50 Things You May Not Have Known About The Die Hard Movies

Posted over 4 years ago

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Bruce Willis

Yippee-ky-ay, moggerf###ers! As much as I enjoy stroking my chin and discussing the cinematic merits of Bergman, Fellini and Bunuel, I can barely contain my adolescent excitement over the imminent arrival of the new Die Hard movie.People will die, helicopters will crash, shifty fellers with funny accents will get their come-uppance, Bruce's white vest will become more than slightly soiled, and all will be well with the world once more.

Allow me to present below a fact-filled precis of John McClane's past anti-terrorist activities, which I originally put together for Uncut magazine's short-lived sister DVD title last year. Some of it alludes to music...

Comments (10)

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Terry Staunton says 1. The first movie was based on Roderick Thorp's 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, a sequel to his 1966 best seller The Detective, which was filmed with Frank Sinatra in the lead role. Bruce Willis made his screen debut as an extra in Sinatra's last lead feature, 1980's The First Deadly Sin. 2. Writer Steven De Souza's original draft screenplay was intended as a sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1985 actioner Commando, but was altered when Arnie dropped out. 3. Valverde, the fictional Third World country featured in Commando, is mentioned on TV news reports in the first two Die Hards. 4. Willis only got the part of John McClane after it was turned down by Sylvester Stallone, Richard Gere and Burt Reynolds. 5. Die Hard was British stage actor Alan Rickman's first Hollywood film. Producer Joel Silver cast him as terrorist Hans Gruber after seeing him in a theatre production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. 6. Hans Gruber is also the name of a villain in the 1965 James Coburn spy spoof Our Man Flint. 7. The Nakatomi Tower featured in the movie is the film studio's own Fox Plaza Tower in downtown Los Angeles. Fox first used its plaza complex as a shooting location when it was still under construction, years before the tower was added, in 1972's Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes. 8. Tower interiors were inspired by the designs of legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Joel Silver owned two Wright properties at the time of filming, and has since bought more. 9. A detective outside the tower, unconvinced of McClane's identity, says he "could be a fuckin' bartender, for all we know". Willis worked as a bartender while struggling to find acting work. 10. The gunfire and explosion sound effects were originally created for 1987's Robocop. The traffic and police siren effects were recorded in New York, which director John McTiernan felt had a "more interesting character" than those in LA. 11. Composer Michael Kamen's music cues include 'Singin' In The Rain' and Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ('Ode To Joy'), both of which Stanley Kubrick had used to underscore violence in A Clockwork Orange. 12. The words of 'Ode To Joy' were written by German poet Friedrick Schiller. Die Hard With A Vengeance features a character called Fred Schiller. 13. The rap song chauffeur Argyle plays in the limo is 'Christmas In Hollis' by Run DMC, originally recorded for a charity album for the Special Olympics. 14. Die Hard was nominated for four Oscars in technical categories but won none, losing out three times to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. 15. McClane's daughter Lucy is played by six-year-old Taylor Fry, who later appeared in Rob Reiner's 1994 comedy North, which featured Willis dressed as a giant rabbit. 16. The teddy bear Willis leaves in the limo is the same soft toy McTiernan used in The Hunt For Red October. 17. McClane's line "All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia" was ad-libbed by Philly native Willis, from a quip famously thought to grace the tombstone of comedian WC Fields. It doesn't, although Fields, who died in 1946, used it frequently. It actually originates from a grave in a Vanity Fair cartoon published in the 1920s. 18. The version of 'Let It Snow' heard over the closing credits of the first two films was one of a dozen 1940s chart-toppers by baritone crooner Vaughn Monroe, nicknamed Old Leather Tonsils. He was also occasionally billed as "The Voice With Hair On Its Chest". 19. Alexander Godunov (terrorist Karl), who defected from the Bolshoi Ballet in 1979, choreographed his own fight scenes with Willis. He made his film debut in 1985's Witness, and died in 1995, aged 45. 20. The movie gave birth to a new industry shorthand; Speed is often described as "Die Hard on a bus", Under Siege as "Die Hard on a boat". Years after the first film was made, writer De Souza claims his agent was pitched a spec script as "Die Hard in a building"! 21. Die Hard 2: Die Harder was adapted by De Souza from the Walter Wager novel 58 Minutes, published a year before the first movie was released. But while the second film is set in Washington's international airport, the book has terrorists disabling the three major airports that serve New York (JFK, La Guardia, Newark). 22. Interiors were filmed at Los Angeles international airport, hence the terminal payphones displaying the Pacific Bell logo rather than the geographically accurate phone company's East Coast sister operation, Bell Atlantic's. Whoops! 23. Director Renny Harlin was getting used to sequels. He'd earlier helmed A Nightmare On Elm Street 4, and was given Die Hard 2 after Fox delayed Alien 3, on which he'd already done some pre-production work. 24. Future Terminator 2 and X-Files star Robert Patrick is among the airport terrorists, but only has one line of dialogue before he's offed by McClane. A scene deleted from the final version reveals his codename as "Alice". 25. Fred Dalton Thompson (airport supervisor Trudeau) was a 20-year veteran lawyer when he made his film debut, playing himself in the 1985 true life legal drama Marie. After a decade of character roles, he retired from movies in 1994 when elected to the US Senate, and is currently regarded as a long-shot in the 2008 race for the White House. 