Author: Roger Cormier

A loose adaption of the Giovanni Arpino novel Il buio e il miele and the 1974 movie Profumo di Donna, Scent of a Woman (1992) stars Al Pacino as the bitter, angry, depressed, and blind Lt. Col. Frank Slade in a role that would earn him his first Oscar win. Chris O’Donnell plays prep school student Charlie Simms, who is tasked with babysitting Slade in New York City over a Thanksgiving weekend. Here are some facts about the movie—the first to ever air on the Starz Network—to read before you get tangled up and tango on.

1. JACK NICHOLSON SAID NO.

Nicholson was initially approached to play the blind lieutenant colonel, but after he read the script, he passed. He made up for it with a big 1992, appearing in Man Trouble, Hoffa, and A Few Good Men.

2. MATT DAMON, BEN AFFLECK, BRENDAN FRASER, AND O’DONNELL’S CASTMATES IN SCHOOL TIES ALL AUDITIONED FOR CHARLIE.

“The whole cast went down to audition for it,” Matt Damon remembered in a 1997 Vanity Fair profile. “So the way I found out about the part is, I’m checking in with my agent, to see if anything good has come in, and my agent says, ‘Here’s one with a young role, and . . . Oh my God, it’s got Al Pacino in it!’ So I go up to Chris and say, ‘Have you heard about this movie?’ and he says [curtly] ‘Yeah.’ So I say, ‘Do you have the script?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Can I see it?’ ‘No—I kinda need it.’ Chris wouldn’t give it to anybody.” Stephen Dorff also auditioned.

3. O’DONNELL WAS VERY CONFIDENT HE GOT THE ROLE, BUT WAS VERY NERVOUS AT HIS AUDITION.

While Damon, Affleck, Fraser, Randall Batinkoff, and Anthony Rapp all felt their auditions didn’t go well, O’Donnell felt good about his. “Chris used to play things close to the vest,” Damon said. “We asked him how his audition went, and he just said [highpitched, Hibernian singsong], ‘Ohhh, it was all right.’ And we were like ‘Dude! Just tell us how it went!’ And he would say [singsong again], ‘Ohhh, I don’t know.’”

As O’Donnell later admitted, it wasn’t easy. “I really wanted it, I really prepared hard for it,” he recalled. “Al Pacino was a no-brainer. But when I got in there, Al is such an intimidating presence and the character is supposed to be intimidated by him. I was able to play on that natural nervousness that I had around him in the audition process that helped me to win the role.”

4. CHRIS ROCK AUDITIONED FOR CHARLIE, TOO.

“There was a little bit of talk about me playing the Chris O’Donnell part in Scent of a Woman, which actually would’ve been a better movie,” the comedian told Rolling Stone in 2014. “Not ’cause of me—it just would’ve been a better movie with a black kid playing that part.”

5. DIRECTOR MARTIN BREST WANTED PACINO AND O’DONNELL SEPARATED.

Brest wanted to split the two up so he could create tension, but Pacino and O’Donnell actually wound up bonding off-screen, putting a halt to any separation plans.

“It was just the most nerve wracking experience of my life, and being that nervous around Al Pacino for the majority of the film as well,” O’Donnell later said. “I knew at the time I was doing it that this is going to be the greatest single acting experience of my life that I’ll ever have.” Pacino gave the then 21-year-old actor some life advice while on set. “He always told me don’t ever marry an actress. He said you’ll always be second in their life.” O’Donnell didn’t.

6. LT. COL FRANK SLADE WAS THREE DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

Screenwriter Bo Goldman (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Rose) discovered that his brother was broke and living in a big expensive New York apartment that he was a year behind on rent for. One week later, Brest called him and showed him Profuma di Donna. “I looked at this movie, and this character struck me as being exactly like my brother, who became the character in Scent of a Woman,” Goldman said. “The character was crossed with my first sergeant in the Army, a member of the famous 442nd Regimental Combat Team, who was the second man I’ve ever really been afraid of, and the first man I was afraid of—my father. The sergeant was a real soldier…So this character became a hybrid of all these people.”

7. ‘HOO-AH’ CAME FROM PACINO’S GUN EXPERT.

“I was working with a lieutenant colonel who was teaching me the ways [of the Army],” Pacino recalled. “We worked every day, and he’d teach me how to load and unload a .45 and all this stuff. Every time I did something right, he’d go, ‘Hoo-ah!’ Finally, I asked, ‘Where did you get that from?’ And he said, ‘When we were on the line, and you turned and snapped the rifle in the right way, [you’d say,] ‘Hoo-ah!’ So I just started doing it. It’s funny where things come from.”

8. PACINO WAS FITTED FOR SPECIAL LENSES THAT HE ENDED UP NOT USING.

After spending months getting fitted for special lenses that would make Pacino’s blindness more convincing, the actor and Brest opted not to use them. There was concern that Pacino’s eyes would get hurt if he used them for too long.

9. PACINO HURT HIS CORNEA FALLING INTO A BUSH.

“You don’t focus your eyes. And what happens is, you just go into a state,” Pacino told Larry King after King asked how he pretended to be blind. “As a matter of fact, I had an eye injury during the shooting of the film, because I fell into a bush. And the worst kind of eye injury is when plant life gets into your cornea. It stuck into my cornea. As I was falling, my eyes weren’t focusing and the thing went into my eye. So it’s also dangerous to do that.”

10. THAT TANGO SCENE WAS PAINFUL FOR GABRIELLE ANWAR.

Gabrielle Anwar (later Fiona Glenanne on Burn Notice) put herself on tape and flew to New York to meet Pacino for an audition. She was then told she didn’t get the role of Donna because she “wasn’t quite right,” before the powers-that-be changed their mind and asked her to fly back to New York. She spent a week with a tango instructor, but didn’t really need to, since she used to dance at a nightclub for teenagers in her England hometown of Laleham.

Anwar claimed in 2013 that Pacino did not attend the tango rehearsals. “It was a bit dodgy. I have a few sort of half-broken toes still,” she said. “It was interesting… (but) it’s Al Pacino, for God’s sake; I couldn’t exactly complain. I was afraid… He was incredibly nice to me.”

11. THEY WENT TO PLACES THE GODFATHER AND BOTH ARTHUR FILMS HAD GONE BEFORE.

The all-male Baird School was filmed at the all-female Emma Willard School in Troy, New York. (Emma Willard was the first women’s higher education institution in the United States.) But the final Baird scene was shot at Hempstead House, one of the four mansions on Sands Point Preserve in Long Island, New York. One of the other mansions was where the movie producer woke up to his horse’s head in that other Pacino film.

They also shot in the Oak Room at The Plaza Hotel, where the original Arthur drank with Gloria. The tango was performed in the ballroom of The Pierre Hotel. The luxury penthouse there was used again by Brest when he made it Anthony Hopkins’s character’s home in Meet Joe Black (1998). The penthouse was also used by the Arthur Bach played by Russell Brand in the 2011 remake.

12. O’DONNELL’S BEST TAKE WAS A CAMERA OPERATOR’S WORST.

“The one scene where Chris O’Donnell cries, the focus puller missed and it was soft,” editor Michael Tronick revealed. “Normally, Marty [Brest] wouldn’t consider looking at something that’s imperfect that’s flatly out of focus. But it was the best take and we knew it. It had to be in the movie.”

13. PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN CREDITED IT AS HIS BIG BREAK.

Hoffman had to audition five times to get the part of George. When he won the role he was living in Brooklyn with just a futon while making ends meet working at a deli. Hoffman admitted to The New York Times in 2008 he sometimes caught Scent of a Woman on TV. “I’ll watch it, and I say, ‘Do less, Phil, less, less!’” he said. “Now, I’m a little mortified by parts of my performance. But back then, it was huge! It was pure joy to get to do the work.” Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson claimed that after he saw Hoffman in the movie, “It was one of those ridiculous moments where you call someone and say, ‘You’re my favorite actor.'” Anderson then wrote the part of Scotty J. in Boogie Nights (1997) for him.

14. BREST THOUGHT THE LENGTH WAS JUST FINE.

Some critics notably said the movie, at two hours and 37 minutes, was too long. The first cut by Brest went 160 minutes long. Brest, Goldman, and Pacino wanted it to be even longer, and Universal wanted it shorter. Brest, Goldman, and Pacino eventually won when test audiences gave a higher score to the longer 157-minute cut. Universal, however, cut the movie down for TV and on airplanes. For those versions, Brest removed his name.

15. CHRIS O’DONNELL HAD MORE WORK TO DO.

O’Donnell was working on his marketing degree at Boston College when he starred in the movie. The day after the movie premiere, he needed to finish a term paper and had three finals to study for.

