Directed by: John McTiernan
Starring: Alec Baldwin, Sean Connery, Sam Neill, Tim Curry, James Earl Jones, Scott Glenn, Jeffrey Jones, Courtney B. Vance, Richard Jordan, Joss Ackland, Peter Firth
Character mistake: As the helicopter crewman sees the Dallas surfacing, he says something along the lines of, "Sub at three o'clock". The next shot is from inside the helicopter and shows the sub and a part of the starboard landing gear retracting pod. This shot puts the Dallas closer to one o'clock. (01:24:00)
Character mistake: Characters refer to the Dallas and the Red October as "ships," but anyone stationed aboard a submarine would know to call it a "boat."
Factual error: When Jack Ryan is chasing the Cook's Assistant Igor Loginov through the missile compartment, the compartment shown does not exist. Russian Typhoon submarines (of which the Red October is a variant, just with a new propulsion system) have a pair of cylindrical pressure hulls - each containing a missile compartment - on either side of the missile tubes. The location where the fight takes place in the movie would be inside a free-flood area in a real Typhoon. (02:01:20 - 02:05:00)
Jeffrey Pelt: Mr. Ryan, I'm a politician. Which means I'm a cheat and a liar and when I'm not kissing babies I'm stealing their lollipops.
Trivia: Paramount Studios essentially rented a US submarine to be in the movie. The USS Houston (SSN 713) played the USS Dallas and the surface scenes were filmed off of Long Beach, CA and Port Angelas, WA. Two crewmembers off the Houston were actually given very small speaking parts in the movie.
Chosen answer: They use it to wipe the grease pencil markings off the screens.
We called it "the Duty Roll."