Hot Stuff

Movie audiences got their first taste of the Marx Brothers in the summer of 1929 when the four wild and crazy guys made their film debut in “The Cocoanuts.”

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Amiri Baraka, the revolutionary black poet, makes his motion picture debut in “Bulworth.” Warren Beatty cast Baraka as a homeless man who figures prominently in Sen. Jay Bulworth’s outrageous new thinking.

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While much ado has been made over the fact “The X-Files” series is moving its production from Vancouver to Los Angeles, the “X-Files” movie was filmed entirely in Southern California. Filming took place on six sound stages at 20th Century Fox as well as downtown Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Long Beach, Santa Clarita and California City in the Mojave Desert.

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“The X-Files” creator and producer Chris Carter brought on as technical advisors two retired special agents from the FBI and a retired LAPD bomb squad technician to make sure Mulder and Scully and other FBI agents depicted in the film were following official procedures. The technical advisors subsequently were given small film roles.

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Real-life romances often bloom on movie sets, but “Madeline” director Daisy von Scherler Mayer was a little surprised when two of the 9-year-old actresses started slipping love notes under the hotel door of leading man, er, boy Kristian de la Osa. Well, they were on location in Paris, after all.

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Several classic films have been released during the summer months, including “Sunset Blvd.,” “Mrs. Miniver,” “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “A Place in the Sun,” “High Noon,” “From Here to Eternity,” “Roman Holiday,” “The King and I,” “Vertigo,” “North by Northwest,” “Elmer Gantry,” “The Apartment,” “Psycho,” “Hud,” “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “Klute.”

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With his latest film, “6 Days, 7 Nights,” set to open next month, it’s once again the summer of Harrison Ford. Since 1973’s “American Graffiti,” Ford has appeared in such summer hit films as 1977’s “Star Wars,” 1979’s “Apocalypse Now,” 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back,” 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” 1982’s “Blade Runner,” 1983’s “The Return of the Jedi,” 1984’s “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” 1989’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” 1990’s “Presumed Innocent,” 1991’s “Regarding Henry,” 1992’s “Patriot Games,” 1993’s “The Fugitive,” 1994’s “Clear and Present Danger” and 1997’s “Air Force One.”

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A small funnel cloud swirled across the outdoor “Godzilla” set near the Hudson River in New York one afternoon just before production began, scattering crew members and even sending a light--with an electrician hanging on--skittering down the street. And when a sudden storm raked the outdoor set in New York, director Roland Emmerich had his camera crew film the dramatic, overcast skyline. Assistant cameraman Joe Sanchez, relying on a hunch, kept his camera rolling and managed to record a violent stab of lightning hitting one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Frankenstein-style. The shot was kept in the movie.

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Better Dead Than Coed: actresses Kirsten Dunst, Gaby Hoffman and Heather Matarazzo play early ‘60s prep school girls who wage an elaborate campaign to stop their exclusive prep school from going coed in “The Hairy Bird.”

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For “Small Soldiers,” the story of an all-out war between two toy armies, the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite, Stan Winston--who won an Academy Award for best visual effects for “Jurassic Park”--worked with a crew of 50 artists and technicians to create 327 toy characters. It took 375 pounds of modeling clay to mold all the parts.

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Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” which took the world by storm in the summer of 1975, grossed half a billion dollars worldwide and was the No. 1 box-office champ until “Star Wars” two years later.

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While filming a high school cafeteria scene for “Disturbing Behavior,” director David Nutter separated 200 teenage extras into cliques: geeks, jocks, skaters, cool kids.

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Some of the most respected films of all time were released during the summer of ‘69, including “Midnight Cowboy,” the only X-rated film to win the best picture Oscar; Sam Peckinpah’s seminal western “The Wild Bunch”; Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western “Once Upon a Time in the West”; and Dennis Hopper’s landmark “Easy Rider.”

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Robert Redford’s cowboy hats for “The Horse Whisperer,” were made by physicist turned milliner John Morris of the Rocky Mountain Hat Co. in Bozeman, Mont.

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Kristen Scott Thomas’ character in “The Horse Whisperer,” Annie MacLean, is a high-powered magazine editor. The office of Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, was used in the film as Annie’s office.

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More than 2,400 extras were used in “Gone With the Wind.” There were 59 leading and supporting cast members, as well as 1,100 horses and 375 pigs, mules, oxen, cows, dogs and other animals. Ninety sets were built.

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While “Snake Eyes” was shot at a number of locations throughout Atlantic City, N.J., the city’s arena was unavailable for several key shooting days because of the Miss America pageant. As a result, a fictional Atlantic City Arena was re-created at the now-closed Forum in Montreal, Quebec.

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In “Be the Man,” daredevil Super Dave Osborne is never seen without a baseball cap or helmet. He wears 25 versions of the same baseball cap, each a different color. Meanwhile, Super Dave’s co-star, Dan Hedaya, who plays the villain, wears 12 different wigs in the film.

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Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” is a highly anticipated summer release dealing with World War II. Several war films have been released in summers past, including 1963’s “The Great Escape”; 1979’s “Apocalypse Now”; 1980’s “The Big Red One,” directed by legendary Sam Fuller; 1987’s “Full Metal Jacket” and “Hamburger Hill”; 1989’s “Casualties of War”; and 1996’s “Courage Under Fire.”

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In the remake of “Doctor Dolittle,” starring Eddie Murphy, animal trainer Mark Forbes was able to get most of Murphy’s four-legged co-stars to open and close their mouths on cue. He also put together a team of trainers who handled close to 100 animals used in the movie.

