Animal House (1978)
1 plot hole
Directed by: John Landis
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Tim Matheson, Karen Allen, John Belushi, Tom Hulce, Stephen Furst, Mark Metcalf
Revealing mistake: When Bluto is watching the sorority girls have their pillow fight and he falls down with the ladder, you can see him land on a grass mat that is cut into the lawn. It's funny because you can see the grass push in. (00:40:00)
Dean Wormer: Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.
Trivia: On a budget of only $3 million, the producers offered actor Donald Sutherland a choice of $35,000 cash for 2 days work or 2% of the film's box office gross. Because nobody in the cast or crew believed that "Animal House" would be a hit, Sutherland opted for the $35,000 cash. As it happened, the $3 million comedy went on to gross over $141 million at the box office. Meaning that Sutherland would've made $2.8 million if he had chosen 2% of the gross.
Question: Near the end, when Dean Wormer and Mayor DePasto are in the grandstand, officially launching the parade, there is an elderly gentleman in the background (also in the grandstand, about 2 levels up, on the left side of the screen) who is making odd, excited gestures and comical facial expressions. His appearance and odd mannerisms are so striking that he draws my attention away from the dean and the mayor every time that I've seen this film, and that's a lot of times. Surely, director John Landis must have been aware of the gentleman and his antics in the background through multiple takes, so it would seem Landis intended the peculiar distraction. Who was that gentleman, and was there any significance to his appearing in the scene?
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Answer: Sometimes these things get left in because it's simply the best take. (The child covering his ears before the gunshot in "North by Northwest," for example.) It could also be that John Landis cast the extra because he wanted someone with goofy expressions in the crowd. He simply could have told the extras "Ok, be excited that you're at a parade," and that's how this extra did it.
Captain Defenestrator