Splash is a 1984 fantasy romantic comedy film directed by Ron Howard and written by Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The original music score was composed by Lee Holdridge. It was the very first film released by Disney’s Touchstone Films (now known as Touchstone Pictures).

Trivia:

• The first film released under Disney’s Touchstone Pictures label, which was created so the studio could release more adult-oriented fare.
• Daryl Hannah a vegetarian, refused to eat real lobster for the restaurant scene. The crew scooped out the insides of real, cooked lobsters and filled them with a thick, tofu-like paste. In an interview for ‘Biography (1990)’, Director Ron Howard said Hannah cried after each take over the deaths of the lobsters for their shells.
• Before Tom Hanks accepted the role of Allen Bauer, it had already been turned down by John Travolta and Michael Keaton.
• At the time of filming, Daryl Hannah was extremely shy about her body. According to director Ron Howard, she wore both band-aids and makeup over her nipples to conceal them.
• David Morse was considered for the lead role.
• Credited with introducing the girl’s name Madison, which has since become one of the most popular names for newborn girls in the early 21st century.
• When Madison watches television at the department store, the little boy in the toothpaste commercial is Emmanuel Lewis.
• The fountain from the movie is now on display at Disney’s MGM Studios at Walt Disney World. The mermaid fin Daryl Hannah wore is behind the bar at Planet Hollywood in Downtown Disney.
• The mold used to make the mermaid fountain had also been used to make the ice sculpture in Herbie Goes Bananas (1980).
• The scene at the racquetball court, where John Candy serves and the ball hits him in the head, was done in one take.
• The map from the shipwreck that Madison uses to find Allen’s home is an old map of the Province of New York. It bears the name ‘His Excellency William Tryon Esq.’ Tyron was the colonial governor of the Province of New York from 1771 to 1780.
• The “Crazy Eddie” commercial that surprises Madison was for a real electronics store. Eddie and Sam M. Antar opened Crazy Eddie in Brooklyn, NY in 1971. Their spokesman was WPIX-FM disc jockey Jerry “Dr. Jerry” Carroll, whose frenetic nonstop sales pitch was based on used car salesman Earl “Madman” Muntz. The pitch always ended with “Crazy Eddie, his prices are IN-SA-A-A-A-A-A-ANE!” The chain grew to 43 stores in 4 states. It closed in 1989 after charges of fraud and security violations.
• Jodie Foster auditioned for the role of Madison, but turned it down in order to play a character in The Hotel New Hampshire (1984).
• Rosanna Arquette auditioned for the role of Madison, but had to back out.
• Brooke Shields reportedly turned down an offer to play Madison so she could study French Literature at Princeton.
• Before Daryl Hannah accepted the role of Madison, it had already been turned down by Tatum O’Neal, Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Melanie Griffith,, Diane Lane, Kathleen Turner and Sharon Stone.
• Debra Winger reportedly wanted the role of Madison, but Ron Howard turned her down.
• While Allen is offering girls names to the mermaid before she settled on Madison, the last two he suggests are Elizabeth and Samantha. Elizabeth Hanks is Tom Hanks’s daughter and Samantha Lewes was his then-wife.
• According to Biography Channel, Bill Murray and P.J. Soles were considered for the roles of Allen and Madison, but Murray turned it down.

27 x 40 Movie Poster only $19.99

Countess Dracula is a 1971 Hammer horror film based on the legends surrounding the “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Báthory. It is in many ways atypical of Hammer’s canon, but can be considered related to that studio’s Karnstein Trilogy attempting to broaden Hammer’s output from Dracula and Frankenstein sequels.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0UKg47jegw]

The film was produced by Alexander Paal and directed by Peter Sasdy, Hungarian émigrés working in England. The original music score was composed by Harry Robertson.

Buy this Title on DVD!

Ingrid Pitt reprised her role as Countess Elizabeth on the 1998 Cradle of Filth album, Cruelty and the Beast.

Trivia:

• Ingrid Pitt’s voice was dubbed. Supposedly, she was so furious at director Peter Sasdy that she vowed never to speak to him again.
• Countess Dracula was based on Hungarian Countess Erzsebet (our modern day “Elizabeth”) Bathory who lived from 1560 to 1614. Countess Bathory was allegedly responsible for the deaths of approximately 600 virgin girls, all of which involved torture and gruesome methods of killing. Her atrocities are mostly speculation. She is credited for influencing our modern day concept of Dracula as an entity depending on human blood for youth and vitality.

Buy This Soundtrack!

• The picture that appears behind the opening credits is an 1896 painting by Hungarian artist Istvan Csok. It shows the real Countess Bathory enjoying the torture of some young women by her servants. In an inner courtyard of one of her castles, the naked girls are being drenched with water and allowed to freeze to death in the snow.
• Ingrid Pitt replaced Diana Rigg who turned the role down.
• Although cuts were requested by the BBFC (and the film remains listed as cut on their website) the edits were never made following an appeal by Hammer to chief censor Stephen Murphy.

Ingrid Pitt