50 Fun Facts About 1962 Movies

Which actor became the big screen's first James Bond when Dr. No opened in British cinemas?

Sean Connery was taken by director Terence Young to his own tailor and hairdresser, then round London's restaurants and casinos, to polish him for the part.

Which playing card triggers brainwashed soldier Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate?

Queen of diamonds turns up when he is told to play solitaire, and it switches him on. His sweetheart later triggers him by accident, by wearing the card as a fancy-dress costume.

Which Hollywood mogul produced The Longest Day, the all-star epic restaging the D-Day landings?

Darryl F. Zanuck produced it for 20th Century-Fox and used three directors, one each for the British and French, American and German scenes.

Which fellow Hollywood veteran played Bette Davis's wheelchair-bound sister Blanche in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Joan Crawford and Davis were dogged by rumours of an on-set feud, which both later denied. The gossip helped sell the film, and its success revived both careers.

Which actor became a star playing T. E. Lawrence in David Lean's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia?

Peter O'Toole won over David Lean with a single screen test, though at 6 ft 2 he towered over the real Lawrence. The epic has no speaking roles for women.

Which future heavyweight champion plays himself, beating Anthony Quinn's ageing boxer, in Requiem for a Heavyweight?

Muhammad Ali, then still known as Cassius Clay, is the young opponent in the opening bout. The beating he hands out ends the older fighter's career.

Which star was fired from the unfinished comedy Something's Got to Give two months before her death in 1962?

Marilyn Monroe had signed a new contract to finish the film only days before she died. Fox later reshot the whole story with a new cast as Move Over, Darling.

Which 16-year-old became the youngest competitive Oscar winner up to that time as Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker?

Patty Duke had already played the part on stage, yet she almost lost the film role. Anne Bancroft, who played her teacher, won Best Actress for the same picture.

Which actor won the Best Actor Oscar as small-town lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch was later named the greatest movie hero of the 20th century by the American Film Institute.

Which actress played Laurence Harvey's scheming mother in The Manchurian Candidate, though only three years his senior?

Angela Lansbury got the role because director John Frankenheimer insisted on her, after Frank Sinatra had suggested Lucille Ball. It earned her an Oscar nomination.

At which prison did Robert Stroud, the real Birdman of Alcatraz, actually keep and study his birds?

Leavenworth is where he was allowed birds in his cell. He never kept a single one at Alcatraz, despite the nickname that gave Burt Lancaster's film its title.

Which actor played vengeful ex-convict Max Cady in the original Cape Fear, remade by Martin Scorsese in 1991?

Robert Mitchum turned the part down at first, then gave in after the director and his co-star sent him flowers and a case of bourbon.

Which actress walked out of the sea as Honey Ryder in Dr. No?

Ursula Andress was cast only two weeks before filming, from a photograph. Her accent was so strong that another actress dubbed all her lines.

Which British comic actor played playwright Clare Quilty, pursued by James Mason's Humbert, in Kubrick's Lolita?

Peter Sellers was given a far bigger part than Quilty has in the novel, and the director let him play it in a string of disguises.

Which actor played the outlaw Liberty Valance opposite John Wayne and James Stewart in John Ford's 1962 western?

Lee Marvin's villain faced two stars who had never shared a film before. Ford shot it in black and white, reportedly sure the final shoot-out would not work in colour.

Which star of Mutiny on the Bounty fell for Tarita, the Tahitian newcomer he had picked to play his love interest?

Marlon Brando wrote that he turned down the lead in Lawrence of Arabia because he preferred Tahiti to six months in the desert. He and Tarita went on to have two children.

In which state is River City, the town that con man Harold Hill sets out to swindle in The Music Man?

Iowa was home to the show's creator, Meredith Willson, and the film had its premiere in his home town of Mason City during a band festival.

Which West Side Story star played the title role in Gypsy, this time doing her own singing?

