Rain Man

Plot

Selfish yuppie Charlie Babbitt’s father left a fortune to his savant brother Raymond and a pittance to Charlie; they travel cross-country.

Goofs

Continuity: The salt and pepper shakers at the first diner.

Continuity: In Raymond’s final evaluation scene, the tray of glasses in the middle of the table moves back and forth.

Crew or equipment visible: Reflection of crew members on the hood of the Buick when Raymond is about to drive in Las Vegas.

Continuity: When Susanna gets mad at Charlie and storms out of the tub, Charlie’s sweats have a different pattern of water splashes than when she goes out the door.

Revealing mistakes: When Charlie, Raymond, Susanna are at the first hotel and Susanna gets mad and storms out. When she slams the door it is obvious that it is a set because of the way the door and walls wobble.

Continuity: In the laundromat the dryer on the left of Raymond is closed/open between shots.

Factual errors: There have been eight fatal crashes involving QANTAS aircraft (all of them between 1927 and 1951).

Continuity: Raymond takes pictures throughout the movie with a 126 film camera. We see, under the credits, the pictures he had taken and they are all rectangular in shape, when 126 film makes square pictures.

Continuity: When railing about having to buy his underwear at a certain Kmart store in Cincinnati, Raymond gives two different addresses for the same store – 200 Oak and 400 Oak.

Plot holes: According to Raymond’s rigidly set routines, he must watch “People’s Court” every day at the same time. But while traveling on the road, this is theoretically impossible, since “The People’s Court” aired in syndication – different cities aired the show at different times. (Also, crossing three time zones didn’t seem to affect his schedule in any way either.)

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): While watching Charlie play blackjack, one of the casino security officers says that “no one can count through a six deck shoe”. In fact, this is quite possible for someone with just basic math skills to do using the “hi-lo” counting method. A security officer of any major casino should know this.

Factual errors: The story line states that 8,095 Buick Roadmaster Convertibles were made for 1949. This incorrect; the actual total is 8,244.

Crew or equipment visible: When Charlie, Raymond and Susanna are in the casino on the way to Raymond’s date, just before Charlie is asked to see head of security you can see in the mirrored pillar the reflection of a woman motioning extras to walk past the camera.

Continuity: At the blackjack table after Raymond “takes” Charlie’s queen, Charlie doubles down with more chips than he originally bet. Double down bets are limited to the amount the player bet originally; you can double down for less than you originally bet, but never for more.

Factual errors: While in the doctor’s office, Raymond gives the square root of 2130 as 46.15192304. The square root of 2130, however, is irrational and therefore never repeats its pattern or terminates. Therefore, if Raymond were able to do square root approximations in his head (and I guess that’s possible for someone if his ability), he would not have truncated the decimal where the calculator did.

Errors in geography: Charlie and Raymond are driving east down Columbia Parkway. They are supposed to be heading to California. California is west. Charlie and Raymond are driving in the wrong direction.

Trivia

The script originally had Raymond as happy and friendly, but after an initial reading Dustin Hoffman successfully lobbied for Raymond to be a withdrawn autistic.

Steven Spielberg considered directing. He began making notes in order to prepare for the project. The reason he backed out is because his friend George Lucas needed him to start work on the third Indiana Jones film. So Spielberg left the project and gave his notes to Barry Levinson.

After being interviewed by the psychiatrist, Raymond (Hoffman) leans his head against Charlie’s and says “My main man Charlie”. This was unscripted, and improvised by Hoffman.

Raymond states that his underwear is from the K-Mart on Oak and Burnett. This address is actually for the Vernon Manor Hotel in Cincinnati, the hotel where Charlie, Raymond and Suzanna stay in the beginning of the movie.

Raymond memorizes a phone book up to the names Marsha and William Gottsegen — Dustin Hoffman’s real-life in-laws.

For in-flight viewing, several airlines deleted the sequence in which Raymond reels off statistics on airline accidents.

Early in the film, when the lawyer is reading the will to Charlie, Charlie says “I definitely got the rose bushes, I have definitely got the rose bushes.” This foreshadows Raymond’s extensive use of the word “definitely” later on.

Jake Hoffman, the boy at the pancake counter, is Dustin Hoffman’s son.

Dustin Hoffman originally wanted Bill Murray to play Charlie.

Hoffman was originally supposed to play Charlie, but he wanted to play Raymond. Raymond was also supposed to be mentally retarded, but Hoffman changed it to an autistic savant.

Hoffman fought for the ending where Raymond goes back to Wallbrook, even though the screenwriters both wanted him to end up with Charlie. Hoffman thought it wouldn’t be true to Raymond’s character if they had him stay.

