomed into the crosswalk to beat the light.
Slamming his hand down on the cab’s hood, his cigarette falling out of his mouth, Hoffman as the consumptive con man Ratso Rizzo shouted, “Hey! I’m walkin’ here!” It’s a line that’s been uttered by a million New Yorkers since.
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Gene Wilderaccepted the part of the titular character in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on one condition: that he got to determine his on-screen entrance. And what an entrance it was. Leaving his candy factory, he limped, leaning heavily on a cane and furrowing his face in concentration, toward an eager group of kids and caregivers. The crowd went silent in sympathy.
As the cane got stuck, Wilder fell to the ground, only to execute an astonishing summersault. Surprise and cheers ensued. Wilder explained his choice in the iconic movie scenes as ensuring that “from that time on, no one [would] know if I’m lying or telling the truth.”
The Godfather
Paramount headRobert Evansquipped, “The war over casting the family Corleone was more volatile than the war the Corleone family fought onscreen.” The studio forcedMarlon Brandoto work for free, due to his difficult reputation.The Godfather’s opening scene, in which Brando strokes a cat and discourses on friendship, cemented the role as his.
That gray-and-white tabby, though, belonged to nobody. DirectorFrancis Ford Coppolafound the feline roaming the set and gave it to Brando to see what would happen. The ploy worked so well the crew to worry that subtitles might have to be inserted over the purring. Instead, it became one of cinema’s most memorable opening movie scenes.
So many things went wrong during the filming ofJawsthat some crew members referred to the movie as “Flaws.” Despite the accidents and mishaps,Steven Spielberg’s movie became the first summer blockbuster. In both the novel and the original screenplay, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is killed when his shark cage proves ineffective against the titular jaws.
To make up for the malfunctioning mechanical sharks used in the main shoot, a second crew filmed real sharks in Australia, including one attacking an empty cage. Spielberg liked the footage so much he incorporated it into movie scenes, thereby saving Hooper’s life.
