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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

When Neal returns to the station to collect Del, his parting changes sides.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Hubcaps can be seen falling off the car, only to return in later shots. Further, the same hubcap can be seen falling off twice.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Continuity

The length of Del's cigarette while he's singing in the car.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

When the car catches fire there is a sign which reads "Chicago 102 miles" but they drive the car to the motel, then drive it the next morning until they are stopped and the car is impounded. Then when they are in the back of the 18 wheeler, Del looks at his watch and states that they'll be in Chicago in 3 hours.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Right after Del backs into the motel room, you can see a turn signal showing a left turn on their car, yet in the next scene we see Del using his hand for a turn signal.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

After the credits Neal's boss is still at his desk analyzing the ads, his Thanksgiving dinner sitting on his desk.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The contents of Del Griffith's large trunk/footlocker are never revealed.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Debra Lamb's role was cut from the final finished version of the film.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Del thinks about travelling to Jamaica. John Candy later did in Cool Runnings.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

One of Roger Ebert's Great Movies.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

When Del clears his sinuses in the motel room, his nose whistling sounds out the final chords to Shave and a Haircut.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Steve Martin was convinced to join the production after favoring two scenes he had read from the script; the seat adjustment-scene in the car, and the F-word tirade at the car rental desk.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

John Hughes wrote the first-draft of the screenplay in 3 days. His average writing time for a screenplay in those days was about 3-5 days with 20-some rewrites.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

John Hughes in an interview on the 'Those Aren't Pillows' DVD edition was inspired to write the film's story after an actual flight from New York to Chicago he was on was diverted to Wichita Kansas, thus taking him 5 days to get home.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

In a BBC program about playing with the Steep Canyon Rangers broadcast late 2009 in the UK, Steve Martin in a interview said that John Hughes had told him he wrote the script in 3 days.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The taxi scene was filmed on a stretch of road in Madison, Ohio.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The house used as Neal's family home is actually in Kenilworth on Warwick. The home used in "Home Alone" was on Lincoln Ave. in Winnetka, one town over.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

A scene that is not included in the movie but featured in the trailer shows Del (John Candy) in the bathroom of the first motel he and Neal (Steve Martin) are staying in. In the scene he does, among other things, an impersonation of Elvis Presley in which he sings into his hair brush.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The scenes shot at Lambert Airport in St. Louis were shot during winter but the weather was uncharacteristically warm (mid 80's F), so all the snow in the scene had to be trucked in.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Del Griffith's friend at the railroad, Bert Dingman, is a direct reference to Robert O. Dingman Jr., President of the New York and Lake Erie Railroad where the train scenes were filmed.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

In the airport scene in Wichita, when the airline employee announces that the flight has been canceled, you can see on the board behind him that the destination of the flight is "nowhere".

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The exterior of their aircraft in flight is a reuse of the 707 flying through the storm from the movie Airplane! (1980).

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

John Candy and Steve Martin eat dinner on the plane in a scene that is not in the theatrical version though it airs on the televised version. The scene ends with a long-haired passenger in front of Steve Martin letting his or her hair cascade down onto his brownie, completely covering it. No longer hungry, John Candy fishes through the hair to retrieve and eat it.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

The green convertible is a 1986 Chrysler LeBaron Town and Country, with a 2.2 Turbo engine, it was modified for the film, including the following Dodge 600 parts: tail lights, steering wheel, and owner's manual (that can be seen in the glove compartment when Neil puts his wallet in there) the trunk was off of an older K-car convertible: no third brake light, and the luggage rack that was not offered in 1986 but was on older ones

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

John Hughes shot over 600,000 feet of film, almost twice the industry average. The rumored three-hour version of the film does indeed exist, although not in order - moreover it's a mess of footage that would take "months, maybe even years" according to Hughes to transform into an actual film. It is locked away in a Paramount vault, and according to Hughes, most of it has probably deteriorated by now.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

John Hughes' original choice for the train station and platform was the station in Kankakee, Illinois, 60 miles south of Chicago. The cast and crew were in town for a week waiting for weather cold enough to make snow... and several interior scenes were filmed at an abandoned warehouse using a "cover set".

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

In a television version of the film, there is added footage during the New York-Chicago/Wichita flight where Del and Neal try to eat in flight.

„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Although it's not included in the theatrical or the network cuts, a shot of Del Griffith brushing his teeth was included on ads for the network version.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

Neal's house was also a set built from scratch, consisting of seven rooms and taking five months to complete. It ended up costing $100,000, which angered Paramount executives and caused turmoil on the set.

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„Planes, Trains & Automobiles“ Film Facts

No transportation company wanted to appear inept or deficient in any way, so crews had to rent twenty miles of train track and refurbish old railroad cars, construct a set that looked like an airline terminal, design a rent-a-car company logo and uniforms, and rent 250 cars for the infamous Rent-a-Car sequence.