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You'll kick yourself for missing these awesome classic movie details.
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00:00I don't know about you, but one of the great joys of revisiting a movie you love for me
00:05is discovering new details you've never noticed before, especially if it took you
00:09a few dozen repeat viewings to spot the details in question. The upcoming movies we're talking
00:14about today are all unassailable classics of their respective genres, and each boasts
00:19at least one particular detail that audiences are still surprised to learn for themselves
00:24to this day. So, I'm Ewan, this is WhatCulture, and here are just a few classic movie details
00:31you never noticed.
00:33First up, Ash isn't drinking milk. Alien.
00:37The director's cut of Ridley Scott's Alien features a scene you've probably seen a whole
00:42bunch of times and never ever gave a second thought to. Shortly after a facehugger wearing
00:48cane, of course played by John Hurt, is brought back on board a Nostromo, Sigourney Weaver's
00:53Ripley pays a visit to Ian Holmes Ash in the ship's lab, where she confronts him about
00:59flouting quarantine procedure like an insane person. After she walks off, we fleetingly
01:05see Ash take a swig of a white liquid that one would very reasonably assume to just be,
01:11you know, milk. Or space milk, at the very least. However, given that we later learn that Ash
01:17is actually an android seemingly powered by a milky white liquid, it appears that he's
01:23actually consuming some of that juice for self-maintenance purposes. While we as viewers
01:29have no frame of reference for this on an initial viewing of Alien, it certainly tracks on subsequent
01:35watches. And if you weren't convinced yet, Scott even confirmed as much in an interview,
01:41referring to what Ash drinks as quote-unquote, liquid with which it beads its circuits.
01:48Next up, it's many people's favourite scary movie. Stu checks his head in the mirror. Scream.
01:56In the original Scream, Neb Campbell's Sydney heads to school the morning after being attacked
02:00by Ghostface, where she meets up with friends Tatum and Stu, played by Rose McGowan and Matthew
02:06Hood respectively, by their lockers. As Sydney talks to Tatum, we can see Stu checking out his
02:12reflection with a mirror in Tatum's locker. But if you look closely, you might notice that he's
02:18actually looking very pointedly at his big old forehead. Given that we later learn that Stu was
02:24the Ghostface who attacked Sid the night before and got into, well, quite a scuffle with her, it's clear
02:30that Stu is using the mirror to give his forehead a once-over and check for any bruises or blemishes
02:36that might give him away. Doing this at school, in front of Sydney herself, no less, is definitely
02:42playing a dangerous game, but nobody ever said that Stu was the sharpest knife in the toolbox,
02:50did they? Here's hoping he's learned a few more tricks at his return in the upcoming Scream 7.
02:56Switching gears to Pixar now, Boo's real name is Mary Monsters Inc. Nobody loves a blink-and-you'll-miss-it
03:05detail quite like the fine folks at Pixar. The human protagonist of Monsters Inc. is, of course,
03:12Boo, played by Mary Gibbs, the adorable two-year-old girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis
03:18and forms an easy bond with Monster Sully, played by the always brilliant John Goodman.
03:25Love that guy. Boo is simply the nickname given to the child by Sully, though, and her real name
03:30is never actually directly mentioned in the movie itself. But if you look closely when Boo is making
03:37some drawings at Mike and Sully's apartment, it's possible to briefly see that she has signed her
03:43drawings with the name Mary. This is especially fitting given that Boo was voiced by young actress
03:50Mary Gibbs. But better yet, the official book based on the movie straight up mentions that Boo's full name
03:57is indeed Mary Gibbs, basically confirming this sneaky easter egg to be genuinely canon rather than just a
04:04mere cute nod to the actress herself. Next up, the best Die Hard has a sneaky Tarantino reference.
04:12That Pulp Fiction easter egg. Die Hard with a Vengeance. The criminally underrated Die Hard with a
04:19Vengeance, which I'll never stop proclaiming to be my favourite of the series, has a fun yet easily missed
04:26nod to a defining film featuring its two lead actors that was released just a year prior.
04:32That being, of course, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. After Bruce Willis and Samuel
04:37Jackson's John McClane and Zeus Carver are forced to work together to take down the evil criminal
04:43mastermind Simon, McClane tells a frustrated Zeus, quote, Could be worse. I was working on a nice fat
04:50suspension, smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. At first glance, this may simply sound
04:56like your typical John McClane action-era wisecrack, but this is actually a nod to the song from the
05:03Statler brothers' Flowers on the Wall. The song was featured in Pulp Fiction during the scene where
05:09Bruce Willis' Butch Coolidge is driving around and crosses paths with Ving Rhames' Marcellus Wallace.