Based on a thin outline written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy, Best in Show was an improvised mockumentary about five entrants in the fictitious Mayflower Dog Show. Featuring the likes of Guest, Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Parker Posey, Michael McKean, Fred Willard, and Jane Lynch, the movie was the second in the streak of Guest-directed improvisational comedies considered to be the standard of the genre, after Waiting for Guffman (1996) and prior to A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006). Here are some facts about Best in Show, once you stop naming nuts.

1. EUGENE LEVY DIDN’T THINK IT COULD BE DONE.

Guest—portrayer of Nigel Tufnel in This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Count Tyrone Rugen of The Princess Bride (1987)—and his wife, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, had two dogs, leading the writer/director to make frequent trips to the local dog park. “There were people there with purebred dogs, with mutts and so on, and as I mingled with them I started thinking that this might be an interesting idea to explore in a movie,” Guest said in the film’s official production notes. In mid-1998, Guest called Levy with the idea and was told no. Levy was nervous about the third act, not knowing how to make a dog show funny.

2. GUEST AND COMPANY DID THEIR HOMEWORK.

Along with Levy and producer Karen Murphy, Guest spent months attending and researching dog shows. He attended the annual Westminster Dog Show, on which he based the movie’s fictional Mayflower Dog Show. The principal cast all had classes with their respective dogs and Earlene Luke, an all-breed professional handler. The usual eight-week course of Luke’s was compressed into five intensive days.

3. THEY HAD TO MAKE THEIR OWN DOG SHOW.

No actual dog show would allow them to film on site, so they had to create their own.

4. SHERRI ANN’S ORIGINAL POODLE WAS FIRED.

On account of “misbehaving,” a new poodle was hired to portray Jennifer Coolidge’s beloved pooch. Meg and Hamilton Swan (Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock)  initially had a pointer dog, but this was changed to a Weimaraner. When their characters had a pointer, Posey and Hitchcock decided their characters shopped at J.Crew. When they got the Weimaraner, they shopped at Banana Republic. Posey shopped for beige and tan clothes, “because Weimaraners just look so delusional and lost.”

5. POSEY AND HITCHCOCK PREPARED AT STARBUCKS.

Since their characters met at a Starbucks (two different ones, technically), the actors would hang out there figuring out their characters. Guest allowed Posey and Hitchcock to work with the set designer and go through the Sharper Image and Frontgate catalogs to work on the Swans’ home.

6. HAMILTON WANTED CHANDLER BING’S HAIR.

Hitchcock figured that Hamilton Swan would think he looked like Friends‘ Matthew Perry, so told the hairstylists to make his hair look like Perry’s hair during the then-current season of the hit NBC sitcom.

7. JENNIFER COOLIDGE USED A REAL-LIFE ACQUAINTANCE TO HELP DEVELOP THE CHARACTER OF SHERRI ANN.

When Coolidge first got to Los Angeles, she was employed as a babysitter in Beverly Hills for a Sherri Ann type, described by the actress as a “very feminine, very phony” woman. She considered portraying someone like her old employer as “kind of revenge.”

8. JIM PIDDOCK HAD TO SOUND KNOWLEDGEABLE AS TREVOR BECKWITH.

Guest gave Piddock a book called The American Kennel Club, which he had to read for an hour every night while working on a BBC show he co-created called Too Much Sun. He described the book as “not interesting reading.”

9. FRED WILLARD WAS ONLY THERE FOR TWO DAYS.

Willard and Piddock reviewed all of the footage of the dogs for four hours one day, then shot their hosting sequence from dawn to dusk the next, so Piddock could return to England. Murphy said she never saw Guest laugh as hard as he did when watching Willard perform as Buck Laughlin.

10. BUCK LAUGHLIN WAS BASED ON JOE GARAGIOLA.

Guest sent Willard tapes from past Westminster Dog Shows and asked him to notice the musings of former professional baseball player and broadcaster Joe Garagiola, who had hosted the most prestigious dog show of them all from 1994-2002, despite, as Guest pointed out to Willard, taking “no effort” in learning about dogs. Garagiola himself said he had seen Best in Show in an interview with CNN. “I think he used some lines I wouldn’t use, but he’s a funny guy and, hey, we all have our tastes. I didn’t particularly like the show. I thought the satire went over the top.”

11. IT WAS SHOT ON SUPER 16MM FILM.

Mostly with handheld cameras. It was later blown up to 35mm for theaters.

12. THE NARRATIVE OUTLINE FOR THE FILM WAS ONLY 15 PAGES LONG.

Levy explained the outline and the major improvisation it left room for: “Our outline gives a very solid blueprint to the actors so they know how to get from point A to point B, but how they do it is largely up to them.”

13. 60 HOURS OF FOOTAGE WERE FILMED.

It took Guest eight months to edit it all down to 89 minutes. A lot of the used takes were first takes.

14. MEG’S PILL-TAKING AND POT-SMOKING WAS CUT OUT OF THE FILM.

Because the drug use might have earned them an R or PG-13 rating, it was taken out; Hitchcock claimed he played Hamilton as uptight partially due to his character not liking Meg’s smoking. Also cut was Harlan Pepper (Guest)’s obsession with beach balls.

15. IT CHANGED JANE LYNCH’S LIFE.

The comedic actress met Guest when she did a Frosted Flakes commercial with him. Months later, she was asked to join the Best in Show cast as Christy Cummings. “It opened up a bunch of doors for me,” she told The A.V. Club. “I felt like I fell into a way of working that really suits me. That was another one of those happy accidents that I could’ve never planned for, and it changed my life, really.”

An earlier version of this post ran in 2016.

In 2005’s Wedding Crashers, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play John and Jeremy, two divorce mediators who crash weddings to meet women. The romcom/bromance flick also stars Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Bradley Cooper, and Will Ferrell in a memorable cameo role. Here are some facts about the movie to read before you get the meatloaf.

1. IT REALLY ALL STARTED WITH A WEDDING INVITATION.

Producer Andrew Panay (Serendipity, Van Wilder: Party Liason) received an invitation to a friend’s wedding, triggering memories of his college days when he and his friend used to crash weddings. Panay developed the concept with his partners at their production company before hiring Steve Faber and Bob Fisher to write the screenplay. Panay met Faber and Fisher when they were shopping their script We’re the Millers (2013). It was the writers that came up with the idea for one of the crashers to fall for a woman at one of the weddings.

2. IT WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN TO BE SET IN BOSTON AND CAPE COD.

But producer Peter Abrams knew it would be too cold to shoot in Boston or Cape Cod in March and April, so director David Dobkin (Shanghai Knights) suggested Washington D.C., where he grew up. The director added moments from his earlier days into the movie. “Many times in my youth I sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial finishing off a long night with a bottle of champagne or wine as the sun was about to rise over the Washington Monument,” Dobkin reminisced.

3. OWEN WILSON WASN’T COMFORTABLE WITH THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT, SO HE AND VAUGHN CHANGED MOST OF IT.

“When I first read the script, I wasn’t comfortable. It was a funny concept and story, but part felt corny,” the star told New York magazine in 2005. Wilson, Vaughn, and the writers changed the arc of Jeremy’s romance, and got rid of a “Graduate-like” wedding scene with John and Claire (Rachel McAdams).

4. JANE SEYMOUR BEAT OUT RAQUEL WELCH TO PLAY KATHLEEN.

Seymour had auditioned for the first time in 30 years to win the part over the likes of Welch. She said the script was the “funniest thing” she had ever read. Seymour, who was 54 at the time, also took part in her first ever topless scene for the movie.

5. HUNDREDS OF ACTRESSES AUDITIONED BEFORE RACHEL MCADAMS READ FOR CLAIRE.

Dobkin claimed he was one hour from going to the studio to present his top two choices when McAdams arrived in his office. “I was really surprised to get the part because it all happened so fast,” McAdams said.

6. ISLA FISHER WATCHED FATAL ATTRACTION AND THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE BEFORE HER AUDITION FOR GLORIA.

It helped her think about how to make someone “really psycho and funny and aggressive and sexual, but also make her sweet enough that you still like her and think that she’s endearing in some way.” She also used a friend’s “crazy eye” and a “really bad” laugh to get the gig.

7. THE FIRST WEEK OF SHOOTING WAS THE OPENING MONTAGE OF ALL THE DIFFERENT WEDDINGS.

All five of them, as principal photography began on March 22, 2004. McAdams’s first scene was dancing with noted mover-shaker Christopher Walken. “My first scene was dancing with Christopher Walken—no pressure, right?” she said. “I had been practicing with a choreographer during pre-production because I knew he was a really good dancer, but it was so nerve-racking on the day because I assumed there would be a whole bunch of people dancing and it turned out to be a whole ballroom full of people watching us dance the polka. I did encourage him to do some solo work and he broke out a few times, which made it a lot of fun for me.”

