Period streets and cars; an accidental drink spill; the diner set; Redford’s broken thumb and lateness; the adapted score; Julia Phillips’s producing milestone.
Schrader's rejected script, military noncooperation, the alien performers, the $3.3 million effects budget, motion-control advances, and Truffaut's response to the sets
Fifty girls, each six years old and from Mobile, were cast as aliens after puppetry failed. — Bill Simmons
Douglas Trumbull supervised visual effects that advanced motion-control photography. — Bill Simmons
The visual-effects work is reported to have had a $3.3 million budget. — Bill Simmons
Ralph McQuarrie's contribution to the mothership is noted alongside his Star Wars work. — Bill Simmons
Truffaut reportedly ignored the giant landing-site set but praised the small hotel-room set as familiar to his filmmaking experience. — Bill Simmons
Truffaut's role is defended because communication beyond language is a central theme and his films influenced the filmmakers' generation. — Sean Fennessey
The Searchers is cited as a visual influence, including its doorway and horizon compositions. — Sean Fennessey
Topps reportedly issued sixty-six trading cards and eleven stickers, excluding Dreyfuss and Truffaut at their request. — Bill Simmons
Jaws, Rocky, Rocky II, and E.T. are cited as other films with card sets. — Bill Simmons
De Niro honoring his $35,000 deal; Connie Foster as body double; Julia Phillips's book on Cybill Shepherd's lines; Dick Smith's fake Mohawk; gunshot makeup effects; Mohawk on display at the Museum of the Moving Image
After De Niro's profile rose the producers feared they could not afford him, but he honored his original $35,000 deal, which helped get the movie made. — Bill Simmons
Jodie Foster's sister Connie, about 19, was her body double for scenes such as the last one. — Bill Simmons
Producer Julia Phillips's book says they were frustrated that Shepherd could not remember her lines in the coffee-and-pie scene. — Bill Simmons
The most shocking find is that De Niro's Mohawk was not real: Dick Smith made a bald cap with individually placed hairs so other scenes could be filmed after the Mohawk scenes. — Bill Hader
Haircuts during a shoot make producers' heads explode; productions ask to be told before an actor cuts their hair. — Bill Hader
Smith's gunshot effects are amazing, though a fishing-line pull on the neck wound is visible in slow motion; the blood running down the finger-gun hand is also smartly done. — Bill Hader
The Mohawk hairpiece is on display at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria. — Bill Simmons
