Catch-22

Top 10 Fun Facts

1. Actor George C. Scott was approached to play the role Colonel Cathcart in "Catch 22" He said no as it was too similar to his role in "Dr. Strangelove" or "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." Actor Martin Balsam was delighted to fill the role.
2. Paul Simon of Simon & Garfunkel was originally going to be in the film, but his role was written out. Art Garfunkel was kept in. Maybe it was the hair.
3. Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" would not have been the same if it weren't for the film "Catch 22." Filming took longer than planned and Art Garfunkel wasn't able to make it back to New York in time to start writing and recording the album so Paul Simon was left on his own to write most of it.
4. Paul Simon wrote the song "The Only Living Boy in New York" out of anger of being left on his own to write the next Simon and Garfunkel album while his partner was filming "Catch 22" in Mexico. Sometime good comes from a bad situation.
5. "Catch 22" Second Unit Director John Jordan was not only stubborn he must have had a death wish. Not wearing a harness made that wish come true as he lost his grip and fell 4,000 feet to his death.
6. "Catch 22" has the honor of being the first American film to show an actor on the toilet. It was Martin Balsam, playing opposite Anthony Perkins. The first American film to show a toilet was "Psycho." It also starred Martin Balsam and Anthony Perkins. There was no toilet humor in either film.
7. Talk about switching parties. In a scene in Sgt. Towser's office a painting of FDR changes from FDR to Churchill to Stalin.
8. A cool Million is what Mike Nichols got paid for directing in 1970. That would be almost $6 Million today. Money's just not what it used to be.
9. In one scene in "Catch 22," 1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder has an egg in his hand while he explains the profits that could be made. Audience members were not cracked to note the egg's sudden disappearance as the character began walking away.
10. To capture a particular scene in "Catch 22," the production manager ordered several planes to go back and take off again and again...and again and again...for a total of four times. This probably didn't make the production manager popular, but it did create one of the longest, most complex uninterrupted scenes ever made on film.

Cast

Crew