8. A WEDDING CONSULTANT WAS HIRED FOR AUTHENTICITY.

Wedding planner Lovelynn Vanderhorst was hired as a technical advisor to ensure accuracy. She admitted in the movie’s official production notes how hard it was to stop people from crashing real weddings. “The hard part for me is usually a client will say, ‘I don’t know who that person is, can you go find out?’ Usually they’re not invited and I have to ask them to leave. But at one wedding, it ended up being the groom’s uncle and the bride was really embarrassed. That’s why, I hate to admit it, but it wouldn’t be as hard as you think to crash a wedding.”

9. OWEN WILSON CAME UP WITH THE ’10 PERCENT OF OUR HEARTS’ LINE.

“You know how they say we only use 10 percent of our brains? I think we only use 10 percent of our hearts” came to Wilson after the whole sequence was finished. “At about the same age as I was interested in petrified wood, I was just fascinated with this dumb idea that we only used 10 percent of our brains,” Wilson explained about the thought process. “I was always thinking, ‘Man, if I could only use 20…'”. Wilson told Dobkin his idea, and Dobkin made a last-second setup to shoot the scene again.

According to Jane Seymour, Wilson also came up with the idea for her character to call him a “pervert” at the end of her seduction scene. Wilson also added to the two rules mentioned in the original script. “…I noticed over the course of the movie that whenever Vince was on one of his rants, he would throw in rules to support whatever argument he had,” Owen told IGN. “And so I started to figure that out and I started to throw my own rules into the mix. And eventually it got to rule 87: Don’t quote a rule to another. Don’t go throwing rules in another wedding crasher’s face.”

10. MCADAMS LISTENED TO FLEETWOOD MAC BEFORE EMOTIONAL SCENES.

She played “Landslide” on her iPod to prepare. Wilson and Vaughn heard and sang it, straight-faced, before Jeremy and Gloria’s wedding scene. McAdams said, “It totally took me out! But whatever works.”

11. THEY MADE FAKE PURPLE HEARTS AVAILABLE FOR PRINTING ON THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE.

After some complaints from a congressman, producers took it down. “If any movie-goers take the advice of the ‘Wedding Crashers’ and try to use fake Purple Hearts to get girls, they may wind up picking up an FBI agent instead,” said Rep. John Salazar, D-Colorado.

12. JOHN MCCAIN GOT IN TROUBLE FOR HIS BRIEF CAMEO.

McCain and James Carville appeared briefly in the first Cleary wedding. He donated the $695 salary to charity, and his aides claimed he had “little idea” of what the film would be like when he agreed to make his cameo. McCain, who was awarded an actual Purple Heart, didn’t comment on the Purple Heart controversy, but commented on the criticism he got for appearing in an R-rated film after earlier hosting congressional hearings that criticized Hollywood for marketing R-rated movies to kids. “In Washington, I work with boobs every day,” the senator joked on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

13. IT CHANGED BRADLEY COOPER’S CAREER.

Cooper (Sack) said as much on his Inside the Actors Studio appearance. “On Alias, I played the nicest guy in the world and then I would try to audition for movies after that and the feedback was like ‘Wow, Bradley’s such a nice guy,’ ‘Yeah, I don’t really see him in that part,’ and after Wedding Crashers, ‘Bradley? Yeah, he’s an a**hole.’”

14. NO, VINCE VAUGHN DOESN’T HAVE THAT PAINTING OF JEREMY MADE BY TODD.

“I’m not sure where that painting is. But it will always be in my heart,” Vaughn wrote in a Reddit AMA in 2013, despite it being claimed elsewhere on the internet that Vaughn had kept it. He also said the running gag of his character getting referred to as “baba ghanoush” stemmed from an inside joke.

15. THERE WAS BRIEF TALK OF A SEQUEL.

Vaughn, Wilson, and David Dobkin came up with an idea where John and Jeremy would compete with an “ultimate wedding crasher” played by Daniel Craig. But nothing came of it. “Wedding Crashers came out at a time when people weren’t doing lots of sequels,” Dobkin explained.

One of cinema’s greatest guilty pleasures, Cocktail starred Tom Cruise as Brian Flanagan, a young man who unexpectedly achieves some fame as a “flair bartender” in New York City along with his mentor, Doug Coughlin (Bryan Brown). Brian eventually takes his bottle-flipping skills down to Jamaica, where he falls for Jordan (Elisabeth Shue), a vacationing artist. Here are some facts about the Tom Cruise staple, in accordance with Coughlin’s Law.

1. BRIAN FLANAGAN WAS ALMOST TWICE AS OLD IN THE BOOK.

Yes, Cocktail was originally a novel; it was written by Heywood Gould, and based on the dozen years he spent bartending to supplement his income as a writer. Whereas Tom Cruise’s Brian Flanagan is in his twenties, Gould’s protagonist was described as a “38-year-old weirdo in a field jacket with greasy, graying hair hanging over his collar, his blue eyes streaked like the red sky at morning.” As Gould told the Chicago Tribune, “I was in my late 30s, and I was drinking pretty good, and I was starting to feel like I was missing the boat. The character in the book is an older guy who has been around and starting to feel that he’s pretty washed-up.” Disney and Gould—who adapted his book for the screen—fought over making Brian Flanagan younger, with Gould eventually relenting.

2. THERE WERE AT LEAST 40 DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE SCRIPT.

The script went through a couple of different studios, and dozens of iterations. According to Gould, “there must have been 40 drafts of the screenplay before we went into production. It was originally with Universal. They put it in turnaround because I wasn’t making the character likable enough. And then Disney picked it up, and I went through the same process with them. I would fight them at every turn, and there was a huge battle over making the lead younger, which I eventually did.”

Bryan Brown explained that when Cruise came on board, the movie “had to change. The studio made the changes to protect the star and it became a much slighter movie because of it.”

Kelly Lynch, who played Kerry Coughlin, was much more forthright about how Gould’s vision for the story changed under Disney, telling The A.V. Club:

“[Cocktail] was actually a really complicated story about the ’80s and power and money, and it was really re-edited where they completely lost my character’s backstory—her low self-esteem, who her father was, why she was this person that she was—but it was obviously a really successful movie, if not as good as it could’ve been. It was written by the guy who wrote Fort Apache The Bronx, and it was a much darker movie, but Disney took it, reshot about a third of it, and turned it into flipping the bottles and this and that.”

3. FOR A BRIEF SECOND, DISNEY WASN’T COMPLETELY SOLD ON TOM CRUISE IN THE LEAD.

Recounting the kind of story that only happens in Hollywood, Gould told the Chicago Tribune about one of his early meetings with Disney heads Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg. “Someone mentioned that this might be a good vehicle for Tom Cruise,” Gould recalled. “Eisner says, ‘He’ll never do this, don’t waste your time, he can’t play this part.’ And then Katzenberg says, ‘Well, he’s really interested in doing it,’ and without skipping a beat Eisner says, ‘He’s perfect for it, a perfect fit!’ That’s the movie business: I hate him, I love him; I love him, I hate him!”

4. BRYAN BROWN’S AUDITION WAS “DREADFUL.”

Director Roger Donaldson specifically wanted Bryan Brown to audition for the role of Doug. Brown flew from Sydney to New York and, almost immediately after his 20-plus-hour flight, was sitting in front of Donaldson. “He did the audition and he was dead tired and it was dreadful,” Donaldson said. “After he did it I was like, ‘Bryan, do yourself a favor—we’ve got to do it again tomorrow.’ And he said, ‘No, no, I’m catching a plane back tonight.’ I couldn’t persuade him to stay and do it again, so I didn’t show anybody the audition.” Instead, Donaldson told the producers and studio to watch Brown’s performance in F/X (1986); clearly, they liked what they saw.

5. CRUISE AND BROWN PRACTICED THEIR FLAIR BARTENDING, AND USED REAL BOTTLES ON SET.

Los Angeles TGI Friday’s bartender John Bandy was hired to train Cruise and Brown after he served a woman who worked for Disney who was on the lookout for a bartender for Cocktail. Bandy trained the two stars in the bottle-flipping routines, and Gould took Cruise and Brown to his friend’s bar to show them the tricks they used to do. Donaldson claimed they used real bottles—and yes, they did break a few.

6. JAMAICA WASN’T KIND TO TOM CRUISE

The Jamaica exteriors were shot on location, where it was cold, and Cruise got sick. When he and Shue had to shoot a love scene at a jungle waterfall, it wasn’t pleasant. “It’s not quite as romantic as it looks,” Cruise told Rolling Stone. “It was more like ‘Jesus, let’s get this shot and get out of here.’ Actually, in certain shots you’ll see that my lips are purple and, literally, my whole body’s shaking.”