26. John Amos (Major Grant) became a star playing the adult Kunta Kinte in the landmark 1977 TV mini-series Roots. More recently he had a recurring role as Admiral Fitzwallace in The West Wing. 27. The 78 playing on janitor Marvin's gramophone is American singer Patti Page's 1950s hit 'Old Cape Cod', the first lines of which ("If you're fond of sand dunes and salty air...") formed the chief sample on Brit dance act Groove Armada's 1999 hit 'At The River'. Patti's only UK chart entry, '(How Much Is That) Doggie In The Window', has, bizarrely, featured in two cross-dressing movies - John Waters' Pink Flamingos and Neil Jordan's Breakfast On Pluto. 28. Fox had a running battle with US censors over the film's graphic violence, leading to the removal of a scene where a cordless drill is used as a murder weapon. The studio was subsequently sued by power tools giant Black & Decker for reneging on a $150,000 product placement deal, the first legal case of its kind. 29. Surprisingly, censors passed another scene where McClane stabs a terrorist in the eye with an icicle, although it caused outrage among watchdog groups on the film's release. "I'm from Finland," Harlin said at the time, "we always fight with icicles." 30. As with all his films, Harlin ensured the soundtrack included an excerpt from his fellow countryman Jean Sibelius's 1899 work Finlandia. 31. The TV screen on McClane's wife's plane is playing The Simpsons episode 'There's No Disgrace Like Home', the first episode ever shown in the UK on Sky One just weeks after the film's 1990 release. In a savvy piece of cross-media marketing by Fox (Sky's parent company), the initial Leicester Square run of the movie included a Simpsons short. 32. McClane's line to an airport worker, "Just the fax, ma'am, just the fax", is a play on "Just the facts, ma'am", the oft-spoken mantra of Sgt Joe Friday in the long-running police series Dragnet. 33. The British plane which crashes on the runway was originally written as belonging to Monarch Airways, until producers discovered there was a real airline of the same name. It was changed to Windsor. 34. Die Hard With A Vengeance was developed from a script called Simon Says, previously earmarked as a potential instalment in the Lethal Weapon franchise. The original story had a lone nut terrorising the cop who'd bullied him at school 30 years earler. 35. One draft had McClane teaming up with a female cab driver, but producers were wary of comparisons to the bus-driving Sandra Bullock character in Speed - coincidentally Die Hard cinematographer Jan De Bont's first film as a director. 36. The Bonwit Teller book shop blown up in the opening sequence takes its name from an upmarket New York department store which ceased trading in 1990, five years before the film was released. Andy Warhol's first Manhattan exhibition consisted of five paintings in the store's window in 1961. 37. Studio heads were initially uncomfortable with Zeus Carver, the character ultimately played by Samuel L Jackson, being black, fearing charges of racism. In a now mythical memo sent to John McTiernan, the returning director was supposedly asked "could we get away with a Korean?". 38. McTiernan based Carver's look (white shirt, glasses) on Malcolm X. 39. To avoid controversy while shooting on location in Harlem, the sandwich board worn by McClane didn't read "I HATE NIGGERS", but the less inflammatory "I HATE EVERYBODY". It was digitally altered in post-production, although it remains unchanged in TV versions shown by the more sensitive of America's cable stations. 40. Plans to have the scene accompanied by The Beatles' 'All You Need Is Love', referencing the sandwich boards the Fab Four donned to promote the song back in 1967, were scuppered when the group's publishers refused permission for its use. 41. McClane tells Zeus he was looking forward to a suspension spent "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo", a line from the song 'Flowers On The Wall' by The Statler Brothers, which Willis's Pulp Fiction character sang along to on a car radio. 42. Current US vice president Dick Cheney appears as an extra in the scenes following the Wall Street bomb blast, filmed a couple of blocks from the building where he worked as a financial consultant. 43. Simon Gruber's gang uses just 14 dumptrucks to transport the entire bullion content of the Federal Reserve building. In truth, the estimated $160 billion of gold would fill close to 500 trucks. Oh yes, I did the math. 44. An early draft of the script had Gruber stealing priceless art, but no major New York museum or gallery would give permission for filming, claiming the film's terrorist plot would be damaging to tourist trade. 45. Gruber's non-speaking girlfriend Katya is played by singer-songwriter Sam Phillips, wife of musical all-rounder T-Bone Burnett. There were initial plans to have her perform an end-credits vocal version of 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home', a running motif throughout the film, but McTiernan liked the idea of her staying silent to the very end. 46. In keeping with the first film's musical links to Kubrick, 'When Johnny Comes Marching Home' had previously featured heavily in Dr Strangelove. 47. Anthony Peck, who plays the detective killed by Gruber's men at the Federal Reserve, had a minor role as an unnamed cop in the first Die Hard. 48. The radio talk show host seen in one brief scene is the unlikely named Elvis Duran, who today presides over the breakfast slot on Z100FM in New York, the same station that employs American Idol host Ryan Seacrest. 49. Bruce Willis has told reporters that Quentin Tarantino pitched a story idea for Die Hard 4 to him when the pair were working together on Four Rooms, but the director has remained tight-lipped since. "It was pretty out there," Willis said, "but pretty do-able." 50. For years prior to its 2003 release, rumours persisted that the Willis action flick Tears Of The Sun was going to be the next movie in the franchise - "Die Hard in a jungle", if you will. Ultimately, the Willis character was a veteran Navy SEAL, and not a hacked-off cop in a dirty vest.