Natalie Wood had been dubbed by Marni Nixon in West Side Story a year earlier. Here she plays the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, with Rosalind Russell as her mother, Rose.

Which actor played Joe Clay, a PR man who slides into alcoholism with his wife, in Days of Wine and Roses?

Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick both earned Oscar nominations as the couple, who go from two-martini lunches to ruin. Joe finally gets sober with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Which three-camera widescreen process, shown on a huge curved screen, was used to film How the West Was Won?

Cinerama was used for only two dramatic features, this western and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. John Ford grumbled that its wide view meant dressing enormous sets.

Which French New Wave director made Jules and Jim, the love-triangle drama starring Jeanne Moreau?

François Truffaut found the source novel in a Paris shop in the mid-1950s and later befriended its author. The film's brisk energy is said to have influenced Scorsese's GoodFellas.

Which later science-fiction film was inspired by La Jetée, a French time-travel short told almost entirely in stills?

Twelve Monkeys, usually styled 12 Monkeys, acknowledges the debt in its opening credits. Chris Marker called his original a photo novel, not a film.

The title of Hatari!, the John Wayne adventure about catching wild animals, means 'Danger!' in which language?

Swahili supplied the title, and the film was shot on location in northern Tanganyika, in what is now Tanzania.

Which composer won an Oscar with lyricist Johnny Mercer for the title song of Days of Wine and Roses?

Henry Mancini also wrote 'Baby Elephant Walk' that year for a safari adventure. The Wine and Roses title comes from an 1896 poem by the English writer Ernest Dowson.

Sanjuro, Akira Kurosawa's samurai film starring Toshiro Mifune, is a sequel to which earlier hit?

Yojimbo was such a success that the studio wanted its antihero back, so Kurosawa reworked a script he was adapting from a novel to fit him.

Which Soviet director made his feature debut with Ivan's Childhood, winner of the Golden Lion at Venice?

Andrei Tarkovsky shot the war drama only two years after his film-school diploma piece, The Steamroller and the Violin.

Which French novelist's adventures inspired both In Search of the Castaways and Five Weeks in a Balloon in 1962?

Jules Verne's Captain Grant's Children became the Disney film, built as a vehicle for Hayley Mills. Fox even pressed a rival balloon picture to drop all mention of his name.

Which American author's stories did Roger Corman film as Tales of Terror, starring Vincent Price and Peter Lorre?

Edgar Allan Poe's tales drove Roger Corman's cycle of eight films, and this was the fourth. For a melting-face effect, a hot mix of glue, glycerin and corn starch was poured over Price's head.

Which singing star played opposite Cary Grant in That Touch of Mink, one of the biggest hits of 1962?

Doris Day recalled that Grant helped choose her wardrobe and dressed the library set with books from his own home. The comedy was the fourth-highest earner of the year.

Which director, later notorious for The Wild Bunch, made the western Ride the High Country with Randolph Scott?

Sam Peckinpah was hired on the strength of his TV series The Westerner and rewrote the script himself. The film gave Randolph Scott his final screen role.

What mysteriously happens to the wealthy guests after a lavish dinner party in Luis Buñuel's The Exterminating Angel?

They are unable to leave the salon, turning back in distress before they reach the threshold. Nobody outside the mansion can get in either, though no physical barrier exists.

In Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7, what news is the young Parisian singer anxiously waiting to hear?

A biopsy result is due that evening, and she fears it will confirm stomach cancer. A fortune-teller's reaction to her palm convinces her the news will be bad.

Which star of Spartacus called the modern-day western Lonely Are the Brave his favourite of all his own films?

Kirk Douglas hired Dalton Trumbo, the once-blacklisted writer of Spartacus, to adapt the Edward Abbey novel The Brave Cowboy.

Which playwright's Sweet Bird of Youth became a film starring Paul Newman, with its brutal stage ending cut?

Tennessee Williams was barred from working on the screenplay under the director's contract. On stage the hero is castrated by Boss Finley's hoods, an ending the film dropped.