7. THE FILM SCORE WAS ENTIRELY REWRITTEN IN A WEEKEND.

Three-time Oscar winner Maurice Jarre (Lawrence of Arabia) was Cocktail‘s original composer, but the producers didn’t think his score “fit in” with the story. They particularly didn’t like one cue, so they called in J. Peter Robinson to fix it. Donaldson liked what Robinson did so much, that he asked the composer to take over and do the rest of the work. “All this was happening on a Friday,” Robinson said. “I was starting another film on the following Monday and told Roger that I was going to be unavailable. ‘We’re print-mastering on Monday, mate!!’ Roger said. So from that point on I stayed up writing the score and delivered it on Monday morning at around five in the morning.”

8. “KOKOMO” WAS WRITTEN FOR THE MOVIE.

While it was The Beach Boys, by then minus Brian Wilson, that recorded the song which brought the group back into the spotlight, “Kokomo” was penned by John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas; Scott McKenzie, who wrote “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)”; producer Terry Melcher, Doris Day’s son; and Mike Love. Phillips wrote the verses, Love wrote the chorus, and Melcher penned the bridge. The specific instructions were to write a song for the part when Brian goes from a bartender in New York to Jamaica. Off of that, Love came up with the “Aruba, Jamaica …” part.

9. ROGER DONALDSON IS SORRY ABOUT “DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY.”

Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” hit number one thanks to its inclusion on the Cocktail soundtrack. The director heard the song on the radio one day while driving to the set. “I heard it and thought it would be perfect for the film,” he said. “And suddenly it was everywhere. Sorry about that.”

10. THE REVIEWS—INCLUDING TOM CRUISE’S—WERE HARSH.

To conclude his two-star review, Roger Ebert wrote, “The more you think about what really happens in Cocktail, the more you realize how empty and fabricated it really is.” Richard Corliss of TIME said it was “a bottle of rotgut in a Dom Perignon box.”

In 1992, even Tom Cruise admitted that the movie “was not a crowning jewel” in his career. And Heywood Gould wasn’t pleased with it at first either. “I was accused of betraying my own work, which is stupid,” Gould said. “So I was pretty devastated. I literally couldn’t get out of bed for a day. The good thing about that experience is that it toughened me up. It was like basic training. This movie got killed, and then after that I was OK with getting killed—I got killed a few more times since then, but it hasn’t bothered me.”

While 1960’s Spartacus was the subject of plenty of behind-the-scenes drama, including a script by then-blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo, it should not be forgotten that the movie featured an embarrassment of riches on the screen, including legendary actors like Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis, and Kirk Douglas as the title character, an illiterate slave who leads a revolt against the Roman Empire in 73 B.C. Here are some facts about director Stanley Kubrick’s historical epic.

1. YUL BRYNNER TRIED TO MAKE HIS OWN SPARTACUS MOVIE FIRST.

A Spartacus film starring Brynner and Anthony Quinn was on the slate for United Artists, with the titles Spartacus and The Gladiators already trademarked. UA even paid for a full-page ad to be published in Variety in February 1958 for The Gladiators. However, Douglas and his film company owned the movie rights to Howard Fast’s novel, Spartacus, and when Universal Pictures backed Douglas—along with Ustinov, Olivier, and Laughton all preferring Trumbo’s script over the script for Brynner’s project—Douglas had won. Brynner’s film was never made.

2. HOWARD FAST WAS THE FIRST ONE TO TRY WRITING THE SCRIPT.

Universal gave Douglas four weeks to come up with a script if he wanted their backing. Unfortunately, Douglas considered Fast’s attempt at adapting his own book to be a “disaster.” Douglas turned to Trumbo to save the project, with Trumbo writing it under the alias “Sam Jackson“—he had won a writing Oscar years earlier for The Brave One (1956) under the pseudonym “Robert Rich.”

Fast would later, according to him, be begged by Douglas to go out to Hollywood during filming to work with Kubrick to help. “They had started shooting the movie from Dalton Trumbo’s script and they had about an hour and forty minutes of disconnected and chaotic film,” Fast said in an interview. “While they had all this film, they had no ‘movie’ and no story — just pieces of film really.” By Fast’s estimation, he wrote 27 scenes to connect the footage that had already been shot into a cohesive picture.

3. STANLEY KUBRICK WAS NOT THE FIRST DIRECTOR.

David Lean (1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai) turned down an offer to direct, and Laurence Olivier was asked but declined because he thought both acting and directing would be too much. Douglas believed that the original director, Anthony Mann, was scared of the large scope of the movie, and he also didn’t like how close he was to the British actors, so he fired him after two weeks of filming. Douglas turned to Kubrick, his director on Paths of Glory (1957), who agreed for a salary of $150,000.

4. JEAN SIMMONS WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL VARINIA.

Douglas wanted actress Jeanne Moreau (1959’s Les Liaisons dangereuses) for the part, but she didn’t want to leave her boyfriend in France. German actress Sabina Bethmann was then cast as Varinia, but once things got rolling with Kubrick, it was decided she wasn’t right for the role, so she was paid $3,000 to go home. Then Douglas called Jean Simmons at her ranch in Arizona. “Kirk told me to get my ass on out to Los Angeles,” Simmons said. “I did. Pronto.” For what it’s worth, Fast believed Ingrid Bergman should have gotten the gig all along.

5. PETER USTINOV WASN’T FORMALLY INTRODUCED TO DOUGLAS.

Ustinov (Batiatus) first met Douglas shooting the scene when his slave trader character discovers Spartacus chained to a rock. Because Douglas was so ragged looking, he didn’t recognize the man.

6. CHARLES LAUGHTON AND LAURENCE OLIVIER DID NOT GET ALONG.

According to Ustinov, he had to act as a buffer between the thespians Laughton (Gracchus) and Olivier (Crassus). “For some reason—like animals—they just didn’t like each other,” Ustinov remembered. “When you get two dogs that growl at each other, you don’t really ask why, you just accept it. But Olivier knew that Laughton was going to appear at Stratford in England as King Lear and tried to make up for this atmosphere by giving Laughton a little diagram with crosses on it and saying [mimicking Olivier], ‘Dear boy, I’ve marked here the areas on the stage from where you can’t be heard.’ And Laughton was delighted. [mimicking Laughton] ‘Thank you so much, Larry. I shan’t forget that. Oh, you are kind.’ And as soon as Olivier was out of earshot Laughton turned to me and said, ‘I’m sure those are the very areas from which you can be heard.'”

7. OLIVIER WORE A FAKE NOSE.

It was fairly similar to his actual snout. Ustinov said on the DVD commentary he thought that the fake nose helped Olivier “feel safe.”

8. KUBRICK TOLD THE HIRED CINEMATOGRAPHER TO TAKE A SEAT.

Because Kubrick was a cinematographer himself and very exacting in what he wanted, he eventually told Russell Metty, the man hired by Anthony Mann, to do nothing and let Kubrick do all the work for him. Metty would win his first and only Oscar for Best Cinematography for “his” work on Spartacus.

9. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY FOOTBALL ATTENDEES PROVIDED THE SHOUTING.

The 76,000 football fans at the October 17, 1959 showdown between Notre Dame and Michigan State were asked to scream “Hail, Crassus,” “On to Rome,” “Spartacus, Spartacus,” and of course “I am Spartacus!” They were also tasked to make “shouts and noises of an army in combat,” and told by actor John Gavin (Julius Caesar) to make sure not to scream any modern sayings like “yippee” or “yay” or “Charge!” Douglas later wrote in his autobiography, “It’s only natural for Spartacus to go to the Spartans for help.” Michigan State won that day 19-0.

10. THERE WERE INJURIES ON SET, AND EVEN A DEATH.

Douglas stopped production for 10 days when he came down with the flu. Tony Curtis (Antoninus) had to be “worked around” for five weeks after he split his Achilles tendon playing tennis with Douglas at Douglas’s home. Art director Eric Orbom had a fatal heart attack during production; he would later win a posthumous Oscar for Best Art Direction in the movie.

11. KIRK DOUGLAS WAS LEFT HANGING ONE DAY.

“I remember a long, long day of filming and it took forever to get Kirk Douglas up on his cross,” Jean Simmons once recalled. “When he was safely installed, the assistant director called lunch and left him up there. You have to have a sense of humour in this industry.”

12. THERE WAS SOME CENSORSHIP.

The “snails and oysters” scene, where Olivier’s character attempted to seduce Tony Curtis’s character in a Roman bathhouse, only made it to two test screenings before the New York Legion of Decency demanded it be excised from the movie because it was considered obscene. Censors suggested changing snails and oysters to “artichokes and truffles,” but Douglas and Kubrick opted to take the whole four-minute scene out instead. Curtis remembered that the studio wasn’t a fan of the scene to begin with, to the objections of himself and Olivier. When it was only shot once, Curtis said, “We knew there was trouble right there.” He added, “Stanley [Kubrick] and I were perhaps a little more progressive in our thinking than Kirk [Douglas] and all those other guys who were making the movie. Sure, let’s talk about everything but let’s not talk about homosexuality. That’s a no-no. Especially at Universal Pictures.”

