Contrasting Opinions #2: According to Dustin Hoffman himself, the taxi incident *wasn't* scripted. During an L.A. Times interview in Jan. 2009, he said that the movie didn't have a permit to close down the NYC street for filming, so they had to set-up the scene with a hidden camera in a van driving down the street, and remote microphones for the actors. After 15 takes, it was finally going well, but this time, as they crossed the street, a taxi ran a red light. Hoffman wanted to say "Hey, we're SHOOTING here!", not only from fear of his life, but also from anger that the taxi driver might have ruined the take. Instead, being the professional that he is, he stayed in character and shouted "Hey, we're WALKING here!" and made movie history. Jon Voight also backs up this version of the incident, saying that seeing how well Hoffman was handling the situation, he likewise stayed in character.
During the filming of the snowstorm sequence in which Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo walk down Mercer Street and arrive at the Warhol party, the snow machines made so much noise (filming was in July) that sound recording was impossible. After filming was finished for the scene, "looping" was necessary. Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight recorded their dialog and then with a hundred or so cast and crew standing silent in 10 inches of Styrofoam snow, Bernice, the Saint Bernard tied to the railing in front of the loft building where the party was being held looped her "dialog": barking furiously at Dustin Hoffman's menacing Ratso.
In 1971, United Artists successfully reissued this film in the USA on a double bill with Women in Love.
In one particular scene, Ratso and Joe get into an argument over cowboys. Ratso states that "Cowboys are fags!" Joe's response is "John Wayne is a cowboy! Are you calling John Wayne a fag?" Coincidentally, Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were nominated for the Best Actor Oscar for their roles as Ratso and Joe, respectively. They lost out - to John Wayne for his role in True Grit.
One studio executive sent director John Schlesinger a memo stating, "If we could clean this up and add a few songs, it could be a great vehicle for Elvis Presley." Presley wanted to be taken seriously as an actor, and was interested in the role of Joe Buck. Presley went on instead to do Change of Habit with Mary Tyler Moore, which bombed, and became his last theatrical movie.
Teenage girl fans of The Graduate would scream when they saw Dustin Hoffman filming in the streets of New York, even though he was in his filthy costume as Rizzo.
The comic book the little girl is reading on the bus is 'Wonder Woman' #178, cover dated September/October 1968.
The film was rated "X" (no one under 17 admitted) upon its original release in 1969, but the unrestricted use of that rating by pornographic filmmakers caused the rating to quickly become associated with hardcore sex films. Because of the stigma that developed around the "X" rating in the ratings system's early years, many theaters refused to run "X" films and many newspapers would not run ads for them. The film was given a new "R" (children under 17 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian) rating in 1971, without having anything changed or removed. It remains the only X-Rated film ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture, be shown on network TV (although the R reclassification had taken place by then), or be screened by a sitting U.S. President, Richard Nixon.
This film contains the first recorded use of the word "scuzzy", as a description of Ratso Rizzo. At its root, "scuzzy" is apparently a combination of "scummy" and "fuzzy".