Clueless (1995)
Trivia
Alicia Silverstone (Cher) actually did not know how to correctly pronounce "Haitians" in the classroom scene. Director Amy Heckerling told the crew not to correct her because she liked it so much and wanted it to be in the film.
During the game of "Suck and Blow," the cast was unable to sustain the breath to make a real credit card pass from mouth to mouth; a prop card made of cardboard was substituted that still did not work. Holes were drilled into it to make it easier, and when this failed also, the whole cast's lips were heavily coated in chapstick to force the card to stick.
At one point, Tai (Brittany Murphy) insults Cher by calling her a virgin who can't drive. Murphy confessed later that at the time of filming, she actually was a virgin who couldn't drive.
Paul Rudd auditioned for the roles of Murray, Christian and Elton. Rudd assumed that the character of Murray was a white teenager trying to act like a rapper.
Alicia Silverstone did not have to audition for her role in this movie.
While filming, Paul Rudd was mugged and had his backpack stolen, which held his script for the movie.
Plot, characters, themes, and values are all based on Jane Austen's novel "Emma." Amy Heckerling was asked by Paramount to write a film for teenagers, and she instantly remembered the novel she read as a teenager.
The part of Mr. Hall was based on real Beverly Hills High debate teacher Herb Hall, a friend of director Amy Heckerling. As a favor, the real Herb Hall was given the part of the school Principal.
According to "As If!" a book by Jen Chaney celebrating the twentieth anniversary of this film, though many people think the costuming budget must have been high for the film, it was actually quite modest for a big blockbuster film. Costume designer Mona May wanted the girls to look like mall rats, not models, so her 63 outfit changes only cost $200,000. The biggest costume expense was the plaid Jean Paul Gaultier outfit Alicia Silverstone wears in the opening scenes, an outfit that she got to keep, along with all her outfits from the film which, as she told Entertainment Weekly magazine, she gave away to charity.
Cher's teacher comments on her report card are as follows: English Composition - excellent composition & vocabulary, Debate - unprepared & undisciplined, Bio I - wouldn't dissect a frog, Phys Ed - must learn responsibility, World History - must try harder to pay attention to current events, Geometry - nice shapes.
One of the promotional items distributed to tie in with the film was a booklet called "How to Speak Cluelessly." In it was a lexicon of many of the invented terms used for the Clueless (1995) world, some of which became part of real teen lingo at the time. An example was a "Baldwin" being a very handsome male, as in the famous sibling actors.
Stacey Dash was the oldest cast member among those who played students. She was 29 and portrayed a character almost half her age.
During the film, there are 53 different kinds of tartan/plaid used, seven of which are worn by Cher, and 12 by other major characters.
Dan Hedaya considered this movie and his role one of his favorite filmmaking experiences.
Filming began on November 21, 1994 and ended on December 31, 1994 after 1 month, 5 weeks, or 40 days of filming.
According to the script for Clueless (1995), the restaurant scenes were supposed to take place at California Pizza Kitchen, but when the CEOs of that franchise read the breadstick/penis jokes in the script, they would not allow filming to take place in their restaurants.
Although Josh is in college and is older than the other characters, who are still in high school, Stacey Dash, who plays Cher's best friend, Dionne, is actually two years older than Paul Rudd.
Scenes were included in the trailer that were not in the film. Among them is one in which Cher and Dionne are in the girls' bathroom primping when Amber walks in on them. Noting her appearance, Cher quips, "Did I miss something? Is big hair back?"
The baseball hat that Josh (Paul Rudd) wears is a KU hat for University of Kansas. He is a KU alumnus where he majored in theater and was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity. Rudd is from Kansas and graduated from Shawnee Mission West High School.
The funny little convertible car which Christian drives to Cher's house is a 1954 Nash Metropolitan.
Although with many obvious modernizations and adaptations having been made, Clueless (1995) actually does still dovetail pretty closely to the original plot and central set of characters found in Austen's novel "Emma." In terms of the cast, for instance, Cher is Emma, Josh is Mr. Knightley, Tai is Harriet Smith, Elton is Mr. Elton, Travis is Robert Martin, Christian is a loose and much more sympathetic version of Frank Churchill, and Dionne could feasibly be Mrs. Weston. Although it is also possible, given that Cher attempts to play matchmaker with the two of them, that Mr. Hall and Miss Geist could also be Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who, likewise, Emma claims to have matched.