13. ANTHONY HOPKINS WAS BROUGHT IN TO VOICE THE DECEASED OLIVIER IN A CONTROVERSIAL SCENE.

A 1991 restoration pieced together long-lost footage discovered in studio vaults and saved by collectors to restore its original cut of 197 minutes, including the parts censored out. The sound of the “oysters and snails” scene had to be re-dubbed, so Curtis re-recorded his part, and from the suggestion of Olivier’s widow, Anthony Hopkins voiced Crassus, in his best Olivier impersonation. Kubrick faxed instructions on how to play the scene.

14. IT TOOK 167 DAYS TO FILM AND ABOUT 10,500 PEOPLE TO MAKE.

Twelve million dollars was spent on Spartacus, a record for the most expensive movie made (primarily) in Hollywood at the time. Its budget ended up exceeding the total worth of Universal, which was sold to MCA for $11,250,000 during filming. Universal employees spent an estimated 250,000 man-hours working on everything. Italian museums and costume houses supplied 5000 uniforms and seven tons of armor, and 8800 Spanish army troops were captured on film for the battle scenes (the final battle was shot in Madrid). Overall about 50,000 extras were involved. All 187 stuntmen were “trained in the gladiatorial rituals of combat to the death.”

15. DOUGLAS AND JFK HELPED END THE BLACKLIST.

Kubrick suggested using his own name as the writer of the film, even though Dalton Trumbo wrote the majority of the screenplay. This offended Douglas, who opted to just use Trumbo’s real name as the credited screenwriter, despite the predictable opposition from the American Legion because of Trumbo’s refusal to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The American Legion protested, but after President John F. Kennedy saw it and said he enjoyed the feature, blacklisting was all but over. Douglas said in 2010 that as far as he was concerned, “the most important by-product of Spartacus is that we broke the blacklist.”

16. STANLEY KUBRICK LATER DISOWNED IT.

He demanded that three of his movies, including Spartacus, not be included in the home video Stanley Kubrick Collection in 1999. It wasn’t a surprise. In 1968 he said, “Then I did Spartacus, which was the only film that I did not have control over, and which I feel was not enhanced by that fact. It all really just came down to the fact that there are thousands of decisions that have to be made, and that if you don’t make them yourself, and if you’re not on the same wavelength as the people who are making them, it becomes a very painful experience, which it was.” He added that the movie “had everything but a good story.”

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a more critically and commercially successful version of the film it was “remaking”—the 1964 David Niven/Marlon Brando comedy Bedtime Story. The 1988 version starred Michael Caine as classy con man Lawrence Jamieson, and Steve Martin as the more lowbrow, American upstart huckster Freddy Benson. The two make a bet that they can con Janet Colgate (Glenne Headly) out of her money, with the loser having to leave the French Riviera. Here are 12 facts you need to know about the popular con man comedy. 

1. IT WAS ORIGINALLY MEANT FOR MICK JAGGER AND DAVID BOWIE.

The two singers, fresh off their collaboration with their “Dancing in the Street” cover, wanted to do a movie together. Jagger, who found screenwriter Dale Launer’s first produced screenplay Ruthless People (1986) to be brilliant, suggested that Launer write a script for them. The writer thought Bedtime Story, starring David Niven and Marlon Brando, would work for them. Launer, as instructed, thought up ways to allow Jagger’s character to sing in the movie without turning it into a musical. Eventually, Launer was told Jagger and Bowie wanted a “more serious” project. In 1992, Bowie expressed displeasure at not getting to do Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. “How ’bout them apples! Mick and I were a bit tweezed that we lost out on a script that could have been reasonably good,” he told Movieline.

2. AT ONE POINT, IT WAS GOING TO BE AN EDDIE MURPHY MOVIE.

Murphy had seen Bedtime Story on his uncle’s recommendation. His production company, Eddie Murphy Productions, asked Launer to re-write it if they could get the rights to the movie from Universal. It would later be revealed that everyone had mistakenly thought Universal owned the rights; it had reverted back two years earlier to co-writer and producer Stanley Shapiro. Launer and his lawyer bought the rights from him. Launer then tried to sell the film to Paramount Pictures, with Eddie Murphy attached. To Launer’s surprise, they said no. Murphy then dropped out.

3. IT COULD HAVE BEEN A MONTY PYTHON REUNION.

John Cleese claimed he was offered the role that would later go to Michael Caine, but he turned it down because filming would have taken place right after six weeks of publicity work for another movie. It was a decision he would later regret. Michael Palin read for Lawrence and was one of the finalists for the part.

It wasn’t just former Pythoners—Richard Dreyfuss and Matthew Broderick were also in the running to star.

4. STEVE MARTIN WANTED TO PLAY LAWRENCE.

Director Frank Oz gave Steve Martin the script, and Launer was told that Martin “swooned” over it and was to play David Niven’s role. Launer, however, saw him as Freddy, since Freddy was a “lout” just like Martin’s stand-up persona. To Oz’s surprise, Martin changed his mind.

5. IT WAS SHOT ENTIRELY IN FRANCE.

Scoundrels was shot, as was explained in the end credits, entirely on location in the south of France and at La Victorine Cote D’Azur Studios in Nice. Caine stayed in a St. Paul villa during shooting and later recalled with a laugh, “It’s tough duty, but someone’s got to do it, you know?”

6. THE TEASER FEATURED A SCENE THAT ISN’T IN THE MOVIE.

Frank Oz, believing he didn’t have enough footage yet to make a good trailer, shot a scene not in the movie of Caine and Martin taking a little stroll.

7. THE CREW DIDN’T LAUGH.

When Michael Caine was asked what the most important lesson he learned in making movies over the decades, he had Scoundrels in mind. “If you’re doing a comedy and the crew laughs, it’s not funny [laughs]. I did Dirty Rotten Scoundrels with Steve Martin. The crew never laughed once at anything. It’s the funniest film I ever made.”

8. CAINE WONDERED WHY THEY WERE REMAKING A FLOP.

When Caine asked Oz why they were remaking a commercial flop, Oz said there would be no point in remaking a film that had been a success. That was good enough for the actor.

9. CAINE HAS A FAVORITE SCENE.

“It’s one of those films where you’re just waiting for your favorite bits to happen,” he said. “For me, it’s when I’m hitting Steve’s knees playing Dr. Shauffhausen. (laughs) I’m laughing now thinking about it.”

10. FREDDY GETTING UP FROM HIS WHEELCHAIR WASN’T FUNNY AT FIRST.

In a test screening, the scene didn’t get many laughs, to the surprise of Frank Oz and the editors, Stephen A. Rotter and William S. Scharf. Launer then had an idea. “I suggested laying in some inspirational music, something hugely dramatic like Thus Spake Zarathustra, or Handel’s Messiah (the “Hallelujah” chorus) and they tried it, played it and it got a good solid laugh.”

11. OZ AND THE EDITORS MADE A POTENTIALLY BIG DECISION ABOUT LAWRENCE.

Launer revealed that at the end of his script, it turned out that Lawrence Jamison knew all along that Janet was The Jackal. “And he’s fallen in love with her. You think he’s fallen in love with her because she’s so guileless, so honest, so decent – and then she takes him – and you feel bad for him. But, in the end, you find out he did fall in love with her, but not because of her guilelessness, but because she was such a good con artist. I think the director and editor saw that it could work either way, so they changed it. Maybe it’s better, but it’s an editing change. It’s not much different actually.”

12. REBEL WILSON IS ATTACHED TO STAR IN A FEMALE REMAKE.

Two female scam artists, one being Wilson, will compete to con a naive tech prodigy out of his fortune.

Ten years after teaming up on 1983’s Scarface, Al Pacino and director Brian De Palma reunited for Carlito’s Way (1993), a tale about Carlito Brigante, a Puerto Rican ex-con who gets drawn back into illegal activities soon after getting out of prison, despite genuinely wanting to keep his nose clean. Penelope Ann Miller (playing Carlito’s girlfriend, Gail) and Sean Penn (the lawyer David Kleinfeld) co-starred in the film, delivering performances that earned them both Golden Globe nominations.

1. NEW YORK STATE SUPREME COURT JUDGE EDWIN TORRES MADE A LOT OF MONEY SELLING THE MOVIE RIGHTS TO HIS BOOK REPEATEDLY.

He sold the movie rights to his Carlito books 10 times before it was finally optioned. “When the producer told me they were going to finally make it, I told him I’m losing money here!” Torres said. “I just as soon kept selling the options.”

2. AL PACINO WAS ONE OF THE FIRST PEOPLE TO READ TORRES’S BOOKS.

”I showed him the books in galleys. It was just predestined (that Pacino would play Carlito),” Torres told Entertainment Weekly. The two used to work out together at the YMCA. Carlito’s Way, Torres’s first book to feature the titular character, came out in 1975, the year Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon was released.

