Classic Movie Trivia

 An Affair to Remember is the second of three movies starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant. During the filming they improvised many of their scenes, and numerous lines in the film are the two improvising. 

 Upon it’s initial release Love in the Afternoon was both a critical and commercial misfire. Critics and audiences believed Gary Cooper was much too old for the part and that he should have let the role go as Cary Grant had. 

 Originally chosen for the part of Frank Flannigan in Love in the Afternoon was Cary Grant. Grant considered there to be too much of an age difference between he and Audrey Hepburn, so he turned down the role. The two would later appear together in 1963 the two would appear together in Charade. 

 To Catch a Thief finished filming in 1954, but producers delayed it’s release fearing Cary Grant (then 50) was too old for the romance between he and Grace Kelly (then 25) to be believable. It was finally released in 1955, and became one of the biggest hits of the 1950’s. 

 Alfred Hitchcock’s cameo in To Catch a Thief appears about nine or ten minutes into the film, he can be seen sitting next to Cary Grant’s character John Robie on the bus. 

 In 1953 Cary Grant announced his retirement, stating that since the rising fame of method actors like Marlon Brando most people would no longer be interested in seeing him. He was also angry because of the treatment of Charlie Chaplin by the HUAAC (Chaplin had been placed on the Hollywood Blacklist). He was coaxed out of retirement to make To Catch a Thief and would continue to act for another eleven years. 

 Once Katharine Hepburn secured her role as Tracy Lord in the film adaption of the Philadelphia Story she requested to have Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy as her co-stars. She had always felt Tracy was the greatest actor and always wanted to work with him. Both Tracy and Gable were busy on other projects at the time, and the film went ahead with Cary Grant and James Stewart. Only a few years later Hepburn would co-star with Tracy and start a love affair that would last until his death. 

 When filming was finished on Notorious, Cary Grant kept the famous UNICA key. A few years later he gave the key to co-star Ingrid Bergman, saying the key had given him luck and would hopefully do the same for her. Decades later Ingrid Bergman gave the key to Alfred Hitchcock at a tribute to the director, who was delighted at the surprise. 

 The legendary kiss between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Notorious had to be on and off during the entire two and a half minutes it lasted. This was because, at the time the Hayes Code stated that an onscreen kiss could last no more than three seconds. So the two and a half minute kiss had to be stopped every three seconds to dodge the rule. Ingrid Bergman would remark how akward it was to nuzzle each other with the camera trailing behind them, but Alfred Hitchcock assured her it would look right on screen. 

 Originally Frank Capra was going to make Roman Holiday with Cary Grant and Elizabeth Taylor. However, his Liberty Films production company was going through some financial problems and he was forced to sell the property to Paramount where he would still direct the film. After he learned of the involvement of blacklisted writer, Dalton Trumbo and his limited budget, he left the picture. William Wyler came in, without caring about the use of Trumbo, or the budget. 

 Colombia considered making two endings to Talk of the Town. One in which Jean Arthur and Cary Grant fall in love, and the other in which Arthur and Ronald Colman fall pair off. They were going to get the audience to vote as to which couple/ending they enjoyed better. This idea was dropped before shooting began, and in each draft of the screenplay the current ending remains the same. 

 David (Cary Grant) makes a reference to Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in the film. Mickey and Donald were both characters of Walt Disney, who released their cartoons through RKO, which was also the studio that made Bringing Up Baby. 

 Cary Grant’s line (in response to Aunt Elizabeth asking him why he’s wearing a women’s night dress) “Because I just went gay all of a sudden!” is believed by many to be the first use of the word “gay” to mean homosexual in an American studio film. The word gay was first used to mean homosexual approximately a decade before the film was made in the 1920s (though possibly earlier), though it wasn’t a widely known term until the 1960s. The line was not in the original shooting script and was most likely an ad lib by Grant himself. 

 Because Cary Grant was terrified of Nissa II, (the leopard who played Baby in the film) a fake leopard or the effect of split screening would have to be used in almost all of the shots featuring both Grant and Nissa. Katharine Hepburn on the other hand, was not scared of the leopard at all, and would even pet him and handling her. One day Kate put a stuffed leopard through the vent over Grant’s dressing room, “He was out of there like lighting” she recalled. 

 Cary Grant was originally offered the role of Henry Higgins. He turned down the role because his manner of speaking was “closer to Eliza Dolittle”. Then, he told Jack Warner that if Rex Harrison was not cast as Henry Higgins, not only would he not play the role, but he wouldn’t even bother to go see the film.