Trivia for
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)

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• Among the books burned by the firemen is the film journal "Cahiers du Cinema" for which director François Truffaut wrote. Pictured on the cover is a picture from À bout de souffle (1960), written by Truffaut. Also among the books burned is "The Martian Chronicles" and "Fahrenheit 451" itself, both written by Ray Bradbury.
  
  
• Director François Truffaut was so eager to begin filming that he and co-writer Jean-Louis Richard wrote the screenplay before they had fully mastered English. Ultimately, Truffaut was disappointed in the awkward, stilted English-language dialogue; he was much happier with the French-dubbed version, which he supervised.
  
  
• The first and only English language film for director François Truffaut.
  
  

• The film's credits are spoken, not read, in keeping with the film's theme of destruction of reading material.
  
  
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, François Truffaut and Oskar Werner hated each other by the end of filming. For the last two weeks, they didn't speak to one another.
  
  
• For the part of the captain, producers considered Laurence Olivier, Sterling Hayden, and Michael Redgrave before hiring Cyril Cusack.
  
  
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, it was his last-minute idea to have Julie Christie play both main female roles. Allen says Terence Stamp then withdrew from playing Montag because Stamp felt that with two parts, Christie would overshadow him.
  
  
• Oskar Werner cut his hair for the final scene to purposely create a continuity error. This was due to his hatred for the director.
  
  
• The title of the movie (and the book) comes from the exact temperature at which paper catches fire.
  
  
• Author Ray Bradbury never did any fact-checking in regards to the title. He asked a fire chief what temperature book paper burned at, and was given the answer "451 degrees Fahrenheit." He liked the title so much, he didn't bother to see if it was the correct temperature (it is.)
  
  
• Paul Newman, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Aznavour, Peter O'Toole, and Terence Stamp were all considered for the role of Montag.
  
  
• Montgomery Clift supposedly also passed on the Guy Montag role.
  
  
• Books shown or mentioned in the movie: - Don Quixote - Othello, the Moor of Venice - Vanity Fair - Madame Bovary - Le monde a coté - Alice's Adventues in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass - Gaspard Hauser - Robinson Crusoe - The World of Salvador Dali - Jeanne d'Arc - Life and Loves - The Weather - My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin - Les negres - Confessions of an Irish Rebel - The Ginger Man - Petrouchka - The Catcher In The Rye - The Moon and Sixpence - Lolita - David Copperfield - Mein Kampf - She Might Have Been Queen - Social Aspects of Disease - The Ethics of Aristotle - The Brothers Karamazov - The Sorrows of Young Werther - The Martian Chronicles - Plato's Republic - Fahrenheit 451
  
  
• The scene where the fireman first put on his gear, is filmed in reverse. The same scene but in normal run is used again later for him to take out his gear.
  
  
• Amongst the actresses considered for the role of Clarisse/Linda Montag was Jean Seberg.
  
  
• François Truffaut's first film in color.
  
  
• Although film editor Thom Noble speculates on the DVD that the books burned in the film's fire sequences were all director François Truffaut's, the director actually solicited paperbacks from grips, electricians and other crew members working on the film because he felt that well-worn, dogeared copies achieved the effect he wanted to convey.
  
  
• Many of the books burned during the entire movie are director François Truffaut's favorites. Producer Lewis M. Allen says that it's possible that Truffaut himself brought the books.
  
  
• According to producer Lewis M. Allen, François Truffaut spoke virtually no English, and the cast and crew mostly operated in French. Oskar Werner, Julie Christie, cinematographer Nicolas Roeg and associate producer Michael Dalamar all spoke French. Allen had high school French, but editor Thom Noble did not speak the language at all.
  
  
• Producer Lewis M. Allen said the studio's legal department requested that only books in the public domain be shown burning for fear of being sued by offended authors. Director François Truffaut and Allen ignored the request, believing that anyone would be flattered to have their book included.
  
  

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