Top 10 Movie Facts Everyone Gets WRONG

Quentin Tarantino sure knows a lot about cinematic history, and his films are a treasure trove of easter eggs and cool references. However, for all those who like telling people that all the clocks in “Pulp Fiction” are set to 4:20… Cut it out! Yes, there are some 4:20 clocks in the film - a couple of which can be seen in the pawn shop when Butch goes to save Marsellus. But a “few” isn’t “all”. And there are a whole bunch of shots of clocks and watches in the movie that aren’t set to 4:20 - including the watch Captain Koons hands to a kid Butch (you know, the one he wore where the sun don’t shine).

We’re not sure where this one came from, but one rumor claims Mel Gibson only took three weeks to film “Braveheart”. Were this true, we would be truly amazed. Having seen the film (many times) we would be more likely to believe that it took three weeks to film one of those amazing battle sequences. In actuality, Gibson and the crew spent June to October of 1994 filming the movie in Ireland and Scotland. Nothing good is ever rushed, so we’re glad to see Gibson took the time he needed to capture his vision.

While it might seem, to anyone who saw the 2016 film, that the script was written quickly - the much ballied-around two-week rumor is just not true. This is according to the one person who would know better than anyone else: writer/director David Ayer himself. When someone on Twitter repeated the false claim, Ayer actually responded, saying quote: “Script in two weeks is meme garbage.” That might also be a word people would use to describe the script and the film itself - but we digress.

We gotta give it to the guy who created the fake director’s commentary. If we didn’t know any better, we would totally believe it was Spike Jonze talking about how an extra got drunk on set, threw the beer can at Malkovich and they kept it in the movie because Jonze loved it. But the truth is, the scene was very much scripted, a fact that John Malkovich himself has confirmed in multiple interviews, in an attempt to refute the rumor. One thing that is true, though, is that the guy who threw the can hit Malkovich square on the back of the head on the first take. There’s some actual movie trivia for you.

There’s a lot of false trivia surrounding this iconic film - particularly the titular scene in which Gene Kelly dances and sings in the rain. While there are those who like to tell you that Kelly filmed the entire sequence in one take - the truth is it took two to three days to get it all done. Then, there is the even weirder bit of trivia which posits that the rain in the scene was mixed with milk in order for it to show up better on camera. The truth is that yes, they did have to take certain steps in order for the rain to pop on screen. But it wasn’t done with milk - it was done with backlighting.

To answer this one correctly one must listen very carefully to the question being asked. You see, while it might sound like a bit of a technicality, Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” is the first full-length cel animated movie ever made. But it isn’t the first animated movie ever. That honor goes to a 1926 German film called, “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” - which was produced using a silhouette animation technique. Well, actually “Prince Achmed” is the oldest surviving animated feature film. There were two movies made in Argentina prior to “Prince Achmed” but they have been lost. See what we mean about listening to the question?

There's no denying how heartbreaking it is when Jenny passes away at the end of “Forrest Gump”. What can be denied is that her passing was definitively as a result of the AIDS virus. Winston Groom, the man who wrote the novel on which the film is based, has said that in his mind the virus that took Jenny’s life was Hepatitis C. It is worth noting, however, that screenwriter Eric Roth admitted that in the film they intended for it to be AIDS. The fact still remains that the virus is never mentioned in the movie - and when director Robert Zemeckis was asked if it was AIDS, he said, “It could have been, but it didn't matter.”

Possibly the most famous scene in “The Dark Knight” is the one where the Joker walks off after blowing up the hospital in the background. The timing of the explosion doesn’t go as planned and he smacks the remote detonator a few times to get it to work. The popular behind-the-scenes account of this scene is that the explosion not going off right away was a mishap on set that Heath Ledger managed to improvise with. While it’s a great story, it is utterly false. As Christopher Nolan has confirmed himself, every second of that scene was “rehearsed endlessly” - and it went exactly as it was supposed to go.

When “The Wizard of Oz” movie comes up in conversation there are usually two things you’re almost guaranteed to hear someone say. There are the people who will ask if you’ve ever watched the film synced to “The Dark Side of the Moon”, and at least one person who has to tell you about the hanging Munchkin in the background. While it’s pretty cool to watch the film synced to the Pink Floyd album, you can rest assured that you won’t glimpse any sort of remains onscreen. What you’re actually looking at is the silhouette of a bird on set, something that can be more obviously seen in the 1980 TV broadcast.

There are many parts to this myth - so bear with us. The story goes that Alfred Hitchcock was directing the lion in the iconic MGM roar logo when two robbers snuck onto the lot. The lion killed one of them and the other one was hit by a car while trying to get away. The next day, the lion, all shaken up by the events, killed his trainer… It might come as no surprise that the entire tale is a fabrication, including Hitchcock directing the logo sequence. You can also take comfort in there being no record of any of the MGM lions ever mauling anyone. As for that famous photo of him and the lion, that was promo for “North by Northwest.”


What’s your favorite piece of TRUE movie trivia? Let us know in the comments.