Cher's "Haitians" speech in debate class was initially a full minute longer; it was used in its entirety as the first half of an original theatrical trailer. It was cut for the final film but featured additional comparisons to her garden party, including a rant on "mismatched chairs which was totally icky."
Actors who auditioned for this film included Reese Witherspoon for Cher, Terrence Howard for Murray, Jeremy Renner for Christian and Josh, Zooey Deschanel for Amber and Cher, Owen Wilson for Travis, Leah Remini for Tai, Seth Green for Travis, and Lauryn Hill for Dionne.
Paul Rudd and Jeremy Renner would eventually work together in two Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), playing Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Clint Barton/Hawkeye respectively (Terrence Howard also appeared in an MCU movie, Iron Man (2008), playing Rhodey but was replaced by Don Cheadle in later movies). Alicia Silverstone and Seth Green end up working together in the movie, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), playing Heather and Patrick Wisely respectively.
Paul Rudd and Jeremy Renner would eventually work together in two Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), playing Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Clint Barton/Hawkeye respectively (Terrence Howard also appeared in an MCU movie, Iron Man (2008), playing Rhodey but was replaced by Don Cheadle in later movies). Alicia Silverstone and Seth Green end up working together in the movie, Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), playing Heather and Patrick Wisely respectively.
A promo filmed for MTV showed Dionne and Cher ordering food at a diner. Their waitress was their moonlighting lesbian P.E. teacher Miss Stoger (Julie Brown). In it, they get freaked out by the idea of brine in their Caesar salad, and instead just order lemon wedges to suck on.
The high school where the students attend is "Bronson Alcott High School." Bronson Alcott was a 19th-century Transcendentalist writer, best known for starting an ultimately unsuccessful Utopian community called "Fruitlands," and for being the father of "Little Women" author Louisa May Alcott. At one time, Amy Heckerling dated Bronson Pinchot, whose middle name is "Alcott," after the author. "Bronson Alcott" is also the name of the prep school in Nat Hentoff's 1976 novel "This School is Driving Me Crazy," where the protagonist's father is headmaster.
Often referred to as the film debut of Paul Rudd, which was really Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995). Clueless was his second movie but it was released before Halloween 6, causing the confusion.
Director Amy Heckerling met with Alicia Witt, Reese Witherspoon, Keri Russell, and Tiffani Thiessen for the role of Cher. Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow were both considered for the role, but neither auditioned. Ben Affleck and Zach Braff both auditioned for Josh. Seth Green auditioned for Travis. Alanna Ubach auditioned for Tai. Terrence Howard auditioned for Murray, while Dave Chappelle also met with Heckerling to discuss the role. Jamie Walters auditioned for Christian. Sarah Michelle Gellar was offered the role of Amber, but had to turn it down when her soap opera All My Children (1970) refused to allow her time away. Jerry Orbach was offered the role of Mel Horowitz, but similarly could not get time away from his show, Law & Order (1990), while Harvey Keitel was deemed too expensive to be cast in the part.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2000 list of the 500 movies nominated for the Top 100 Funniest American Movies.
The episode of Beavis and Butt-Head (1993) that Cher and Josh watch is called Beavis and Butt-Head: The Great Cornholio (1994).
Murray has two distinct features for a high school'er--braces and a shaved head. Donald Faison revealed that the reason for the (fake) braces was to hide his small "baby teeth" and the shaved head was due to the fact that his hairline was already receding at age 18.
Included among the "1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
Cher's last name is given as Horowitz, but shown on her report card as Hamilton. This may be an in-joke, as director Amy Heckerling's previously directed Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) featured a character named Stacey Hamilton.
Jeremy Sisto and Alicia Silverstone would reunite 16 years later as love interests George Altman and Eden in the sitcom Suburgatory (2011).
Brittany Murphy and Breckin Meyer would later work together on King of the Hill (1997). They would voice the same character, Joseph Gribble. Brittany Murphy would voice him before he hit puberty and Breckin Meyer voices him after puberty. Brittany Murphy also voiced a character on that show named Luanne Platter who would sound like a Texan version of Tai Frasier.
When Cher is waiting for Christian's call, the camera angle and shot make the phone look like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey; the music playing at that point is from the same movie.
Reese Witherspoon auditioned for the lead role in Clueless at age 18. Never admitted to such until her 2020 guest appearance on the comedy podcast Smartless.
