49 Fun Facts About A Few Good Men

Who directed the 1992 film A Few Good Men?

Rob Reiner spent eight months reworking the play into a screenplay with Aaron Sorkin before shooting began, and produced the film as well as directing it.

In A Few Good Men, what happens to Colonel Jessep moments after his outburst on the witness stand?

He is arrested in the courtroom: goaded by Kaffee, Jessep admits giving the order himself, and military police take him into custody as he lunges at the young lawyer.

Who plays defense lawyer Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men?

Tom Cruise was paid a reported $12.5 million, the biggest of the star fees that turned a courtroom drama with few sets into a film costing about $40 million.

Who plays Colonel Nathan Jessep, the base commander at the center of A Few Good Men?

Jack Nicholson worked only about ten days on the film for a $5 million fee, roughly $500,000 a day, and still earned an Oscar nomination for it.

Which actress plays Lieutenant Commander Joanne Galloway in A Few Good Men?

Demi Moore's Galloway is the first to suspect the two Marines were following orders, and the one who pushes a reluctant Kaffee to call Jessep as a witness.

Who plays the prosecutor, Marine Captain Jack Ross, in A Few Good Men?

Kevin Bacon's prosecutor agrees a plea deal with Kaffee early on, and the trial happens only because the two defendants refuse to take it.

Who plays Lieutenant Kendrick, Santiago's hard-line platoon commander in A Few Good Men?

Kiefer Sutherland's Kendrick tells the platoon in public not to touch Santiago; the defendants say he then privately ordered them to punish him.

Which actor and impressionist plays Kaffee's co-counsel Sam Weinberg in A Few Good Men?

Kevin Pollak landed the part only because the director's first choice became unavailable when his TV series was unexpectedly renewed.

Which Seinfeld actor was first offered the part of Weinberg in A Few Good Men but proved unavailable?

Jason Alexander had the offer, but Seinfeld won a second-season renewal that few expected, and a San Francisco stand-up took over the role.

Who plays Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Markinson, the officer who secretly meets Kaffee, in A Few Good Men?

J. T. Walsh's Markinson is the base's second-in-command and the one officer who argued that Santiago should simply be transferred.

At which military base does Private Santiago die in A Few Good Men?

Guantanamo Bay is where, in the story, a Marine fires an illegal shot across the fence line into Cuba; Santiago's offer to name him gives the prosecution its motive.

In A Few Good Men, what term do the defendants use for the unofficial punishment they were ordered to inflict?

Code red, as the defendants explain it, is discipline handed out by a Marine's own platoon mates; the term came from the real 1986 hazing case that inspired the story.

What does Kaffee realize about Santiago's wall locker that exposes the transfer story as a lie?

His clothes were never packed, though Jessep swore Santiago was booked on a dawn flight home; the thought strikes Kaffee as he stares into his own closet.

Of what are the two defendants in A Few Good Men ultimately convicted?

Conduct unbecoming a Marine: cleared of murder, the pair are still dishonorably discharged, and only Dawson grasps why, saying they should have fought for Santiago.

A Few Good Men takes its title from what?

A Marine recruiting slogan, 'looking for a few good men' ran on posters and in TV ads, but the wording is traced to an eighteenth-century notice seeking crew for the ship Providence.

Aaron Sorkin's sister Deborah inspired A Few Good Men while working as what?

A Navy lawyer, she phoned to say she was off to defend Marines accused of nearly killing a comrade on a superior's order, and her brother saw a play in it.

Aaron Sorkin drafted much of A Few Good Men on napkins while doing what job?

Bartending at a Broadway theatre left him idle during the first act, so he wrote scenes on napkins from the bar and typed them up at home each night.

How does Lance Corporal Dawson part from Kaffee at the end of A Few Good Men?

He salutes him: Dawson has been openly contemptuous of his lawyer throughout, and the salute comes only after Kaffee tells him he needs no patch on his arm to have honor.

Aaron Sorkin typed his A Few Good Men napkin notes into which early computer?

A Macintosh 512K, to be exact: he and his roommates pooled their money to buy it, and each night he emptied his pockets of napkins and typed up the day's scenes.

Which producer of Jaws bought the film rights to A Few Good Men before the play had even opened?

David Brown read about Sorkin in The New York Times and, because the writer wanted a stage run first, helped raise the money to put the play on Broadway before filming it.

Which veteran screenwriter's uncredited rewrite of A Few Good Men did Sorkin like so much he added it to the stage play?

William Goldman, the Oscar-winning writer of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, was paid a reported $300,000 to advise the first-time screenwriter, and went on to become his mentor.

What piece of 'smoking gun' evidence in the stage version of A Few Good Men was dropped for the film?

A forged logbook proved the cover-up on stage; without it, the film's case has to be won by provoking Jessep into confessing on the witness stand.

Which production company, co-founded by the film's director in 1987, made A Few Good Men?

Castle Rock Entertainment also made Seinfeld, so it was the company's own sitcom renewal that cost the film its first choice for one supporting role.

Which This Is Spinal Tap star plays the base doctor, Commander Stone, in A Few Good Men?

Christopher Guest's Dr. Stone at first could not determine the cause of death, then declared it poison two hours later, a change of mind the defense attacks.

John M. Jackson, who plays Captain West in A Few Good Men, later spent eight years as Admiral Chegwidden on which series?