05:16Just moments before their eyes actually meet, we can hear Butch singing along to the tune as it plays
05:22in his car, including the specific lyrics, smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. So there
05:28you have it. And a fun additional fact by the way, after opting not to take on the role of Jules in
05:35Pulp Fiction, Laurence Fishburne also went on to lose the part of Zeus in Die Hard with a Vengeance,
05:40in part because he was ostensibly holding out for a higher fee. The movie that led Samuel
05:46Jackson to getting the part of Zeus? Well, it was Pulp Fiction, so yeah, that's a real double whammy
05:52of a story if ever there was one. Coming up, a Michael Mann masterpiece. Why Neil's crew meets
06:00in this location. Heat. After thief Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, realises that he and his
06:07crew are being watched by the LAPD, he meets up with them to discuss the matter and also decide whether
06:13or not to move forward with a proposed bank heist. The scene takes place in front of an electrical
06:19substation. It honestly seems like a pretty standard remote setting for a shady conversation like this
06:26to actually take place. But there's a little more motivation behind the scenery, as can be expected
06:33given Mann's, you know, precision detail that he just puts into all of his projects. The really cool
06:39thing about this particular moment of detail though is that the reasons for the scene weren't actually
06:44established until 2022's sequel novel, Heat 2, was published, which revealed that McCauley deliberately
06:51chose the electrical substation because the high voltage conductors would create enough RF
06:56interference to ensure that any listening devices placed on their vehicles would be rendered useless,
07:02allowing them to freely discuss the heist. Well, it's possible that Mann simply came up with this idea
07:08in the 27 years between the movie's release and the sequel novel actually getting published,
07:14given how famously meticulous he is as a director, it's easy to believe that this was always the
07:20intent. Also, make sure you read Heat 2 if you haven't already, as it is wonderful. Hook that actual
07:27movie sequel to my veins, I need it right now, goddamn. Next up, they're all gonna laugh at you!
07:33Norma wears a baseball cap in every scene. Carrie. Brian De Palma's all-timer horror movie Carrie is
07:42such a wide-knuckle piece of work that you really couldn't be blamed for missing this utterly bizarre
07:48but very deliberate detail. Throughout the film, you might notice that Carrie's classmate Norma,
07:54played by Sissy Spacek and PJ Souls respectively, tends to wear a red baseball cap. Did you know that
08:01she actually wears it in every single scene she's in? Yeah, this even extends to the scene when Norma
08:08is in the salon getting her hair done from the ill-fated prom, with the hat visible on top of
08:13the hair dryer, covering Norma's head. As for why De Palma committed to such a, you know,
08:20weird visual quirk? Well, according to PJ Souls herself, she auditioned for Carrie wearing the cap,
08:27and De Palma became a bit obsessed with it, insisting that she wear it to all other auditions for the
08:34role. Souls complied, and once she'd won the part of Norma, De Palma seemingly saw the cap as an
08:40elemental component of the character, even that it's on screen just about every single time that Norma is.
08:47So, yeah, I mean, whatever floats your boat, am I right?
08:51A fun Walter Hill detail now. The gang members pay their subway fare, The Warriors.
08:58At the start of Walter Hill's delirious action thriller, The Warriors, we see gang leader Cyrus,
09:05played by Roger Hill, organize a midnight summit for all of New York City's street gang. An opening
09:11montage shows the various gangs taking the subway to the meeting, and while you might expect such
09:17wanton lawbreakers as these to simply flout the law by hopping the turnstile, we hilariously actually
09:24see them paying their fare, because god damn, they believe in this city and it's public transportation,
09:31that's the one message you should get out of the Warriors. Walter Hill told me that himself. 100%.
09:37On a more serious note, you can interpret this as an amusingly subversive gag on Hill's part,
09:44because nobody expects criminals to pay their way, but it's far more likely the fact that none of the
09:50gangs wanted to be busted for a minor offence while on the way to an important meeting. Some fans even
09:56theorized that the New York City Transit Authority might have required the film to show the gangs
10:01paying their fare as a condition for being allowed to shoot on the subway at all. Then again,
10:06considering we do see the gangs vaulting the turnstiles later on once the mayhem actually
10:11starts ramping up, maybe not. You never noticed this dark joke in this beloved romcom.
10:18Summer comparing Tom to Young Verther. 500 Days of Summer.
10:23Early on in 500 Days of Summer, Tom and Summer, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel
10:29respectively, head to a karaoke bar where they discuss their differing perspectives on love,
10:35and when their co-worker Mackenzie, played by Jeffrey Arend, asks who is going to sing next,
10:41Summer says, quote, I nominate Young Verther there. Given that Summer says the one-liner in a thick,
10:48German accent, it's easy to assume she's simply goofing around, and yet Summer is actually making a
10:55reference to Gotha's legendary 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Verther. In the novel, Verther himself is a
11:04sensitive young man who becomes hopelessly obsessed with a girl called Charlotte who does not return
11:10his affection. This is obviously a fitting comparison given that Tom desires an all-consuming relationship
11:16with Summer, who is herself only interested in something more casual. It's actually a pretty
11:23cruel nickname for Tom though, given that Verther ends up killing himself out of despair at the end of
11:29the novel, enough that the studio tried to convince filmmaker Mark Webb to cut the line from the movie,
11:36but he held firm. And last up, another reason why this film is one of the greatest ever made.
11:43Leatherface wears Pam's bracelet after killing her. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
11:49The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a masterpiece of the horror genre, and its scuzzy, rough-hewn nature
11:56is very much part of the appeal. Enough that you might not expect it to reward those who
12:01really pay attention to the finer details of life. But here's a disturbing one for you. When poor Pam,
12:09played by Terry McMinn, is grabbed by Leatherface, of course played by Gunnar Hansen, note that she's
12:14wearing a bracelet on her right wrist. Leatherface, soon enough, makes short work of Pam, and it's
12:21terrifying, and when we see her dying body in the freezer later on, the bracelet is no longer on her
12:28wrist. But at the end of the movie, when Leatherface is chasing out a protagonist Sally, played by Marilyn
12:34Burns, we get a clear shot of his arm, where he can be seen wearing that same bracelet that Pam was
12:42wearing just a few hours before. As if putting people on meat hooks and going all and then wearing
12:50their faces wasn't terrifying enough, of course he has to wear that, you know, trinkets as keepsakes,
12:58because of course he does. God bless that horrifying, weird, horrifying guy.
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