31 Rare Facts About Famous Movies That Most Fans Never Knew

Most of the cast of The Sound of Music, particularly Christopher Plummer, thought the movie was corny as h**l. Not that they don’t appreciate its legacy or impact - it’s just objectively a ridiculously saccharine, albeit classic, film. Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer were so overcome by the corn fest that is the song “Something Good” that they couldn’t get through a take without laughing and giggling. The decision was made to obscure their faces slightly, which is why the scene we see today is in silhouette.

In the first Shrek movie Lord Farquaad is removing all the fairy tale creatures from the swamp. He wants Shreks home too. In the old DVD extras they explain it’s because he wants to build a theme park there. It’s not explained at all in the movie.

In [private part] Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, when the Candyman starts singing the Candyman Can song there is a scene where he lifts the counter to walk out and the counter smacks this little girl in the head.

Annie (1982, Carol Burnett and, a propos to this tale, Albert Finney) The scene where we first meet Daddy Warbucks (Albert Finney), he's looking at the Mona Lisa and tells the servants to "Take her away!" Then he changes his mind saying, "She has an interesting smile. I could get used to that smile. Hang her in the bathroom!" The joke here is that the first owner after Leonardo died was King Francis I of France, who had her hanging in his bathing room.

When filming the rooftop scene in The Departed, a giant inflatable Arthur the Aardvark on top of a nearby children's museum would have dominated the background of many of the shots. The museum graciously agreed to temporarily deflate and remove Arthur.

In The Neverending Story, the horse (Artax) didn’t die- however, Noah Hathaway almost drowned during the famous scene where the horse sinks in the swamp. The horse was standing on a platform that sunk into the mud, and Hathaway’s shoe got caught in the mechanism and started to drag him under.

Carrie Fisher said that one time Alec Guinness gave Mark Hamill £10 to leave him alone. 😂

The theme song from Mission Impossible spells out MI in Morse code in repeat.

For *My Cousin Vinny*, the director did research at actual criminal trials in the South, and that's where they got those gems like "Hiy-einous crime" and "all our little ol' ancestors." (source: DVD commentary)

"E.T." and "Poltergeist" were developed from the same story about alien abductions. Steven Spielberg wrote a story treatment called "Watch the Skies" and had John Sayles flesh it out as a draft called "Night Skies." Spielberg later decided to shift it in a more heartwarming direction, resulting in "E.T.", so he tapped Tobe Hooper to film the original version, but Hooper replaced aliens with the paranormal and it became "Poltergeist."

The movie Dead Zone and Christmas Story were being filmed only a couple miles away from each other at the same time. Both productions were waiting for snow so they could film. It was an usually snowless winter. Finally late in the season there was a significant snowfall. The scene where Sheriff Bannerman arrives at Johnny’s house is being filmed at the exact moment of the tongue to the flag pole scene.