5. The Airplane In The Last Scene Is A Cardboard Cut-Out & Its Crew Are Midgets (Casablanca)
The final scene in
Casablanca, where Rick Blaine makes the ultimate self-sacrifice so that his beloved Elsa can go off with another man and live a happy life, is one of cinema's best and most iconic movies. The setting of our scene is an airstrip in Casablanca, of course, as Rick says his goodbyes whilst an airplane gets ready to take off in the background. Aren't you getting all nostalgic just thinking about it? Does it kind of spoil it, then, to learn that the airplane in the background of the scene is just a cardboard cut out, approximately half the size of the actual plane would really have been? To compensate for that fact, that crew you can see shuffling around in the background are midgets. Worst of all, that dreamy, "classic" fog-effect that covers the scene was only used to mask all the insane effects that were going on at the time. Here's looking at you, bewildered reader.