Trivia for
The Hunt for Red October (1990) More at IMDbPro »

• "Lt. Cmdr. Mike Hewitt" is the torpedo operator on the surface ship who calls out the range of the torpedo fired on the Red October, only for it to be remotely detonated by James Greer (James Earl Jones) just prior to impact (to fool the Red October's crew being rescued on the surface). He is not referred to by name in the movie, but his character and the actor's name is listed in the credits. "Mike Hewitt" is a real person, although at the time of filming he was Captain [error] (now retired - he was Captain of the USS Fulton, a "sub-tender" ship stationed at the Naval Base in Groton, CT). He was a technical advisor on the film and they gave his name to the character as thank you.
  
  
• After being faxed the script, Sean Connery initially turned the role down on the basis of the plot being unrealistic for the post-Cold War era. Whoever sent the fax neglected to include the foreword explaining the movie as historical; once he received the foreword, Connery accepted the role.
  
  
• Robert Garland, John Milius and David Shaber all did uncredited work on the script.
  
  
• Kevin Costner was originally cast as Jack Ryan.
  
  
• Klaus Maria Brandauer was originally cast as Marko Ramius, but broke his leg prior to filming. It was Brandauer who suggested his friend Sean Connery for the role, having known him since they appeared together in Never Say Never Again (1983)
  
  
• $20,000 was spent on Sean Connery's hairpiece.
  
  
• During filming, several of the actors portraying USS Dallas crewmen took a cruise on a real submarine. To train for his role as the Dallas' commander, Scott Glenn was installed as the "commander" of the real sub and gave orders to the crewmen as the real captain would.
  
  
• The crew of the U.S.S. Dallas adopted the tagline "The Hunt Is On" as an unofficial ship's motto.
  
  
• The dual-beeping sound effect of the Red October moving on the USS Dallas' sonar screen was also used in Patriot Games (1992) as the sound of Jack Ryan's EKG.
  
  
• The ship escorting the Red October out of port is the USCGC Blackhaw (WLB-390), a buoy tender stationed in San Francisco California at that time.
  
  
• The frigate shown when the Red October surfaces is not the real USS Reuben James, an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate with hull number 57. USS Gary, hull number 51, portrayed Reuben James and also provided some of the engine room shots of Red October. The crew also participated on some scenes.
  
  
• The underwater model of the Red October has never been in the water. This effect was achieved using smoke on the 'underwater' set and a few digital touch-ups. The sub was hung by 12 wires from an overhead grid which gave the ability to tilt and turn the model as needed.
  
  
• For the purposes of filming the underwater model of the Red October, only the left side of the sub was detailed to appear as an authentic submarine. The effect of showing the right side of the boat was achieved by simply turning the frame and reversing the image.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [John McTiernan] [teddy bear] Jack Ryan takes a teddy bear home with him at the end of the film. McClane has one at the start of Die Hard (1988) (it's the same bear).
  
  
• Sean Connery joined the cast after turning down the role of The Player in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990).
  
  
• Rip Torn was announced for this film
  
  
• When the movie was first released on VHS in 1991, the tapes were red.
  
  
• While preparing for his role in the film, Scott Glenn met the captain of the U.S.S. Salt Lake City. Glenn then composited the captain into Bart Mancuso.
  
  
• Two torpedoes are dropped from the air at the Red October. One from a Bear-Foxtrot bomber and the other from a Seahawk helicopter. There was only one actual torpedo drop which was incorrectly reported here as: "filmed from two different angles for the attacks". By watching carefully the two sequences, played at the same time, it can be easily seen that the splash pattern around the torpedo of the second sequence is just the mirror image of the first sequence.
  
  
• To help the audience quickly grasp which sub's interior they were seeing as the movie jumped from scene to scene and sub to sub, the filmmakers created a subtle lighting scheme: blue for Red October, red for Dallas, and green for the other Russian sub, the Alfa class "V. K. Konovalov".
  
  
• During filming in 1989, the USS Houston, which was used as the USS Dallas in the movie, snagged the tow cable between the commercial tugboat Barcona and a barge sinking the tugboat, 10 miles off Long Beach, California. One crewman drowned and two more were rescued.
  
  
• Most of Gates McFadden's role as Cathy Ryan was deleted from the final print.
  