Which actress won the Best Actress prize at Cannes for Sidney Lumet's film of Long Day's Journey into Night?

Katharine Hepburn shared the festival's glory with her three male co-stars, who jointly won Best Actor. The role also brought her an Oscar nomination.

Which author's novel did Orson Welles film as The Trial, with Anthony Perkins as the accused Josef K.?

Franz Kafka's chapters were rearranged for the screen, and Welles declared it the best film he had ever made.

Which Elvis Presley hit, a number two on the Billboard chart, featured in his Hawaii-set musical Girls! Girls! Girls!?

Return to Sender features in a film that casts Elvis as a penniless fisherman dreaming of his own boat. It was the second of three pictures he shot on location in Hawaii.

Which Hollywood legend voiced Mewsette, a country cat who runs away to Paris, in the cartoon Gay Purr-ee?

Judy Garland never voiced another animated film. She suggested hiring her Oz songwriters for the score, and the script was co-written by Warner Bros. cartoon veteran Chuck Jones.

Which ancient battle is staged in The 300 Spartans, the epic that Frank Miller saw as a boy before writing 300?

Thermopylae itself could not be used for filming, so a site in northern Corinthia stood in, with hundreds of Greek soldiers as extras.

Which actor made his name as the borstal boy who throws a race in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner?

Tom Courtenay's character builds a comfortable lead, then stops yards from the finish line and smiles defiantly at the Governor. The part won him a BAFTA as most promising newcomer.

Which director's feature debut, Knife in the Water, became the first Polish film nominated for a foreign-language Oscar?

Roman Polanski saw the script rejected at first by Poland's culture ministry for its lack of social commitment. It is the only feature he has made in Polish.

Which everyday substance proves lethal to the walking plants at the climax of the film The Day of the Triffids?

Seawater dissolves them into clouds of green smoke when the hero turns a fire hose on them at a lighthouse. The weakness was written for the film and is not in John Wyndham's novel.

Which future Dynasty star replaced Dorothy Lamour as leading lady in The Road to Hong Kong, the final 'Road' comedy?

Joan Collins took the lead because Bing Crosby thought Lamour, at 48, too old for it. Bob Hope refused to make the film without his old co-star, so she got a cameo as herself.

Which country's King Hussein gave David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia crew help with locations, transport and extras?

Jordan was meant to host the whole shoot, but cost and outbreaks of illness among the cast and crew forced a move to Spain.

Which actor made his English-language debut as an Arab leader in Lawrence of Arabia, then starred as Doctor Zhivago?

Omar Sharif was already a major star in the Middle East and was first cast in a smaller part as a desert guide. He was promoted when other actors proved unsuitable.

Which Caribbean island is James Bond sent to in Dr. No, with scenes shot yards from Ian Fleming's Goldeneye estate?

Jamaica was so close to home for Fleming that he regularly dropped in on the shoot with friends. The story had begun as a television outline meant to promote the island's tourism.

Which future film director plays Winthrop, the shy boy with a lisp, in The Music Man?

Ron Howard, then billed as Ronny, plays the unhappy younger brother of the heroine, Marian. The musical went on to six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture.

Actor Richard Todd re-enacted the capture of which bridge in The Longest Day, having fought there himself on D-Day?

Pegasus was seized by British airborne troops in the early hours of the invasion, with Todd among the paratroopers. In the film he plays the officer who led the assault.

Which Japanese studio pitted its own Godzilla against a Hollywood giant ape in the hit King Kong vs. Godzilla?

Toho had long wanted to make a King Kong film. It was the first time either monster appeared in colour and widescreen, and it sold over 11 million tickets in Japan on release.

Which future director of Midnight Cowboy won Berlin's Golden Bear with his debut feature, A Kind of Loving?

John Schlesinger cast Alan Bates in the lead and put some non-actors in small, silent roles. The film belongs to the kitchen sink school of British drama.