3. ONLY TORRES KNOWS WHO CARLITO IS PATTERNED AFTER.

Carlito Brigante is based on three people that Torres knew, but he could never reveal who they were because of their criminal histories. Torres also said that Kleinfeld was based on actual attorneys he had encountered over the years. “Three lawyers I knew personally have been murdered in situations not dissimilar to Kleinfeld’s.”

4. BRIAN DE PALMA WASN’T SURE HE WANTED TO MAKE ANOTHER GANGSTER MOVIE.

De Palma read the screenplay by David Koepp (Jurassic Park with Michael Crichton), even though he didn’t think he wanted to go back to a familiar genre. “I didn’t even want to read it. I didn’t want to return to this terrain again,” he said.

5. MARTIN SCORSESE PREVENTED IT FROM BEING CALLED AFTER HOURS.

Torres’s two Carlito Brigante books are titled Carlito’s Way and After Hours (1979). Despite the titles, the movie Carlito’s Way is actually based on After Hours. However, Scorsese came out with a black comedy titled After Hours in 1985, and De Palma wanted to avoid repeating the title. The prequel Carlito’s Way 2: Rise to Power (2005) was based on Torres’s first book.

6. JOHN LEGUIZAMO TURNED DE PALMA DOWN FOUR TIMES.

Leguizamo played the memorable (to most) Bronx native Benny Blanco only after De Palma let him create his own character. He told The A.V. Club that he turned the director down four times because he “just felt that it wasn’t enough of a part. Luckily, [Brian] De Palma and I had worked together on Casualties Of War (1989), so he let me improvise my ass off. I totally went off. I created this character, you know, all the bizarre back story, that he’s a go-getter who can’t wait to meet Pacino. I think that was the first time I really felt like I had found myself in movies. That was a great time… I’ll always love De Palma, because Carlito’s Way was where I found myself in film.”

7. PACINO AND PENELOPE ANN MILLER GOT VERY CLOSE.

When asked about the alleged romantic relationship she had with her co-star, Miller (Adventures in Babysitting [1987], Kindergarten Cop [1990]) shrugged and answered, “It’s not a secret and I’m not ashamed of it.” Miller added that the two tried to keep the relationship discreet “for the sake of the movie.”

8. SEAN PENN SAID “YES” TO CARLITO’S WAY SO THAT HE COULD DIRECT THE CROSSING GUARD.

Penn had written The Crossing Guard (1995) but had trouble getting studios to finance it. Then De Palma, his director on 1989’s Casualties of War, called him late one night. “I needed a chunk of change—because I had a kid now and bills to pay—and the part Brian was offering me in Carlito’s Way was a good one, plus it was with Al [Pacino], whom I love, so I did that. And then eventually I was able to set up The Crossing Guard.”

9. PENN AND DE PALMA DID NOT ALWAYS GET ALONG.

“He’s an operatic moviemaker, so the reality level is somewhere off in De Palma-ville, and to get hold of it is impossible,” Penn claimed in 1996. “How to serve him is hard to get a grasp on, so it can become confrontational. And it did, to a degree, on Carlito’s Way.” He also said that working with Pacino was something he loved. “Working with him balanced that whole experience out.”

“I remember when I was shooting Carlito’s Way,” De Palma said, after he was asked if any of his actors took things too far. “There’s this scene where Sean is all coked up, and he’s trying to get [Al Pacino] to go on the boat trip with him. Because of where the sun was, I was shooting Sean over Al’s back for the beginning. I shot ten, fifteen takes, and I thought it looked pretty good. But Sean said, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ I said ‘What?!’ He said, ‘We don’t have it.’ I said, ‘I think we do.’ He said, ‘I need a few more takes.’ He said, ‘Twenty.’ I said, ‘Twenty?? Ok…’ I shot ten more, I think, and then I said, ‘Sean, I have to shoot this two-shot, then I gotta go over and shoot Al. He’s been playing to you all morning.’ But Sean was never happy with the scene. And I came around, and shot a two-shoot, and an over-the-shoulder.”

10. PENN DID NOT INTEND FOR HIS CHARACTER TO LOOK LIKE ALAN DERSHOWITZ.

Sean Penn’s perm in the film was inspired, the actor claimed, by a picture in Life magazine of a law student from the Carlito’s Way time period. “I tucked it into my script and went from there.”

Viewers, and some movie reviewers, noted that he resembled Dershowitz, who supposedly threatened litigation. In reality, Torres brought in John Gotti’s lawyer, Albert Krieger, to the set to talk to Penn about his earlier years on Gotti’s team.

11. A PLANNED WORLD TRADE CENTER SHOOTOUT HAD TO BE CHANGED AT THE LAST MINUTE.

“I had elaborate storyboards of this whole shootout on the escalators that were in the World Trade Center,” De Palma said. “I spent weeks and weeks photographing it … and a couple of days before we were about to shoot, they blew it up.” The epic shootout took place in Grand Central Station instead.

12. THE STUDIO WANTED TO MAKE IT SHORTER.

Universal Pictures asked De Palma if the movie could be cut down from its two hours, 25 minutes length, since a shorter time would ensure more showings in theaters. But De Palma knew a release date was already in place. De Palma told Universal, “Hey, guys, do you want me to have the movie open November 8th, or do you want me to figure out how to make twenty minutes out of it?” The release date obviously won out.

13. BENNY BLANCO MADE AN UNEXPECTED IMPACT.

After the movie opened, bags of heroin called “Benny Blanco” were dealt in New York City.

In The Golden Child, Eddie Murphy plays Los Angeles social worker Chandler Jarrell, who is tasked by the priestess Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis) to travel to Tibet to save the Golden Child (J.L. Reate)—someone believed to be a bringer of compassion that walks among us every thousand generations—from bad guy Sardo Numspa (Charles Dance). Here are some facts about the film on the occasion of its 30th anniversary.

1. IT WAS MEANT TO BE A “RAYMOND CHANDLER WITH SUPERNATURAL ELEMENTS” FILM STARRING MEL GIBSON.

Writer Dennis Feldman (Just One of the Guys) wrote a screenplay called The Rose of Tibet, a “Raymond Chandler movie with supernatural elements.” Feldman later said that what would become The Golden Child (1986) “was intended to be played very straight by Mel Gibson, but Eddie Murphy loved it, and took it.”

2. EDDIE MURPHY CHOSE IT OVER 20 OTHER SCRIPTS.

The red-hot comedian was coming off of 48 Hrs. (1982), Trading Places (1983), and Beverly Hills Cop (1984) when he chose The Golden Child over approximately 20 other projects in development at Paramount specifically for him.

3. JOHN CARPENTER TURNED DOWN THE CHANCE TO DIRECT IT

Though John Carpenter was offered the chance to direct The Golden Child, he preferred the somewhat similar script for Big Trouble in Little China (1986), starring Kurt Russell. “The films have a similar theme in that they both explore Chinese legend and magic, but they develop in different ways,” Carpenter said. “Golden Child is a very fine script. It has its problems, but it also has one big plus—Eddie Murphy. It will be hard to pull off that script. But if they do, it could be a wonderful movie!”

4. CARPENTER RUSHED TO BEAT THE GOLDEN CHILD INTO THEATERS.

In order to beat The Golden Child into theaters, Carpenter limited his prep period on Big Trouble in Little China to 12 weeks to make sure his movie came out in July 1986, five months before Murphy’s movie. “If Big Trouble were released at the same time as Golden Child, we would be killed at the box office because audiences love Eddie Murphy,” Carpenter said. Opening on the 4th of July, Carpenter’s film made $11.1 million, while Murphy’s made over $79.8 million.

5. MURPHY MET WITH GEORGE MILLER ABOUT DIRECTING IT.

While Murphy was an “avowed fan” and met George Miller at least twice about directing The Golden Child, the actor decided to go in a different direction. Michael Ritchie (The Bad News Bears, Fletch) ended up with the gig.

6. THE GOLDEN CHILD WAS A 6-YEAR-OLD GIRL WITH A SHAVED HEAD.

The titular character was a Tibetan boy, but 6-year-old Jasmine Reate got the job. She had her head shaved and was credited as “J.L. Reate” to hide her true gender.

7. A WORLDWIDE SEARCH WAS HELD TO CAST KEE NANG.

There was a “global effort” focusing on London, Bombay, Hong Kong, and United States talent. Out of 500 applicants, producers and Murphy’s manager ultimately went with teenage model Charlotte Lewis, who had only ever appeared in one film—Roman Polanski’s Pirates (1986), which came out six months before The Golden Child.

8. YELLOW DRAGON WAS PLAYED BY KIRK DOUGLAS’S SON.

The Golden Child was one of nine movies featuring Eric Douglas. The actor and stand-up comedian passed away in 2004.

