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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
00:04is 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.
01:52Stu checks his head in the mirror. Scream.
01:55In the original Scream, Neve 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
02:06Colored 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
02:30clear that Stu is using the mirror to give his forehead a once-over and check for any bruises or
02:36blemishes that might give him away. Doing this at school, in front of Sydney herself no less,
02:42is definitely playing a dangerous game, but nobody ever said that Stu was the sharpest knife in the
02:49toolbox, did 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.
03:02Nobody loves a blink and you'll miss it detail quite like the fine folks at Pixar. The human
03:09protagonist of Monsters Inc is of course Boo, played by Mary Gibbs, the adorable two-year-old girl who
03:16accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and forms an easy bond with Monster Sully, played by the always
03:23brilliant John Goodman. Love that guy. Boo is simply the nickname given to the child by Sully though,
03:29and her real name is never actually directly mentioned in the movie itself. But if you look
03:35closely when Boo is making some drawings at Mike and Sully's apartment, it's possible to briefly see
03:42that she has signed her drawings with the name Mary. This is especially fitting given that Boo was
03:49voiced by young actress Mary Gibbs. But better yet, the official book based on the movie straight up
03:55mentions that Boo's full name is indeed Mary Gibbs, basically confirming this sneaky easter egg to be
04:02genuinely canon rather than just a mere cute nod to the actress herself. Next up, The Best Die Hard has
04:09a
04:09sneaky Tarantino reference. That Pulp Fiction easter egg. Die Hard with a Vengeance. The criminally
04:18underrated Die Hard with a Vengeance, which I'll never stop proclaiming to be my favourite of the series,
04:24has a fun yet easily missed nod to a defining film featuring its two lead actors that was released
04:30just a year prior. That being, of course, Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. After Bruce Willis and
04:37Samuel L. Jackson's John McClane and Zeus Carver are forced to work together to take down the evil
04:42criminal mastermind Simon, McClane tells a frustrated Zeus, quote, Could be worse, I was working on a
04:49nice fat suspension, smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo. At first glance, this may simply
04:56sound like your typical John McClane action-era wisecrack, but this is actually a nod to the
05:02song from the Statler brothers, Flowers on the Wall. The song was featured in Pulp Fiction during the
05:08scene where Bruce Willis' Butch Coolidge is driving around and crosses paths with Ving Rhames' Marcellus
05:15Wallace. Just moments before their eyes actually meet, we can hear Butch singing along to the tune as it
05:21plays in his car, including the specific lyrics, smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.
05:28So there you have it. And a fun additional fact by the way, after opting not to take on the
05:33role
05:34of Jules in Pulp Fiction, Laurence Fishburne also went on to lose the part of Zeus in Die Hard with
05:40a
05:40Vengeance, in part because he was ostensibly holding out for a higher fee. The movie that led Samuel L. Jackson
05:46to getting the part of Zeus? Well, it was Pulp Fiction, so yeah, that's a real double whammy of a
05:53story if
05:53ever there was one. Coming up, a Michael Mann masterpiece. Why Neil's crew meets in this location.
06:02Heat. After thief Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Niro, realizes that he and his crew are being watched
06:08by the LAPD, he meets up with them to discuss the matter and also decide whether or not to move
06:14forward
06:14with a proposed bank heist. The scene takes place in front of an electrical substation. It honestly
06:21seems like a pretty standard remote setting for a shady conversation like this to actually take place,
06:28but there's a little more motivation behind the scenery, as can be expected given Mann's
06:34precision detail that he puts into all of his projects. The really cool thing about this particular
06:40moment of detail though is that the reasons for the scene weren't actually established until 2022's
06:46sequel novel Heat 2 was published, which revealed that McCauley deliberately chose the electrical
06:52substation because the high voltage conductors would create enough RF interference to ensure that any
06:58listening devices placed on their vehicles would be rendered useless, allowing them to freely discuss
07:05the heist. While it's possible that Mann simply came up with this idea in the 27 years between
07:10the movie's release and the sequel novel actually getting published, given how famously meticulous he
07:15is as a director, it's easy to believe that this was always the intent. Also, make sure you read Heat
07:222
07:22if you haven't already, as it is wonderful. Hook that actual movie sequel to my veins, I need it right
07:29now,
07:30god damn. Next up, they're all gonna laugh at you. Norma wears a baseball cap in every scene. Carrie.