J.T. Walsh was originally supposed to play the psychiatrist at the end of the movie. When he couldn’t, Levinson filled in, after Hoffman suggested it. Levinson said if he didn’t like the way it looked, he would have someone else film it. He ad-libbed repeatedly to “push Cruise’s buttons”.

The script was originally written with Dennis Quaid and Randy Quaid in mind.

Jack Nicholson turned down the part of Raymond.

“Wallbrook” is actually Saint Anne’s, a convent that houses over 200 nuns.

Cruise’s wearing Ray Bans boosted sales of that style 15%.

During the shooting of the casino scenes, Hoffman would go off and play games like blackjack. After production was halted to look for him, someone was assigned to watch him during takes.

Cruise always wanted to rehearse while filming. He and Hoffman rehearsed while driving to the set, and in their trailers during takes. They frequently switched roles.

The scene in the airport was cut by most airlines on their plane trips… except Qantas. They even promoted one of the movie’s writers to first class once when he traveled on their airline.

Levinson turned down the movie when it was first offered to him. He made Good Morning, Vietnam instead. After several directors backed out later, however, he took it on.

The Amarillo, Texas motel scene was actually filmed at the Big 8 Motel in El Reno, Oklahoma. The motel maintains a sign used in the film that reads: “Amarillo’s Finest.” Guests sometimes request to stay in the same room where Raymond and Charlie stayed, room #117.

The character of Charlie Babbitt was originally written as a 56-year-old.

The movie playing on the TV when Raymond walks in on Charlie and Susanna’s lovemaking is Sweet Smell of Success.

Barry Levinson admitted that Ray’s comment about Qantas being the only aircraft company to never have had a fatal crash was made up, and that he didn’t know if this was true. In reality, Qantas has had eight crashes, all prior to the making of the film, but they were all propeller-driven planes, not jets.

The radio station slogan that Raymond is so fond of repeating, “97X Bam! – The future of rock and roll”, is from a real independent Ohio radio station, WOXY. The station still fields questions about the movie.

During filming, Dustin Hoffman was unsure of the film’s potential and his own performance. Three weeks into the project, Hoffman wanted out, telling director Barry Levinson, “Get Richard Dreyfuss, get somebody, Barry, because this is the worst work of my life.” Hoffman would nab his second Best Actor Oscar for his work.

During filmimg, both Hoffman and Cruise doubted the movie’s potential and jokingly called it, “Two Schmucks in a Car”.

Director Cameo: [Barry Levinson] psychiatrist determining if Raymond should stay with Charlie or not.

Reportedly one of Princess Diana’s favorite films.

Director Trademark: [Barry Levinson] Ralph Tabakin (Shift Boss) has appeared in every Levinson picture from Diner to Liberty Heights.

Dustin Hoffman was originally to play the part of Charlie Babbit, but after being moved to tears seeing a “savant” named Leslie Lemke (who is blind, retarded, and has cerebral palsy) play full concertos on the piano by ear, he decided to play the part of Raymond instead.

In one scene, Raymond rattles off the lifetime statistics of former Cincinnati Reds first baseman Ted Kluszewski, during which he says “traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Harry ‘Suitcase’ Simpson.” This is not correct. Kluszewski was traded from the Reds to the Pirates for Dee Fondy; he was later traded from the Pirates to the White Sox for Suitcase Simpson.

The elderly man in the waiting room who talks on and on about the Pony Express is Bryon P. Caunar, an 89-year-old local who was in the waiting room when the crew arrived to film there. He got to talking on his favorite subject, the Pony Express, and director Barry Levinson got such a kick out of it that he let Caunar keep on talking as the cameras rolled; all his dialog was spontaneous and not scripted.

The building in the back of the “tree lined” path is actually a former seminary and is now a retirement center for Catholic priests in West-Central Ohio.

The script originally called for two farm kids, but after Catherine Dougherty brought six of her seven sons to audition for the part, the script was re-written to include the six boys. The boys also have an older brother and one younger sister.

The character of Raymond Babbitt was inspired by real-life American savant Kim Peek, born 1952, whom Rain Man writer Barry Morrow first met in 1986. When Barry Morrow won an Oscar for the screenplay of “Rain Man” in 1989, he gave his Oscar trophy to Kim Peek.

Holds the unique distinction of being the only film to have won the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear and a best picture Academy Award.

Dustin Hoffman spent a lot of time with Kim Peek, who inspired the character and this movie. Being so impressed with Mr. Peek, he made his caretaker promise that he would “share [Kim] with the world.” Since then Kim Peek has been going all over the world impressing people with his incredible memory and ability to recall minute details from centuries of history.

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