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Groon says Thanks--these were very interesting! I, too, am quivering in my boots for this movie. And I thought the factoid about Sam Phillips was very cool. I'm surprised I didnt' recognize her. I guess that means I'm going to have to go watch it again . . .

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Anna says Terry, when I was working at a radio show, I made a list with the best Christmas movies ever. Die Hard was one of them - hahaha. People kept calling and bitching "it's not a Christmas movie!". Waiter, sense of humour, table 5.

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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that1guy says Yipee Kai Yay will not be in the new movie. A moment of silence please.

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Terry Staunton says Hmm. It appears to be in the trailer...

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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that1guy says Hm, maybe I was mis-informed.

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Cody B says One of the best comedy series to come along in years! I can't stop laughing when I watch number 1. Great list.

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Mike the Knife says That's the ticket, Terry. But if I may add a musical note (!) to #13: "Christmas In Hollis" by Run DMC features a sample from Clarence Carter's immortal (and double-entendre-laden) holiday tune "Back Door Santa."

Permalink posted 06/26/2007
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Misstee says only took in 9 million its first day - apparently they were expecting it to be a lot higher, even for a Wednesday premierel I have a feeling an animated rat is going to beat up John McClane this weekend, even though the bus ads were genius.

Permalink posted 06/29/2007
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Mike the Knife says Go, Remy, go! ("Ratatouille" was soooooooo much better than "Die Hard 4.0." Brad Bird is now undisputed Master of 'Toons.)

Permalink posted 06/29/2007