Winters mean re-watching our favorite Christmas movies over and over again with a sweet feeling of nostalgia. Though it seems we have seen them a million times and can describe any scene to the tiniest detail, they still take a special place in our hearts.
There are many intriguing details hiding in these flicks that we never paid attention to. The Bright Side editorial collected little-known facts about Christmas movies and we are eager to share them with you.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
This flick lasts for 104 minutes and 40 of them were done with special graphics only. What’s more, in some scenes, Max, Grinch’s faithful dog is actually a masterfully drawn 3-D animated dog.
It was a female dog named Kelley who actually played Max.
Jim Carrey spent a total of 92 days in the Grinch costume, while the entire shooting process took one year.
It is the first movie since 1939 where such a big number of characters are in heavy makeup. Before that, this title belonged to The Wizard of Oz.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Marilyn Manson auditioned for the role of Willy Wonka but it was eventually given to Johnny Depp. Later Depp confessed that Manson’s album The Golden Age of Grotesque affected the choice of the main character’s clothing style.
The actor Deep Roy had to repeat the same movements several hundred times in front of the camera to play every Oompa Loompa. His salary was raised to $1 million for that.
40 real squirrels were specially trained for one scene in the movie.
When Charlie is polishing Willy Wonka’s boots, you can see the reflection of the shooting crew in his glasses.
Home Alone
Robert De Niro could have gotten the role of the burglar Harry Lime but he refused to take part in the flick. Eventually, the character was played by Joe Pesci.
The whole interior of the home is filled with Christmas but it’s not just because of the decorations — even the color choice for walls and the overall home decor uses the combinations of red and green, which are considered to be Christmas colors. The designers did it intentionally to keep the viewers’ spirits up.
The tarantula on the face of one of the burglars, Marv, is actually real. Daniel Stern let the filmmakers put this spider on his face despite the fact that the insect was venomous. The only salvation for Daniel was that the tarantula didn’t have ears and the actor was allowed to scream in horror as much and as loud as he wanted.
In one of the scenes, Kevin orders a pizza by phone, which is not supposed to work because, in the scene immediately before it, Kevin’s father couldn’t get through to his son.
Kevin’s family sets out on a journey in the morning, however, from the plane windows we see a dark sky.
The Holiday
In the scene where Amanda is trying to get to Iris’s cottage, the car can’t get to the house because of the narrow road. But at the end of the movie, when Amanda leaves Surrey, the car mysteriously shows up at the gate of the house she was living in.
At the beginning of the flick, when Miles is producing a song for the movie, he presses the wrong keys on the synthesizer, however, the computer screen shows the right keys.
The site where Amanda and Iris exchange homes exists in real life.
After the comedy was released, Kate Winslet confessed that it wasn’t hard for her to fall in love with her on-screen boyfriend played by Jack Black.
The Santa Clause
The main character could’ve been played by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Alan Rickman, but it was Tim Allen who got the role.
The actor Eric Lloyd who played Scott Calvin’s son had to wear fake teeth during the shooting process because his own teeth fell out at the time.
In the final scene, when Scott and Charlie are leaving the North Pole in the sleigh and pass by the Moon, you can see the Mickey Mouse logo on its surface. It’s explained by the fact that The Santa Clause movie was created by Walt Disney Pictures, the very company that created Mickey.
Polar Express
At the beginning of the movie, several wagons of the train pass by the house of the main character. But in the next scene, when the boy goes outside, the first wagon is standing right in front of his front door.
When the main character gets on the Polar Express, the clock shows 11:55 PM. This time doesn’t change till the end of the movie.
The main character is never called by his name during the entire flick.
At the same time, the Hero Boy was played by 3 actors. Motion capture technology was used to create the movie, — Tom Hanks and Josh Hutcherson participated in the embodiment of the image of the Hero Boy. The voice of the character belongs to Daryl Sabara.
Elf
The script was written with the expectation that Jim Carrey would play in it. But the preparation of the project was delayed for 10 years, so another actor, Will Ferrell, was approved for the main role.
Viewers can see one of the members of the shooting crew wearing a yellow cap. He appears accidentally and tries to hide in one of the doors as the main character chases his son down the street.
The raccoon who attacked Buddy makes monkey-like sounds because of a mistake made by the sound engineer.
Jingle All the Way
After bumping into Howard, the policeman falls down and spills coffee all over his face. However, the next frame shows he is completely dry.
The action of the flick takes place in December. However, the shooting started in the middle of April and the scene with the winter parade was shot in 100-degree heat.
The role of Officer Alexander Hummell was initially written for a woman. But it was given to Robert Conrad because the filmmakers needed a person who could order Schwarzenegger to stop and who Schwarzenegger would listen to and obey in a believable way.
When Howard goes in search of Turbo-Man for his son, Ted advises putting chains on the wheels of the car to protect him from ice. But in Minnesota, where the movie takes place, these chains are prohibited by law.
A Christmas Carol
In the animation scenes with London views, we can see objects that had not yet been created in the year of narration (1843). For example, the movie shows the Millennium Footbridge constructed in 2000, the Globe Theatre reconstructed in 1997, and the Southwark Bridge opened in 1921.
Jim Carrey played several characters at once and voiced them with different accents: Irish, Yorkshire, and British.
What’s more, the actor did most of the stunts himself like flying over virtual chimney stacks, sliding down virtual rooftops, sliding on a virtual icicle, and falling down virtual stairs.
Four Christmases
Reese Witherspoon sometimes appears in a wig and other times with her own hair in the scene where her character Kate is arguing with Brad in the car on their way to the festive dinner at his father’s place.
While shooting the dinner scene, Reese Witherspoon was accidentally hit in the face with a plate. She required 5 stitches and the working process had to be stopped for 3 days.
When Kate and Brad are playing backgammon on the sofa, he shows her how to move the pieces. He moves one clockwise and the other — counter-clockwise, however, according to the rules all pieces should be moving in only one direction.
There are many more noteworthy details in Christmas movies that gone unnoticed by many viewers — we selected the most interesting ones for you. What bloopers of the aforementioned movies have you noticed by yourself?
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