Hitchcock used the word MacGuffin to mean a pretext for a suspense plot, an object or secret, such as military plans, of vital importance to the characters but of no real importance to the filmmaker.
He thought his best MacGuffin was the set of vague “government secrets” in North by Northwest (1959), because this MacGuffin was “the most impertinent, the most nonexistent, and the most absurd.”
The name of the woman who appeared on behalf of Marlon Brando at the 1972 Oscar telecast was given as Sacheen Littlefeather, an “Apache,” and “president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee.” On behalf of Brando, she refused his Oscar for The Godfather (1972). It later turned out that Littlefeather was actually an…
Charlton Heston starred in only one horror film, The Awakening (1980). He played archaeologist Matthew Corbeck in this latter-day mummy film.
Walter Brennan asked, “Was you ever bit by a dead bee” nearly everyone he met in To Have and Have Not (1944).
The German director Leni Riefenstahl spent four years in a French detention camp after World War II for her activities as a Nazi filmmaker. Her last film was Tiefland, completed in 1954.
Harold Lloyd, whose best-known movie is Safety Last (1923), was the “King of Daredevil Comedy”.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) had its premiere on October 16, 1939, on “Mr. Smith Day” in Washington, D.C., at Constitution Hall. The film was at first poorly received by members of the Senate, who felt that the movie cast a negative light on democracy and on Washington, D.C.