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“Ever After: A Cinderella Story,” starring Drew Barrymore, is the latest in approximately 500 versions of the Cinderella story in circulation, making it the most famous tale in the world. The earliest incarnation apparently originated in China.

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“Ever After: A Cinderella Story” brings together the latest generation of two of America’s great acting dynasties. Drew Barrymore is the granddaughter of John Barrymore and is the great-niece of Lionel and Ethel Barrymore. Anjelica Huston, who plays the wicked stepmother, is the daughter of director-actor-screenwriter John Huston and granddaughter of actor Walter Huston. In fact, John Huston directed Lionel Barrymore 50 years ago in “Key Largo.”

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Films that the comedy spoof “Plump Fiction” lampoons: “Natural Born Killers,” “Forrest Gump,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “The Piano,” “Waterworld,” “Sister Act,” “Nell” and, oh yes, “Pulp Fiction.” “Jane Austen’s Mafia!” spoofs “The Godfather,” “GoodFellas” and “Il Postino.” Films that the comedy spoof “Wrongfully Accused” lampoons: “The Fugitive” and “The Silence of the Lambs.”

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Several films opening this summer are the final films made before the deaths of their stars’: “Jane Austen’s Mafia!” (Lloyd Bridges), “Almost Heroes” (Chris Farley) and “Voyage to the Beginning of the World” (Marcello Mastroianni).

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Scully and Mulder are FBI agents in “The X-Files”; Janeane Garofalo plays an agent in “Clay Pigeons.” Patrick Swayze is on the lam from the bureau in “Black Dog,” and Jackie Chan outruns the feds in “Rush Hour.”

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The asteroid that is hurtling toward earth at the speed of 22,000 miles per hour in “Armageddon” is modeled on what NASA describes as a “global killer”--a heavenly body similar to the asteroid that is thought to have hit Earth 65 million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs. The movie’s asteroid is said to be the size of Texas.

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“Armageddon” marks the first time ever that the U.S. Air Force’s elite flying force, the Thunderbirds, appear in a major motion picture. Another first: the film features an actual B-2 Stealth bomber. Film crews got unprecedented access to NASA facilities and were allowed to film actual launch sequences of the space shuttle. On those shoots, 15 cameras were specially outfitted to withstand the hydrochloric exhaust left in the shuttle’s wake.

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The latest installment in the “Lethal Weapon” series, “Lethal Weapon 4,” is due this summer. The first “Lethal Weapon,” though, was released in the spring of 1987.

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“Mulan” took five years to complete using a staff of nearly 700 animators, artists and technicians. 842,000 sheets of paper and 27,780 pencils were used during production, and about 1,630 pounds of coffee was brewed and consumed.

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During Harry Connick Jr.’s screen test for “Hope Floats,” actor-executive producer Sandra Bullock happened to mention to the singer-actor that she’d always wanted someone to serenade her with one of her favorite songs, “Fly Me to the Moon.” Some time later, Connick surprised Bullock during the middle of a scene by singing that very tune.

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Director Nancy Meyers and producer Charles Shyer renamed the twins in “The Parent Trap” from the original Sharon and Susan to Hallie and Annie--the names of their own daughters. The real life Hallie and Annie Meyers-Shyer appear in the film briefly.

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In the summer of ‘48, husband and wife Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall starred in their final film vehicle together, “Key Largo.”

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Stan Shaw, who plays the role of boxing champion Lincoln Tyler in the Nicolas Cage thriller “Snake Eyes,” lost 30 pounds during the first month of training under Jimmy Gambina, who also trained Robert De Niro for “Raging Bull.”

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William Powell and Myrna Loy made their debut as a screen team the summer of 1934 in “The Thin Man,” the classic adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s mystery novel. The duo would star as sleuths Nick and Nora Charles in five more films over the next 13 years.

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Supplies used for a 36-day “party” from the set of “Can’t Hardly Wait”: 200 bags of potato chips, 5,000 plastic cups, 150 cases of non-alcoholic beer, 100 cases of soda, 150 cans of Silly String, 700 candles and 674,256 Goldfish crackers.

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While “The Avengers,” “The X-Files” and “Be the Man” are either remakes or continuations of popular television shows, Jim Carrey’s “The Truman Show” character, Truman Burbank, discovers that his life is a TV show.

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A few summer box-office hits have actually been set during the Christmas season, including 1988’s “Die Hard,” 1990’s “Die Hard 2” and 1992’s “Batman Returns.”

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“Dead Man on Campus” takes its central theme from an urban legend that some U.S. colleges award a 4.0 grade point average to any student whose roommate dies. The type of death required to qualify varies. For instance, some stories hold that death must occur in the room or with the roommate or during the last six weeks of term. The San Fernando Folklore Society, however, did some research and found that no such policy exists on any U.S. campus.

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“Star Wars” was the No. 1 film of 1977. The runner-up? The summer comedy “Smokey and the Bandit,” starring Burt Reynolds and Sally Field.

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Sean Connery stars this summer as the villain in the big-screen version of the ‘60s TV series “The Avengers.” Two years ago, he starred in the summer hit “The Rock.” He won critical praise and an Academy Award for his work in “The Untouchables,” which heated up the box office the summer of 1987. Way back in the summer of 1964, he starred in the Alfred Hitchcock romantic thriller “Marnie,” with Tippi Hedren.

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Not only did Natasha Lyonne wear breast prosthetics for her role as a young girl burgeoning into womanhood in “The Slums of Beverly Hills,” she and Alan Arkin would play catch with them during breaks in filming.

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--Compiled by Kathleen Craughwell, Susan King, Amy Wallace and Robert W. Welkos.