  
• Due to his obligation to this film, director John McTiernan had to pass up the opportunity to direct Die Hard 2 (1990), the sequel to his big hit Die Hard (1988).
  
  
• The bible verses that Putin reads at the beginning of his conversation with Ramius come from Revelation 16:16-17.
  
  
• Several employees that designed and built submarines from the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company (now known as Northrup/Grumman Newport News) were set design advisors for the submarine interiors on the Dallas and Red October. Some of the interiors actually contain real submarine items - mostly things like hatches, lights, etc, to add realism.
  
  
• Director John McTiernan replaced his original editor, Peter Zinner, because Zinner found McTiernan's shooting approach difficult to work with given his classical, more traditional film background. However, Zinner has a bit part in the film as a Soviet admiral.
  
  
• Richard Jordan was second choice for Dr Jeffery Pelt, the national security adviser. The role was first offered to an Irish actor.
  
  
• In the opening credits, Red October is escorted by two tugs and a US Coast Guard 180 foot class bouytender, clearly seen off its starboard quarter.
  
  
• Average Shot Length = ~7.2 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~6.9 seconds.
  
  
• The Hunt for Red October (1990) was released in March 1990, just as Major League Baseball was entering spring training. Lou Pinella and the rest of the Cincinnati Reds used this movie all season for motivation and swept the Oakland A's in the World Series that October.
  
  
• In the scene with the frigate "Ruben James", a second frigate was used during the filming. The USS Wadsworth FFG-9 was also used to depict the Ruben James. The Wadsworth's hull number 9 is clearly visible in a couple of scene's.
  
  
• The scene where Jack Ryan was lowered onto the USS Dallas was filmed in the parking lot of the Mole Pier at Long Beach Naval Station on a beautiful sunny day. Editing made it look like it was the ocean.
  
  
• A US Navy yard oiler was used to escort the sub at the beginning of the movie. It was in Long Beach CA, and the Red October was built to look like it submerged by using two articulated barges and flooding the front one while being towed.
  
  
• Alec Baldwin was succeeded in his role by Harrison Ford; with whom he appeared in Working Girl (1988); and Ben Affleck; with whom he appeared in Pearl Harbor (2001).
  
  
• It is a manly film: Gates McFadden with Louise Borras (as Jack Ryan's wife and daughter) and Denise E. James as a flight attendant have the only credited female speaking roles, and all of their dialog scenes are over before the end of the opening credits. There is an uncredited female engineer speaking in the background at Skip Tyler's dry dock and another (non-speaking) flight attendant appears at the end, but apart from that there are no other women in the film.
  
  
• The name of the frigate that rescues the Red October's crew, the Reuben James, is from another of Tom Clancy's novels, ‘Red Storm Rising’.
  
  
• At the end of the film, Ramius quotes a poem that is attributed to Christopher Columbus. According to director John McTiernan the poem was actually written for the film by screenwriter Larry Ferguson.
  
  
• The body count of this movie is debatable because of the sinking of the V. K. Konovalov - the Alpha class submarine was intended to be operated by a crew of only 16-18 officers but in actual deployment would mostly have some 23-24 officers, as well as 4 petty officers and a cook on board. Apart from the crewmen of the Konovalov, the count is five: - Victor Putin, the political officer, the pilot and navigator of the F-14 crashing onto the Enterprise, Red October XO Vasilij Borodin, and cooks assistant/saboteur Loginov.
  
  
• The film footage of the crash aboard the carrier is actually that of an F9-F Panther of Korean War vintage.
  
  
• Navy recruiters set up booths in some theater lobbies for people to sign up to join the service, or to at least look into it.
  
  
• Jack Ryan mentions that he wrote a book about Adm. William F. Halsey. This is appropriate, as Ryan is also a professor of military history at the U.S. Naval Academy, as shown in Patriot Games (1992).
  
  
• Alec Baldwin accepted the role of Jack Ryan because Harrison Ford turned it down. Cast member Sam Neill also benefited from Ford's refusal three years later, by being cast in the lead role of Jurassic Park (1993).
  
  
• Two of the submarine captains in this film have actual Navy experience. Sean Connery was in the Royal Navy before becoming an actor. Scott Glenn spent three years in the United States Marine Corps, which falls under the Department of the Navy.
  
  

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