JAG: from the captain who passes Galloway over for the case, Jackson rose on television to Judge Advocate General, head of the very corps the film's lawyers serve in.

In which city is the court-martial in A Few Good Men held?

Washington, D.C.: the two Marines are flown up from their base to stand trial in the capital, and filming itself began there, at the Arlington Memorial Bridge.

In A Few Good Men, what had Private Santiago done to anger the officers above him?

He broke the chain of command by writing off the base to ask for a transfer; the second-in-command wanted to grant it, but Jessep ordered him 'trained' instead.

The actor who plays Jessep complained that A Few Good Men was moved to clash with which of his other 1992 films?

Hoffa was due out the same month, and he protested that his contracts normally barred a studio from setting two of his films against each other.

Which film beat A Few Good Men to the Best Picture Oscar that year?

Unforgiven took Best Picture and three more Oscars that night, even though A Few Good Men had been much the bigger hit at the box office.

Wolfgang Bodison, who plays Lance Corporal Dawson in A Few Good Men, held what job on the production before he was cast?

Location scout Bodison had never acted in a film; when the director struggled to cast Dawson, he asked his own crew member to screen-test and gave him the part.

James Marshall, who plays Private Downey in A Few Good Men, played biker James Hurley in which TV series?

Twin Peaks's brooding biker plays the weaker of the two defendants here: Downey's testimony collapses when he admits he never heard the order being given.

Which future West Wing regular made his film debut in A Few Good Men with a few words as Jessep's clerk?

Joshua Malina had been in the play's Broadway cast first, after cousins who were Sorkin's old school friends recommended him, and he became a fixture of the writer's later shows.

The Defense Department refused to let A Few Good Men film at which California Marine base?

Camp Pendleton was off limits because the Pentagon declined to endorse the script, yet 200 off-duty Marines still appeared in the film as extras.

The silent drill that opens A Few Good Men was performed by cadets from which university?

Texas A&M's Fish Drill Team stood in for the Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon, so the razor-sharp Marines of the opening sequence are really college cadets.

In A Few Good Men, Dawson ranks a Marine's loyalties as unit, corps, God and what?

Country comes last: Dawson puts his unit and the Corps ahead of God and nation, and he and Downey insist they were being true to that creed, not committing murder.

Which composer, a frequent collaborator of the film's director, wrote the score for A Few Good Men?

Marc Shaiman began as a cabaret pianist and became Bette Midler's arranger and musical director; his work with her and with Billy Crystal is what led him into film scores.

In the real hazing behind A Few Good Men, what did the Marines plan?

Shave his head: ten Marines blindfolded and gagged a fellow private and began cutting his hair, stopping when he coughed up blood and passed out.

Unlike Santiago in A Few Good Men, what happened to the real hazing victim?

He made a full recovery after emergency treatment in Miami; in real life nobody died, and none of the Marines involved was dishonorably discharged.

What did several of the real Marines do after A Few Good Men became a hit?

They sued the filmmakers for $10 million, saying the writer had lifted the story of their own 1986 case without permission after hearing it from his sister.

What have several real-life military attorneys claimed about A Few Good Men?

That Kaffee is based on them is a claim at least four lawyers have made, but Aaron Sorkin says the character is entirely fictional and modeled on no one.

Which Amadeus star played Kaffee in the original Broadway production of A Few Good Men, earning a Tony nomination?

Tom Hulce lost the Tony, but the production ran for fourteen months and made its unknown young author a Hollywood screenwriter.

Stephen Lang, Broadway's first Colonel Jessep in A Few Good Men, later played Colonel Quaritch in which blockbuster?

Avatar made a screen villain of him twenty years on; when A Few Good Men was filmed, the stage role he had created went to a bigger Hollywood name instead.

Before Broadway, the play A Few Good Men ran for nearly a month at which venue?

The Kennedy Center run came weeks after the world premiere at the University of Virginia: the film rights were already sold, but the writer had insisted on a stage life first.

Which West Wing star played Kaffee in the 2005 West End production of A Few Good Men at the Theatre Royal Haymarket?

Rob Lowe had left The West Wing two years earlier; the London run put him back in a script by Aaron Sorkin, the writer who had created his television role.

In 2016 NBC announced a live television staging of A Few Good Men with which actor as Colonel Jessep?

Alec Baldwin was announced for a broadcast modeled on the network's live musicals, but the date kept slipping and it has never aired.

Before handing over the transfer order in A Few Good Men, what does Jessep tell Kaffee he must do?

Ask him nicely: over lunch on the base, Jessep rages that he wants some courtesy from the young lawyer, and Kaffee swallows his pride and asks again, calling him sir.

A Few Good Men's 'You can't handle the truth!' ranks 29th on whose list of movie quotes?

AFI ranked it 29th; the line is the start of Jessep's undoing: goaded into a tirade about the men who guard the nation, he goes on to admit giving the order himself.

Which A Few Good Men cast member plays Corporal Hammaker, the year after his breakout as Tre in Boyz n the Hood?

Cuba Gooding Jr. has only a brief scene here as a prosecution witness; four years later he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Jerry Maguire.

Which future ER star has a small role as Corporal Barnes in A Few Good Men?

Noah Wyle was almost unknown when he played the corporal; two years later he was cast as Dr. John Carter, a part he kept for more than a decade.