9. THE ACTORS WEREN’T IN NEPAL.

A second unit team did film in Nepal, but most of the movie was shot on Paramount’s soundstages in Los Angeles. The Himalayas were recreated at the Mammoth Mountain ski area in Mammoth Lakes, California.

10. THEY UTILIZED NEW SPECIAL EFFECTS TECHNIQUES THAT WERE DEVELOPED FOR WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT.

“The Tondreau system,” developed by Bill Tondreau, was described by American Cinematographer as “a live-action motion-control system which enables any camera move to be recorded on floppy disc; where the information is stored for playback later at the (George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic) facility, and can be repeated exactly ad infinitum.” Ken Ralston, the visual effects supervisor, said the tests for Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) went so well that they decided to use it on The Golden Child first.

“It was like initiation by fire,” Ralston said. “We were still doing our tests up here while we were shooting our plates down there in L.A., and it was a race to get everything set. We had our fingers crossed all the time, but we pushed the system as far as we could.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that the special effects were not completed until a few days before the film opened. One scene the ILM crew had “fun” with was the Pepsi can dancing to “Putting on the Ritz.”

11. THEY ADDED SCENES IN POST-PRODUCTION TO MAKE IT FUNNIER.

Post-production on The Golden Child was extended due to several last-minute tweaks to the film, including attempts to give it more of the humor that audiences had come to expect from an Eddie Murphy film. Producer Robert D. Wachs told the Los Angeles Times that a handful of short scenes were added, noting that “Some of the jokes just needed buttons.”

12. THE MUSICAL SCORE WAS SWITCHED AT THE LAST MINUTE.

Also adding to the film’s long post-production period: The film’s entire score was replaced at the last minute. Originally, Oscar-winning composer John Barry (Out of Africa, Dances With Wolves) was hired to score the film, but the reaction to it was not favorable. According to Wachs, Barry’s score “was magnificent but the research told us it did not move the picture along.” So Michel Colombier was brought in to create something more contemporary.

13. CHARLES DANCE WAS DISMISSIVE OF THE FILM.

Charles Dance—who played Sardo Numspa in The Golden Child, but is perhaps best known today as Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones—said he enjoyed improvising and acting with Murphy, but admitted that he didn’t think much of The Golden Child. “It wasn’t a great intellectual exercise, but it was great fun,” Dance told the Los Angeles Times.

14. THE WRITER CALLED THE FILM “A NIGHTMARE.”

Screenwriter David Feldman didn’t think Michael Ritchie did a great job with the film. “You had to get in there and make this action/adventure/detective film, but instead, everybody wanted to make an Eddie Murphy comedy,” Feldman opined. “I think that wasn’t what Eddie should have done, and it’s not what the director should have done—and he didn’t even do it that well, either. It was a nightmare.”

In Sling Blade, a mentally challenged man—described by writer-director-star Billy Bob Thornton as a cross between Frankenstein’s monster and Boo Radley—named Karl Childers is released from a psychiatric hospital 25 years after committing a murder, befriends a mother and her young son, and is gradually tasked to help save them. Thornton would become a household name following his Oscar-nominated performance in the film, and for winning the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. In honor of its 20th anniversary, here are some facts about the movie that pair well with French fried potaters.

1. KARL WAS BORN FROM BILLY BOB THORNTON’S FRUSTRATION WITH A MADE-FOR-CABLE MOVIE.

Daniel Mann, Thornton’s director on 1987’s The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains, insisted he “overact” for all five of his lines. Back in his trailer during lunch, Thornton looked in the mirror, which is where he imagined Karl’s visage for the first time. He also came up with the character’s distinctive manner of speaking right then and there. Thornton developed the character of Karl Childers further via a one-man show titled Swine Before Pearls.

2. BEFORE THE FEATURE, THERE WAS A SHORT FILM TITLED SOME FOLKS CALL IT A SLING BLADE FEATURING MOLLY RINGWALD.

The 29-minute movie was released in 1994, written by Thornton and directed by George Hickenlooper. Molly Ringwald portrayed the newspaper reporter in Hickenlooper’s version; she was replaced by Sarah Boss in the feature. Thornton did not mention the short during the Sling Blade Oscar press tour because he had a falling out with Hickenlooper, who was claiming the movie was based on the short, while Thornton said it was based on his one-man show. At the time, Thornton said he “would have been glad to have talked about the short if George hadn’t bad-mouthed me all over town. This whole thing is based on the character, and I created that before I ever knew George Hickenlooper existed.”

3. THORNTON WROTE THE SCRIPT IN LONGHAND, MOSTLY ON THE SET OF A SITCOM.

The show was titled Hearts Afire, which Thornton starred in alongside Sling Blade co-star John Ritter. Thornton finished the script on a Christmas Day on his mother’s dining room table.

4. VAUGHAN WAS BASED ON A CHOIR LEADER IN AN ARKANSAS CHURCH.

Thornton also wrote the character with his friend Ritter in mind, knowing he could handle the rhythm of Vaughan’s words.

5. RITTER GAVE VAUGHAN THE LAST NAME “CUNNINGHAM” AS A REFERENCE TO HAPPY DAYS.

The former Three’s Company star revealed as much on Late Night with Conan O’Brien in 1997. As an in-joke to some of his friends who were on the cast of Happy Days, Ritter made his character a Cunningham to open up the possibility that Vaughan was actually Chuck, Richie and Joanie’s older brother from season one of Happy Days, who was written out of the show and never spoken of by any of the characters again after he disappeared. In Ritter’s mind, Chuck had a “different alternative lifestyle” that he was too ashamed to reveal to his parents. Thornton had no idea this was the reasoning behind the surname choice.

6. IT WAS MADE FOR $1 MILLION.

Sling Blade was filmed in just 24 days. It made more than $24 million at the box office.

7. CHARLES BUSHMAN’S CHAIR DRAG WAS THOUGHT UP THAT DAY BY THORNTON.

Thornton explained: “I was trying to think of a beginning. You always want that first image to hook you, and if J.T. (Walsh) had just walked over and fucked with the other patients on the way, and then sat down, that would have been too normal.”

8. FRANK DIDN’T HEAR KARL’S VOICE UNTIL HE HAD HIS FIRST SCENE.

Lucas Black figured that his co-star/director wanted to give him the element of surprise.

9. DIRECTOR JIM JARMUSCH MADE A CAMEO.

Jarmusch played Gene, the Frostee Cream employee. The director agreed to take the rare acting role because he knew Thornton, and thought it might be fun.

10. EACH SCENE WAS SHOT IN TWO TAKES.

A rare third take was used if there was a lighting or a technical issue. Robert Duvall (Karl’s father), when referring to Thornton as the “Hillbilly Orson Welles,” explained that Thornton believes that two takes and no rehearsals are best, because you can “catch the freshness.”

11. “NERVOUS HOSPITAL” WAS A SAYING FROM THORNTON’S GRANDMOTHER.

She said it to avoid the terms “nut house” or “asylum.”

12. THORNTON PUT CRUSHED GLASS INSIDE HIS SHOES.

It gave him Karl’s famous limp.

13. HARVEY WEINSTEIN PAID $10 MILLION FOR THE DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS AFTER WATCHING THE FIRST 30 MINUTES.

The head of Miramax initially agreed to give Thornton the final say on editing. Weinstein then saw the rest of the movie and wanted Thornton to cut 20 minutes. Martin Scorsese told Thornton not to change his edit, before Weinstein went ahead and edited it without Thornton’s knowledge. For what it’s worth, Sling Blade producer Larry Meistrich later admitted that Weinstein’s edit was better than Thornton’s.

14. MIRAMAX ALSO SUGGESTED A DIFFERENT TITLE.

They asked Thornton if he would change Sling Blade to The Reckoning. He got his say on that one.

MTV Unplugged is a long-running show that showcases musical acts performing with stripped-down arrangements they’re not usually associated with, offering new, sometimes revealing takes on popular songs. It was a phenomenon for both the cable network and the music industry, particularly in the early- to mid-’90s, even though the show’s origins are murky, and the title is a misnomer—at the very least, the microphones are plugged into something. Here are some facts about the series in honor of its 27th anniversary.

1. MULTIPLE PEOPLE CLAIM TO BE THE FATHER OF THE SHOW.

The singer/songwriter Jules Shear (Cyndi Lauper’s “All Through the Night,” The Bangles’ “If She Knew What She Wants”) has said he came up with the concept for MTV Unplugged to promote his acoustic album The Third Party. The New York Times wrote in 1992 that Shear was inspired by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora’s two-song acoustic set at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards.

That’s all well and good, but producers Jim Burns and Bob Small claim they got the idea for MTV Unplugged after Bruce Springsteen treated the two, and the thousands of other fans at one of his concerts, to a final encore featuring just himself and his acoustic guitar. (Springsteen would find his way onto Unplugged in 1992.)

