Movie Trivia

True Romance

• Bronson Pinchot (Elliot Blitzer) ad-libbed the scene where his character was caught with the cocaine.
• According to Dennis Hopper, the only words that were improvised in the scene with Christopher Walken were "egg plant" and "cantaloup".
• Following the "eggplant scene", Dennis Hopper was concerned about being "shot" by Christopher Walken with the prop gun so close against his head for fear of being burned by the barrel. Director Tony Scott assured him the gun was 100% safe, and even tested it by firing it against his own forehead. The force caused the barrel to strike Scott in the forehead, leaving the imprint of a red ring.
• It was Brad Pitt's idea for his character (Floyd) to be a stoner who never leaves the couch.
• Patricia Arquette (Alabama)'s voiceover scene in the beginning of the film is borrowed from Badlands (1973), and is even set to the same music.

• Writer Quentin Tarantino sold the script to fund Reservoir Dogs (1992).
• Quentin Tarantino sold the script for $50,000 which was the minimum amount of money that can be paid for a script at the time (according to WGA rules).
• Tarantino's original ending had Clarence dying in the gun battle, leaving Alabama a widow. Tarantino said that he intended Alabama to turn to crime and join with Mr. White, a character from Reservoir Dogs (1992) (which he wrote and directed). In a flashback scene in Reservoir Dogs (1992), Mr. White is asked about "Alabama".
• The screenplay of True Romance was originally a part of another very long screenplay that was written by Tarantino and R. Avary. The other half of it was used for the film "Natural Born Killers". In both of these films Tom Sizemore stars as a cop.
• Drexl uses the phrase, "from a diddled-eyed Joe to a damned if I know" which was also used by the Mr. Orange's mentor in Reservoir Dogs (1992), also written by Quentin Tarantino.
• Tarantino wanted the role of Concotti to be played by 'Forster, Robert' . This role went to Christopher Walken.
• Quentin Tarantino said that he never visited the set of the movie during filming.
• The structure of the script was different in Quentin Tarantino's original script. The first two parts of the movie were told in trademark Tarantino nonlinear fashion. Director Tony Scott changed the script to linear structure for filming.
• One of the original directors set up to do this was B-Movie veteran William Lustig. But Tarantino turned him down because he did not believe he was a "Johnathan Demme" and could turn from B Movies to regular movies.
• In Quentin Tarantino's original script Floyd D. calls Drexl a "white boy". That's why Drexl kills him and Big Don. In the original script Marty wasn't around when Drexl kills them.

• The film that Alabama and Clarence watch in his apartment is the John Woo film Yinghung bunsik II (1987).
• The comic book that Clarence shows Alabama is "Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos" #1. There is a bridge scene in which they look at the Spider-Man comic (Clarence relays the story about Spider-Man being the story of Jesus) and Clarence takes out the Sgt. Fury issues.
• When Clarence and Alabama are showing the coke to Dick in the motel room, the movie playing on the TV is Freejack (1992).

• The work "fuck" and its derivatives are said 225 times.
• When Dick Ritchie throws the suitcase full of coke into the air, a "D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs" bumper sticker can be seen.
• There are 21 on-screen deaths, all male, all from death by gunshot.
• The roller coaster scene was originally written to have taken place in a zoo. Director Tony Scott changed it to give the movie an "adrenaline rush".
• The scene on the roller coaster was filmed over two days. 'Michael Rapaport' unfortunately has a fear of roller coasters, and suffers from acute motion sickness, facts which no one knew during the first day's filming. By the second day, the crew was prepared for this, and they gave him something to calm his nerves. As a result, one can easily tell from cut to cut which day a particular moment was filmed on by watching his face in the background. His expression goes back and forth from apprehensive and nauseous (the first day) to bland and oblivious of his surroundings (the second day).