Apocalypse Now - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Apocalypse Now or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Apocalypse Now

[cameron]

In the Playboy Bunny show scene, several drums with the name "Dow Chemicals" are visible. Dow is one of the companies that manufactured Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used throughout Southeast Asia to kill the jungle plant life that the United States government claimed was aiding the enemy in hiding from Army forces.

[ethel]

One of the books on Kurtz's night table is "The Golden Bough" by James Frazer. It is an anthropological study of rites in several cultures in which a young usurper ritually kills an aging King and inherits his throne.

[sylvia]

Benjamin Willard, like Martin Sheen, is from Ohio.

[darrell]

Francis Ford Coppola spent several days reading Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" out loud to Marlon Brando on the set.

[tamara]

One of the sequences cut from the original release version but added to the "Redux" version is a sequence featuring the soldiers making out with two Playboy Playmates. Colleen Camp was the Playmate surrounded by birds. Camp said her character trained birds at Busch Gardens, she did this in real-life. Camp, who had never been a Playmate (although Coppola thought she had), had to be specially photographed topless to make the ersatz centerfold seen in the movie.

[javier]

While Willard is riding on the boat, one section of the dossier on Kurtz he reads is entitled "IVORY IV". In "Heart of Darkness", Kurtz is an ivory trader, and Marlow (the book's version of Willard) is a boat Captain working for the same ivory company.

[willard]

Francis Ford Coppola believed that Marlon Brando was familiar with Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", the novel on which the movie is based. When Brando arrived on-set, Coppola was horrified to find that Brando had never read "Heart of Darkness", did not know his lines, and had become extremely overweight. Kurtz had always been written as tall and very thin. After some panic, Coppola decided to film the 5'10" Brando as if he was a massively built, 6'5" brute to explain his size, and kept the camera away from his huge belly.

[eli]

The first film to use the 70mm Dolby Stereo surround sound system.

[michele]

Francis Ford Coppola, who considered offering the role of Willard to Al Pacino, said that Pacino would probably have played the role if they could have filmed the movie in his New York City apartment. Jack Nicholson also was offered the role, but turned it down.

[victoria]

The original choice for the soundtrack was to be done by Isao Tomita, as Francis Ford Coppola liked his version of Holst's Planets. Tomita even travelled to the Philippines to see the filming. Because Tomita's contract was with RCA, and the film was released through United Artists, he could not compose the score.

[amber]

According to an interview given by Robert Duvall for National Public Radio's Fresh Air on July 22, 2010, Colonel Kilgore's name was originally going to be Colonel Carnage, but they changed it to make their statement about him less obvious.

[sara]

The character of the photojournalist was first suggested by unit photographer Chas Gerretsen and Robert Capa, Gold Medal Award winner (1973) during a lunch with Francis Ford Coppola. During the lunch, they discussed the scene where an American television correspondent (played by Coppola) yells at some passing soldiers, "Don't look at the camera". Gerretsen suggested that if Coppola wanted to portray the manic side of the press, he should use a photojournalist because, "We were all crazy". The three black body Nikon F cameras that Hopper's character used, had been used by Gerretsen in Vietnam. He sold the three cameras to Zoetrope Studios after Hopper, who had originally been cast as Captain Colby, became the photojournalist. Gerretsen used three Nikon F2 cameras and one Leica M4 during the filming. He did not like using blimps (sound boxes) because it prevented him from immediately shooting an image when he saw it (as he had learned as a photojournalist). Coppola gave him permission to shoot during filming in-between the dialogue (except for Marlon Brando's dialogue), a great annoyance to the sound editors, who had to edit out the clicking of the camera.

[fred]

Francis Ford Coppola shot nearly 200 hours of footage.

[kenzi]

Harrison Ford was allowed to pick his own character's name. He chose "G. Lucas" to honor George Lucas, who had directed Ford in American Graffiti (1973), before Star Wars. G.D. Spradlin's character is named "R. Corman", after producer Roger Corman.

[jamie]

The letter Martin Sheen is reading in the deleted scene "Letter from Mrs. Kurtz" is actually a poem by Jim Morrison.

[alyssa]

Much of Scott Glenn's part ended up on the cutting room floor. He has more screentime in the workprint.

[willard]

James Caan was Coppola's first choice to play Colonel Lucas. Caan, however, wanted too much money for what was considered a minor part in the movie, and Harrison Ford was eventually cast in the role.

[toni]

The movie's line, "The horror... the horror..." was voted as #66 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.

[darrell]

Although filming on-location in the Philippines lasted from March 1976 until May 1977, Marlon Brando's presence on-set was only six weeks (from September 2, until October 11, 1976).