07:38Brian De Palma's all-timer horror movie Carrie is such a white knuckle piece of work that you really
07:45couldn't be blamed for missing this utterly bizarre, but very deliberate detail. Throughout the film,
07:51you might notice that Carrie's classmate Norma, played by Sissy Spacek and PJ Souls respectively,
07:57tends to wear a red baseball cap. Did you know that she actually wears it in every single scene she's
08:04in?
08:05Yeah, this even extends to the scene when Norma is in the salon getting her hair done from the
08:10ill-fated prom, with the hat visible on top of the hair dryer, covering Norma's head. As for why
08:17De Palma committed to such a, you know, weird visual quirk? Well, according to PJ Souls herself,
08:24she auditioned for Carrie wearing the cap, and De Palma became a bit obsessed with it,
08:30insisting that she wear it to all other auditions for the role. Souls complied, and once she'd won the
08:37part of Norma, De Palma seemingly saw the cap as an elemental component of the character,
08:42even that it's on screen just about every single time that Norma is. So yeah, I mean,
08:49whatever floats your boat, am I right?
08:51A fun Walter Hill detail now. The gang members pay their subway fare. The Warriors.
08:59At 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 game. An opening
09:11montage shows the various gangs taking the subway to the meeting, and while you might expect such
09:17wanton lorebreakers as these to simply flout the lore by hopping the turnstile,
09:22we hilariously actually see them paying their fare, because god damn, they believe in this city and
09:29it's public transportation. That's the one message you should get out of the Warriors. Walter Hill told me
09:35that himself. 100%. On a more serious note, you can interpret this as an amusingly subversive gag
09:43on Hill's part, because nobody expects criminals to pay their way, but it's far more likely the
09:49fact that none of the gangs wanted to be busted for a minor offence while on the way to an
09:54important
09:54meeting. Some fans even theorized that the New York City Transit Authority might have required the film
10:00to show the gangs paying their fare as a condition for being allowed to shoot on the subway at all.
10:06Then again, considering 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 Verder. 500 Days of Summer. Early on in 500 Days of Summer, Tom and Summer,
10:27played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel respectively, head to a karaoke bar where they
10:32discuss their differing perspectives on love. And when their co-worker Mackenzie, played by Jeffrey
10:38Arendt, asks who is going to sing next, Summer says, quote, I nominate Young Verder there.
10:45Given that Summer says the one-liner in a thick, jaman accent, it's easy to assume she's simply goofing
10:52around. And yet Summer is actually making a reference to Gotha's legendary 1774 novel,
10:59The Sorrows of Young Verder. In the novel, Verder himself is a sensitive young man who becomes
11:05hopelessly obsessed with a girl called Charlotte, who does not return his affection. This is obviously
11:12a fitting comparison given that Tom desires an all-consuming relationship with Summer, who is
11:18herself only interested in something more casual. It's actually a pretty cruel nickname for Tom though,
11:25given that Verder ends up killing himself out of despair at the end of the novel,
11:30enough that the studio tried to convince filmmaker Mark Webb to cut the line from the movie, but he
11:37held firm. And last up, another reason why this film is one of the greatest ever made. Leatherface
11:44wears Pam's bracelet after killing her. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
11:51is a masterpiece of the horror genre, and its scuzzy, rough-hewn nature is very much part of the appeal,
11:58enough that you might not expect it to reward those who really pay attention to the finer details of life.
12:05But here's a disturbing one for you. When poor Pam, played by Terry McMinn, is grabbed by Leatherface,
12:12of course played by Gunnar Hansen, note that she's wearing a bracelet on her right wrist.
12:17Leatherface, soon enough, makes short work of Pam, and it's terrifying, and when we see her dying body
12:24in the freezer later on, the bracelet is no longer on her wrist. But at the end of the movie,
12:30when
12:30Leatherface is chasing out a protagonist Sally, played by Marilyn Burns, we get a clear shot of his arm,
12:37where he can be seen wearing that same bracelet that Pam was wearing just a few hours before.
12:45As if putting people on meat hooks and going all
12:49and then wearing their faces wasn't terrifying enough, of course he has to wear that, you know,
12:57trinkets as keepsakes, because of course he does. God bless that horrifying, weird, horrifying guy.
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