Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday!! It’s hot as hell and I wanted to choose a film this week that showcased that. Today is dedicated to one of the best and craziest vampire flicks, From Dusk Till Dawn! So, watch out for green blood, grab your stake-hammer, and enjoy these fun pictures and bits of trivia!!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com, Facebook.com, and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• George Clooney (Seth Gecko) improvised his line, “No thanks. I already had a wife.” The film’s director, Robert Rodriguez didn’t intend to include it in the final cut. However, the studio included the line in the trailer, so he felt obligated to keep it in the film.
• Salma Hayek (Santanico Pandemonium) didn’t have a choreographer for her character’s famous dance. She felt that you can’t choreograph the live snake she had around her neck. Robert Rodriguez encouraged her to just feel the music and dance to it. He later said the same thing to Jessica Alba for her dance scene in Sin City.
• Salma Hayek had a severe fear of snakes and she refused to even be near them. When she read the script, she knew her phobia would prevent her from taking the role. Robert Rodriguez tricked her, claiming that Madonna was ready to nab the part. So, Hayek spent two months with therapists to help her overcome her fears.
• The vampires’ blood was green in order for the filmmakers to get this film past the censors.
• When Sex Machine (Tom Savini) was fighting with the other characters after he was turned into a vampire, Tom Savini actually punched some of the actors, including George Clooney.

• Quentin Tarantino (Richard Gecko) originally gave the script to make-up effect technician, Robert Kurtzman in the hopes that he’d direct it. Kurtzman couldn’t commit to directing at the time, so Tarantino approached Robert Rodriguez, who eagerly signed on.
• When we see Cheech Marin as the customs agent at the border, if you look closely, you’ll notice his badge says “Oscar Marin,” which is the name of Cheech’s real life father, who was an LAPD officer.
• The title of the film was taken from the signs found in drive-ins that indicated the length of the shows, running “from dusk till dawn.”
• The brand of the fast food that Seth brings back to the motel is Big Kahuna Burger, the same fast food that was eaten in Pulp Fiction.
• Quentin Tarantino was originally doing to direct the film himself. However, he decided not to so he could focus more on the screenplay and his role as Richard Gecko.

• The band that plays in the Titty Twister is called Tito & Tarantula, featuring Robert Rodriguez. Oingo Boingo drummer, Johnny ‘Vatos’ Hernandez was also featured.
• After everything that happened with Natural Born Killers, Quentin Tarantino refused to work with anyone associated with that film. He made an exception with Juliette Lewis (Kate Fuller) for this film because they were good friends.
• Originally the massacre and following fight scenes were a lot gorier and showed a lot more deaths of both vampires and humans. A lot of it had to be cut both for pacing and rating.
• Antonio Banderas, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, James Woods, and Robert De Niro were all considered for the role of Seth Gecko. Travolta was the only one who downright rejected the film, saying he wasn’t interested in doing a vampire film. He instead chose to do Pulp Fiction. The rest of the actors had to decline the role due to their own scheduling conflicts.
• Originally, Santanico Pandemonium was named “Blonde Death.” Quentin Tarantino changed this character because he wanted a Latino/Mexican star. He chose Salma Hayek after seeing her in Desperado. The name “Santanico Pandemonium” came from the title of a gory Mexican horror movie, Satanic Pandemonium.

• This was Quentin Tarantino’s first paid writing gig. He was paid $1,500 for this script.
• Because Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez were fans of John Carpenter and his work, they wanted to find a way to pay homage to him. They accomplished this by having Scott Fuller (Ernest Liu) wear a “Precinct 13” on his shirt as a nod to Assault On Precinct 13.
• George Clooney was paid $250,000 for his work on the film.
• Right after he saw Once Were Warriors, George Clooney decided he wanted his character, Seth to have a tattoo.
• George Clooney was picked for the film partly due to his work on ER. Quentin Tarantino liked the irony that Clooney went from saving people at the E.R. to playing a character who sends people to the E.R..

• The exterior of the Titty Twister burned down at one point during filming, causing delays. Other things that caused delays include dust storms and threat of union action, because they were shooting with a non-union crew.
• In the script, Santanico Pandemonium danced to a recording of Down In Mexico by The Coasters. During filming, Robert Rodriguez changed it to a live performance of After Dark by Tito & Tarantula. Tarantino later used Down In Mexico for a dance scene in Death Proof.
• Quentin Tarantino wrote the script as a way to showcase the talents of special effects company, KNB. In return, KNB provided the special effects for the ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs, free of charge.
• Some of the body parts were recycled from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s previous films.
• Kelly Preston was introduced to Quentin Tarantino through her husband, John Travolta on the set of Pulp Fiction. After that, she was offered the role of the newscaster in this film.

