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Fan of Biloxi Blues or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Biloxi Blues
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Second part of Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical "Eugene Trilogy" which followed Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986) and was followed by Broadway Bound (1992). All three films originated as plays and all had alliterative titles based on alliteration of the letters 'B' and 'Br'.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Nichols' cinematographer Bill Butler shot the picture in the Super 35 format for a greater depth of field. Interviewed by Ron Magid in 1988 for American Cinematographer magazine, Butler recalled that he gave the film "a subtly comedic look, ...an easy-to-look-at appearance that lets what happens to the characters make you laugh or cry. The look is tender, not tough... We're not trying to show people the grimy, dirty, terrible thing that war is - it's not Vietnam."
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The movie differs from the play in significant ways. In the play, the climactic confrontation is between Sergeant Toomey and Arnold Epstein, not Eugene Jerome. Also, the play is set in 1943, not the movie's 1945. The final train ride is towards an Atlantic seaport for deployment overseas. According to Corey Parker (who played Epstein), the movie originally also was supposed to end that way, but the voiceover was later changed.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The source play's setting is described in its intro as "Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi, 1943".
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The movie is narrated by a reflective adult and aged Eugene Morris Jerome, Neil Simon's dramatic alter ego. Matthew Broderick plays the character in two different age spans.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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"Biloxi" refers to the city in Harrison County, Mississippi, where the film and source play are set. The play and film are also set in nearby Gulfport. They are the two principal cities in the Gulfport-Biloxi Metropolitan Statistical Area, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. The film was actually shot in Arkansas.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Part of a mini-cycle of Hollywood movies made during the early 1980s centering around military cadet training. The pictures include Taps (1981), Stripes (1981), Private Benjamin (1980), Up the Academy (1980), The Lords of Discipline (1983), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Streamers (1983). Then the mid-late 1980s saw a few more: Cadence (1990), Heartbreak Ridge (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987).
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The first movie directed by Mike Nichols rated PG-13.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The original Broadway theatre production of "Biloxi Blues" was directed by actor-producer-director Gene Saks who, about two years prior to this film, had directed this film's prequel, Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986). Saks also directed the Simon written films The Odd Couple (1968), Barefoot in the Park (1967), and Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972). Saks also co-starred in Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975).
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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David Schwimmer's movie debut. Uncredited, Schwimmer played a soldier on a train.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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According to Corey Parker (who played Epstein), "the scariest experience during the shoot" was when Christopher Walken was "plastered" during the filming of "the scene where Walken is supposed to be drunk and is carrying a pistol." His "lines were gone," so a script supervisor had to feed him individual lines.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Despite winning a Tony Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Theatre World Award as best supporting actor for playing Epstein, Barry Miller did not get the film role. The role went to Corey Parker.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The scene in which they go to the prostitute was filmed in Van Buren, Arkansas. Most of the movie was filmed in the neighboring town of Fort Smith, Arkansas at Fort Chaffee.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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As customary for most of the filmed versions of his plays, playwright 'Neil Simon' penned the screenplay for this movie of his 1984 play "Biloxi Blues" which won 3 Tony Awards.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Broderick had just completed this film when on a driving vacation in Northern Ireland with then girlfriend Jennifer Grey, they were involved in a head-on collision in which a mother and daughter in the other car died.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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The period of time that the American army boot camp went for was ten weeks.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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One of eleven movies made by writer Neil Simon and producer Ray Stark. The films, most made at Rastar Pictures with film studio Columbia, include Murder by Death (1976), The Cheap Detective (1978), California Suite (1978), Chapter Two (1979), The Sunshine Boys (1975), Seems Like Old Times (1980), The Goodbye Girl (1977), The Slugger's Wife (1985), Brighton Beach Memoirs (1986), Biloxi Blues (1988) and Lost in Yonkers (1993).
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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During an interview Christopher Walken said he portrayed his somewhat "friendly" demeanor as Sgt. Toomey due to meeting an on set military consultant who was a "very tough Drill Sgt." But at the same time he also described him as a "very nice, soft-spoken man", whom everyone feared, but he didn't have to sound or look fearful. In meeting this man, he decided to incorporate both types of people in his character, which was almost a 180 degree difference from the stage play character Sgt. Toomey.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts
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Though director Mike Nichols had directed a number of Neil Simon written plays on the Broadway stage, this movie has been the only ever Neil Simon written feature film that Nichols has directed.
Biloxi Blues - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts