- Reportedly Gene Hackman's favorite movie in which he has acted.
- Cameo: ['Robert Duvall (I)'] the director who hires Harry Caul.
- Opening aerial shot taken from atop what was then the City of Paris department store. Today (2000) it's a Neiman-Marcus.
- The Jack Tarr Hotel, site of the grisly murder scene in room 773, is today (2000) the Cathedral Hill Hotel located on Van Ness Avenue at Geary.
- Gene Hackman's character was to have been named Harry Call, but a typing error led to his being name Harry Caul and the name stuck.
- 'Robert Shields', who plays the mime in the Union Square sequences, actually was a street mime in Union Square at the time.
- The blue Mercedes limousine that Cindy Williams is sitting in near the end of the film was won by Francis Ford Coppola on a bet with Paramount Pictures. Coppola had complained about the station wagon he shared with five other passengers during the filming of The Godfather (1972) and studio execs told him if Godfather grossed a certain amount they would spring for a new car. After Godfather was a huge hit, Coppola and George Lucas went to a dealer and picked out the Mercedes, telling the salesman to bill Paramount.
- Gene Hackman later plays an expert in surveillance in Enemy of the State (1998)
- Timothy Carey was originally cast as Bernie Moran. Production was shut down until he was replaced with Allen Garfield.
- Coppola had written the outline in 1966 but couldn't get financing until The Godfather (1972) became a success.
- Due to creative differences on this shoot, veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler was replaced by DP Bill Butler
- In the original script, Harry Caul was the owner of the building in which he lived. There was a deleted scene where he had a meeting with the other tenants. One of the people there was Mrs. Evangelista. Now, we only know of her character when Caul speaks to her on the phone after she leaves him a birthday present.
- The part of Martin Stett, played by Harrison Ford, was originally intended by Francis Ford Coppola to be a minor cameo but Ford's performance convinced Coppola to make the character an integral part of the movie.
- Originally envisioned as a horror movie with Marlon Brando.
- The meaning of Harry's last name, Caul, is a fetal membrane sometimes present at birth. This ties in strongly with both Harry's transparent rain jacket, which he wears for the majority of the film, and also the fact that Harry is occasionally viewed through a translucent sheet of plastic when threatened, such as by his rival during the party scene.
- Francis Ford Coppola's personal favorite of his movies.
- Harry Caul tells Amy that he is 42. The birthday card with the bottle of wine says Happy 44th Birthday. Gene Hackman was 44 when the movie came out.
- Francis Ford Coppola cited his conversation with fellow director Irvin Kershner about surveillance as the basis and theme of the film.
- David Shire's original music was composed prior to production and played for the actors prior to their scenes to get them into the proper moods.
- Gene Hackman learned to play the saxophone especially for the film.
- As Harry refines and re-refines the recording, he interprets what he hears in different ways. In fact, the dialog was recorded multiple times with different readings to get this effect.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: Extra scenes needed to complete the movie, including the one where Hackman discovers that the tape is gone, were filmed on the set of Chinatown (1974).
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