FILM 2236: RAIN MAN (1988)

TRIVIA: For in-flight viewing, several airlines deleted the sequence in which Raymond reels off statistics on airline accidents, except Qantas. They even promoted one of the movie's writers to first class once when he travelled on their airline.

During filming, Dustin Hoffman was unsure of the film's potential and his own performance. Three weeks into the project, Hoffman wanted out, telling Barry Levinson, "Get Richard Dreyfuss, get somebody, Barry, because this is the worst work of my life." Hoffman would nab his second Best Actor Academy Award for his work.

What Raymond says about Qantas was, and still is true. From 1921- 2019, Qantas has never lost any jet airliners.

The elderly man in the waiting room who talks on and on about the Pony Express is Byron P. Cavnar, an eighty-nine-year-old local who was in the waiting room when the crew arrived to film there. He got to talking on his favorite subject, the Pony Express, and Director Barry Levinson got such a kick out of it, that he let Cavnar keep on talking as the cameras rolled. All his dialogue was spontaneous and not scripted.

During filming, Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise doubted the movie's potential and jokingly called it, "Two Schmucks in a Car".

Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro and Mel Gibson turned down the part of Raymond.

Hans Zimmer's first score for a Hollywood production.

Director Barry Levinson specifically instructed Composer Hans Zimmer to avoid strings in his score as he felt it would make the film too sentimental.

Dustin Hoffman insisted that Raymond Babbitt should be an autistic savant, instead of being mentally disabled. His insistence was largely responsible for Director Martin Brestquitting the project.

The highest-grossing movie of 1988.

The Blackjack dealer at Caesars Palace is named Nick Mazzola. He was also the War dealer in the movie Vegas Vacation (1997), as well as a dealer in the movie Casino(1995). In real-life, Nick was a Blackjack dealer at Caesar's Palace in the 1970s and 1980s.

Bonnie Hunt's (Sally Dibbs) film debut.

Holds the unique distinction of being the only film to have won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear and a best picture Academy Award.

DIRECTOR_CAMEO: (Barry Levinson): Psychiatrist determining if Raymond should stay with Charlie or not.

Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

I’m making my way through the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider. See my blog post about my copy of the book here…

You can buy an updated version (which I will get after I’ve made my way through this edition) here…

I really hope you can come on this journey with me – if you do I’d love to know which films you’ve enjoyed the most!

Watch this here…