Executive producer Joel Gallen has referred to Unplugged as his “baby” as well, and, also like Shear, was inspired by Bon Jovi and Sambora’s VMA set and called it the “jumping off point”. Small was quoted in I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution as saying: “Please do not credit Bon Jovi for creating Unplugged. Jon Bon Jovi thinks he was the inspiration for it. He wouldn’t even do the fu*king show until almost twenty years later.”

2. BOTH HBO AND PBS SAID NO.

HBO passed on it when Shear proposed the concept to the pay channel. Burns and Small pitched the series to PBS after MTV initially said no. PBS simply echoed MTV and HBO. It was only when Burns and Small ally Judy McGrath got a promotion at MTV that a pilot was green-lit.

3. IT WAS A CHEAP PILOT TO SHOOT.

Bob Small claimed he only had four hours to set up the pilot, with another four hours to film it, and for only $18,000. “I couldn’t get money to hire a director,” Small said. “They said, ‘You direct it.'”

4. THERE WAS A HOST FOR THE FIRST 13 EPISODES.

None other than Jules Shear was the undisputed master of ceremonies for the first season. He also joined in on some songs.

5. THE FIRST GUESTS DIDN’T GRASP THE CONCEPT OF UNPLUGGED.

Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford from Squeeze were the stars of the first episode, which aired on November 26, 1989. But they were unprepared. “Chris and Glenn showed up for rehearsal with electric guitars,” Alex Coletti, who would end up producing the show through 2001, recalled. “I said: ‘Very funny, guys. Where are the acoustics? It’s Unplugged.’ They looked at each other and went, ‘Riiight… Make a phone call, quick!'”

6. PRODUCERS SCRAMBLED TO GIVE JOE WALSH ACTUAL FRIENDS.

“The fifth episode was billed as Joe Walsh and Friends, and Joe showed up with only one friend—Ricky, his bass player,” Coletti remembered. “We thought it meant his famous friends, but apparently that got lost in translation.” Walsh had been a member of The Eagles, who infamously had a long falling-out, but his claim of buddies gave MTV employees false hope. Producer Bruce Leddy found Dr. John who was at a neighboring studio and convinced him to come on with Walsh and be his “friend”.

7. DON HENLEY WAS NOT HAPPY WITH WALSH PLAYING “DESPERADO.”

Walsh’s former Eagles bandmate wrote “Desperado,” as well as a three-page fax explaining to MTV that he didn’t want Walsh to play it and he was refusing permission to air the performance. It was after the fax that the network invited Henley to come on the show himself to perform it. Henley was the first artist to get an entire half-hour on his own as the only artist, which quickly became the status quo for Unplugged. In 1994, when The Eagles reunited, they appeared on an MTV Unplugged special.

8. LL COOL J HAD NEVER WORKED WITH A LIVE BAND BEFORE.

The first Unplugged featuring rap artists took place in 1991. Pop’s Cool Love backed LL Cool J, MC Lyte, De La Soul, and A Tribe Called Quest. “[It’s like] you drink milk for 10 years and then [you have to] drink fruit punch,” Quest’s Q-Tip said about performing with the band. “It’s not that the fruit is bad, but you have to get used to it.”

But the future NCIS: LA star seemed to adjust faster. “We rehearsed the night before and LL Cool J had never worked with a live band,” said Coletti. “Before long, he was calling the shots like he’d been doing it his whole life.”

9. LL COOL J KNOWS YOU SAW HIS DEODORANT.

“People have teased me about the deodorant for years, but I love it,” he said. “It was raw! It was nasty! At least you know I wasn’t stinking.”

10. PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS THE FIRST ARTIST TO OFFICIALLY RELEASE HIS UNPLUGGED SET.

Before McCartney, nobody had thought to release their set as an album. But after he performed in 1991, the former Beatle was worried about it getting out to the masses illegally. “I figured that as Unplugged would be screened around the world there was every chance that some bright spark would tape the show and turn it into a bootleg, so we decided to bootleg the show ourselves,” he admitted. “We heard the tapes in the car driving back. By the time we got home, we’d decided we’d got an album – albeit one of the fastest I’ve ever made.” He even titled the live performance collection Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).

11. ERIC CLAPTON WAS HESITANT TO RELEASE HIS SHOW AS AN ALBUM.

“Slowhand” performed to acclaim in 1992, but he initially didn’t think it was good enough to be released officially as a CD. So naturally, his live album Unplugged won the Grammy for Album of the Year. The “Tears in Heaven” performance in particular won Song and Record of the Year. Two years later, Tony Bennett followed suit, winning the 1994 Album of the Year prize for his time on the show.

12. NEIL YOUNG WALKED OUT ON HIMSELF.

Young’s Unplugged was supposed to have been taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on December 12, 1992. Instead on that night, at that venue, the audience saw something they would probably never forget: Neil Young walking out the door after numerous mistakes. The “stunned” crew members managed to get him to come back to try again that night. Young opted to junk the performance entirely, and tried again—this time with a band, and with much more success—two months later.

13. SO DID TORI AMOS.

Amos was thrown off and “couldn’t harness the energy.” But unlike Young, she was able to walk back onstage, perform, and not have to try again with another set on a different night. As the singer/songwriter remembered it, she and her manager paced “beneath the MTV thing” backstage thinking about the problem. “Then my L.D. (lighting director) came down and said, ‘Something just doesn’t feel right. I can’t put my finger on it,'” Amos told Worstgig.com. “For 700 shows over the five years (prior to that), I’d played with the lights down. So all the lights were up to catch the audience and I felt like somebody was watching me take a shower. So they dimmed the lights, I felt better. By that point because I’d made the choice to stop it and make some changes, I felt like I began again. And I turned the whole show around.”

14. COLETTI ‘FOUGHT HARD’ TO CUT “THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD” FROM NIRVANA’S EPISODE.

“Maybe I shouldn’t give this secret away, but I built a fake box out in front of the amp to make it look like a monitor wedge,” Coletti admitted to Guitar World in 1995. “It’s an acoustic guitar, but he’s obviously going through an amp,” he added, talking about the now iconic David Bowie cover. “I actually fought pretty hard to leave that song out [of the final edit of the show], because I felt it wasn’t as genuine as the rest of the songs. But I’m a huge Bowie fan, so I couldn’t fight too hard against the song.”

15. DAVE GROHL WAS ALMOST UNINVITED TO NIRVANA’S SHOW.

The Nirvana drummer remembered that it was a minor miracle that the band’s Unplugged performance went so well. “That show was supposed to be a disaster,” he said. “We hadn’t rehearsed. We weren’t used to playing acoustic. We did a few rehearsals and they were terrible. Everyone thought it was horrible. Even the people from MTV thought it was horrible. Then we sat down and the cameras started rolling and something clicked. It became one of the band’s most memorable performances.”

As Coletti told it, Kurt Cobain was thinking of just replacing Grohl behind the kit, or maybe not using a drummer at all. “What I didn’t know was up until the day [of the Unplugged performance], there was talk of Dave [Grohl] not playing at all in the show,” the producer revealed in 2014. “Kurt wasn’t happy with the way rehearsals were going; he didn’t like the way Dave sounded playing drums with sticks.”

But Grohl turned up the day of filming, and Coletti gifted him some brushes and sizzle sticks to give his drumming a softer sound. “I was afraid Dave would just roll his eyes, like, ‘Oh great, the a**hole from MTV is trying to be my friend.'” the producer remembered thinking. “But instead he opened the package and said, ‘Cool, I’ve never had brushes before. I’ve never even tried using them.'” The album Unplugged in New York won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996. It was the band’s lone Grammy win.

16. YES, THEY TRIED TO GET ROBERT PLANT AND JIMMY PAGE TO PLAY “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.”

The Led Zeppelin bandmates reunited in 1994 for the Unplugged special: No Quarter: Robert Plant and Jimmy Page Unledded, which at the time was the highest-rated episode of the series ever. MTV suggested they film it in Queens, New York. Plant suggested Morocco and Wales because it was where he wrote “Kashmir” and “Down by the Seaside,” respectively. Network executives explicitly requested “Stairway” but were shot down. “I think we’re in a disposable world and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is one of the things that hasn’t quite been thrown away yet,” Plant said in 1994. “I think radio stations should be asked not to play it for 10 years, just to leave it alone for a bit so we can tell whether it’s any good or not.”

17. LIAM GALLAGHER HECKLED HIS OASIS BANDMATES.

Lead vocalist Liam backed out of the Royal Festival Hall gig in London due to a “sore throat” at the last second, so songwriter/guitarist/brother Noel took over the vocal duties. Noel would later disclose that Liam in fact appeared an hour before showtime “sh*tfaced,” and when he tried to sing it sounded “fu*king dreadful.” Liam watched the performance from the balcony and at times jeered them. Noel told him to shut up. Coletti thought it was all for the best. “There’s something when the songwriter himself sings it. Maybe he’s a little more connected to the song.”