Did You Know?

George C. Scott turned down the role of Colonel Cathcart, saying he had effectively played the same part in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

Paul Simon was originally going to be in the film, but his role was written out.

The film has one of the longest, most complex uninterrupted scenes ever made. In the scene, where two actors talking against a background, 16 of the 17 planes, four groups of four aircraft, took off at the same time. As the scene progresses, the actors entered a building and the same planes were seen through the window, climbing into formation. The problem was, for every take, the production manager has to call the planes back and made to take off again for every take of the particular scene. This was done four times.

Stacy Keach was originally cast as Colonel Cathcart when shooting started, but things did not work out, and Charles Grodin (who had already been cast as Capt. Aarfy Aardvark) was asked to take over. As the part was written for an older man, old age make-up was experimented with for a few days, until it was decided to cast Martin Balsam instead, and Grodin returned to his original part.

The film has no original musical score.

The Mexico location shooting took six months to complete because cinematographer David Watkin would only film between 2pm to 3pm to get the same lighting.

Since the filming of Catch-22 took longer than planned, Art Garfunkel wasn't able to make it back to New York in time to start writing and recording the Simon & Garfunkel album "Bridge Over Troubled Water". Angered by the delay, Paul Simon wrote the track "The Only Living Boy in New York" about the incident. The lyrics "Tom, get your plane right on time/I know your part'll go fine/Fly down to Mexico" were a thinly veiled attack aimed at Garfunkel (who was "Tom" of Simon & Garfunkel's earlier incarnation, Tom & Jerry) leaving Simon alone in New York to write the bulk of the album himself.

The squadron patch on Yossarian's leather A-2 flight jacket - a female nude riding a descending bomb, hurling a bolt of lightning - was the actual patch of Joseph Heller's 488th Bombardment Squadron (Medium), one of four B-25 squadrons (the others being the 486th, 487th, and 489th) in the 340th Bombardment Group (Medium) during World War II.

Bruce Kirby's film debut.

Stanley Kubrick was considered to direct this film.

Richard Lester was first choice to direct this film, but turned it down to direct How I Won the War.

Ironically, Stacy Keach -- who was fired by Mike Nichols and replaced by Martin Balsam in the role of Colonel Cathcart -- also was replaced in another Joseph Heller work, the play "We Bombed in New Haven", which started out as a dramatization of "Catch-22". Keach, who originated the role of Captain Starkey in the play at the Yale Repertory Theatre, was replaced by Jason Robards when it transitioned to Broadway.

The popular scene of Hungry Joe being cut in two by the airplane and falling into the water was done in two steps. In shot one, a plane runs into a breakaway dummy that was rigged to spray blood. After a cutaway, the second shot shows an actor or stuntman in front of the sky, holding a mirror in front of him angled to reflect more sky to match what is in back of him, making the top part of his body disappear. He then falls backward into the water making the trick become visible to the camera. Albert Whitlock did the post production work and rotoscope matted in more water and horizon around the legs and waist to hide the mirror and top part of the body when it was exposed. Look for the patch of slightly different colored water that appears and disappears as the legs fall in. In the commentary Mike Nichols remembers the part about using the mirror but was unaware of, or forgot about the post production finishing of the scene.