• The Titty Twister set was actually built in a desert in California.
• The Fullers were named after writer and director, Samuel Fuller, who was one of the primary influences on Quentin Tarantino’s style of “pulp” cinema.
• Sex Machine’s use of a whip against the vampires is a reference to the legendary vampire killer whip in Castlevania.
• Sex Machine’s vampire make-up took about 3 hours to apply.
• The Mexican criminal hideaway, El Ray was taken from Jim Thompson’s novel, The Getaway. Funny enough, El Ray was omitted from both the 1972 and 1994 film adaptations of the book.

• According to Robert Rodriguez, the famous Ezekiel speech spoken by Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction was originally written for Harvey Keitel’s character, Jacob Fuller, in this film.
• Renny Harlin and Tony Scott were the first who showed interest in directing this film. Scott previously worked with Quentin Tarantino on True Romance. Harlin later stated that the script felt like a B-movie, so he ended up turning it down.
• The characters of Sex Machine and Frost (Fred Williamson) were originally written the other way around. Sex Machine was the muscular, scarred, leather-wearing biker, and Frost was the more slender (yet deadly) individual.
• Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi were both approached to play Pete Bottoms, but neither could fit it into their schedules, so the part went to John Hawkes.
• It was this film that inspired Joel Schumacher to cast George Clooney in Batman & Robin.

• In Brazilian Portuguese, this franchise is referred to as A Drink In Hell.
• Kelly Preston plays a newscaster interviewing John Saxon (FBI Agent Stanley Chase) after Seth and Richard’s daring escape. Preston and Saxon passed away in the same month in 2020, just 2 weeks apart.
• Richard’s broken glasses are an homage to the poster of Straw Dogs.
• William Sadler was originally cast as FBI Agent Stanley Chase before it went to John Saxon.
• The blonde hostage at the beginning of the film, Aimee Graham later worked with Quentin Tarantino on Jackie Brown and his CSI directed episode, Grave Danger.

• There was a special effect where one of the stripper vampires opened her stomach like a mouth and bit the head off one of the bar patrons. The effect was so graphic, that Quentin Tarantino didn’t even want to see it, so it was ultimately cut.
• Some of the growling noises of the vampire creature that Sex Machine turned into were provided by Robert Rodriguez’s baby son, Rocket Rodriguez, who was just learning to talk at the time.
• For the big climactic vampire showdown, only 6 full-body vampire suits could be made due to the strict budget. The same 6 actors play all the vampires getting killed over and over.
• In the original script, all of the Fullers and both Gecko brothers survived the whole ordeal. This was changed to only one from each group surviving, because he felt it’d be more exciting with victims.
• Michael Parks plays the same character, Earl McGraw in multiple films. Since he dies in this film, that means the events of this film take place AFTER both Kill Bill films, Death Proof, and Planet Terror.

• Sex Machine’s crotch revolver was considered a bad idea by many, because the recoil would be like punching yourself in the groin. Tom Savini justified the weapon by explaining that during his time in the army in the Vietnam War, they tested the recoil of an M16 by placing it on various parts of their bodies, including their chins and groins, with no injury whatsoever.
• Sex Machine speculates that since vampires had such soft flesh, it’d be possible to rip the head right off of one. Later, Frost tells a story of killing an entire Viet Cong patrol with his bayonet and getting his rifle covered in blood and flesh halfway up the barrel. They ended up foreshadowing their own fates in these moments.
• Erik Estrada was lined up to play Carlos, Seth’s contact at the end of the film before Cheech Marin stepped in.
• Richard doesn’t have a lot of lines in the film. Quentin Tarantino didn’t realize this until much later. He felt it was odd that his character was so quiet, but it was too late to re-write anything.
• Frost had the quickest transition time into a vampire after being bitten. It only took about 2 minutes.

• In the script, Frost was originally supposed to face off against Razor Charlie (Danny Trejo) and Sex Machine was supposed to flip the table over and throw 4 vampires through the legs.
• When Seth threatens Jacob at the beginning of the film, he threatens to shoot him in the face. When he becomes a vampire, his son, Scott ends up shooting him in the face.
• The film’s special make-up effects supervisor, Howard Berger plays the vampire who ends up biting Sex Machine.
• The film’s executive producer, Lawrence Bender can be seen sitting in the first booth at the diner where we first meet the Fullers.
• Makeup effects guru and this film’s make-up effects supervisor, Greg Nicotero plays the biker who had his beer stolen by Sex Machine. He had another scene where his head was bitten off by Santanico Pandemonium, but it ended up being cut.