In several scenes set in the Horowitz home, a mezuzah is visible on the doorpost of the house's front door. A mezuzah is a small box containing passages from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21), which Jews traditionally affix to the door frames of their houses as a constant reminder of God's presence. Both in life and in movies, mezuzahs also function as a sign that a Jewish person occupies the house or works in the building onto which it is affixed. That, along with the facts that "Horowitz" is a traditionally Jewish name (historically denoting a Jewish person from Horovice in the region of Bohemia, now the Czech Republic) and that Cher Horowitz, her father, Mel, and her stepbrother, Josh, are all played by Jewish actors have long been taken by some fans of this movie that Cher and her family are supposed to be understood as Jewish characters.
Christian uses a lot of anachronistic slang, e.g., "are you rationed this weekend?" "I dig you," "these guys got the skinny...," etc.
This film is the template of Iggy Azalea's music video "Fancy," released in 2014.
Jamie Kennedy auditioned for the role of Travis Birkenstock.
Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd both also played superheroes in DC and Marvel films. Silverstone played Batgirl in Batman & Robin (1997) and Rudd portrayed Scott Lang in Ant-Man (2015).
At one point, Cher, Dionne and Tai gush excitedly about going to see the latest Christian Slater film. Just over twenty years later, Alicia Silverstone starred alongside Slater in King Cobra (2016).
At 20:20 in, Cher's updated report card shows her Phy Ed grade changed from a C+ to an A-. Earlier when Cher was negotiating her grades, she says her Phy Ed teacher changed her grade from a C to a B.
Alanna Ubach was considered for the role of Tai Frasier.
Included among the American Film Institute's 2002 list of 400 movies nominated for the top 100 top 100 America's Greatest Love Stories movies.
At 1:06:57 in, it is clearly a stunt double "Dionne" driving, not Stacey Dash. Alicia Silverstone (Cher) is in the backseat and Donald Faison (Murray) is in the front passenger seat.
Edward Kitsis is an assistant on this movie. He'd eventually co-create (with Adam Horowitz) the TV show, Once Upon a Time (2011). One of the actors who's appeared on the show is Sebastian Stan, where he plays Jefferson/The Mad Hatter. Paul and Sebastian end up working together in two Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: Civil War (2016) and Avengers: Endgame (2019), playing Scott Lang/Ant-Man and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier respectively.
A cover of "All By Myself" by Eric Carmen is sung by Jewel more than a year before her first hit single was released and charted ("Who Will Save Your Soul"). Her debut album "Pieces of You" had been released just a few months before Clueless came out, so her cover didn't even make the movie's official soundtrack.
Paramount produced this modernized take on Emma. Since 2020, they have also held distribution rights to the version more faithful to the novel released the year after "Clueless" after acquiring a minority stake in its distributor, Miramax, which at the time of the release of the 1996 version was owned by Disney.
Director Cameo
Amy Heckerling: makes a cameo as Miss Geist's maid of honor at the wedding scene. She is also in the bouquet-catching scene and is the source of most of the struggling.
Spoilers
In his introductory scene, Christian stands in front of a sign saying "End Discrimination." In the scene where Cher is packing for her father and is surprised by Christian's call, he is at a museum; the painting behind him is of two men affectionately in an embrace, another foreshadow of his sexuality.
The films that Christian watches on video with Cher, Some Like It Hot (1959) and Spartacus (1960), provide clues to his sexual orientation. The first movie deals with cross-dressing men (who are escaping from a mob hit). The second includes the famous scene where a Roman master (Laurence Olivier) tries to seduce his male servant (Tony Curtis). Both these movies also include Tony Curtis.
When Cher comes down the staircase in the white Calvin Klein dress and Josh suddenly looks at her in a more romantic light, the music playing is the instrumental version of "Gigi" from the film Gigi (1958). That movie is also about an older, brotherly-like character seeing a little girl transform into a beautiful young lady and falling in love with her.
The scene where Cher wanders around and realizes her true feelings for Josh as fountains erupt is borrowed from Gigi (1958), where Gaston does the same thing. The music playing when Cher stands at the top of the stairs in her white dress before her date with Christian is taken from the same movie. Gigi, incidentally, wears a white dress both times that particular theme is played.
When Christian first appears at the class, Cher has new hopes for high school boys. However, as the shot pans from her gaze to him in the doorway, just over his left shoulder on the wall in the classroom is a cutout headline from the newspaper which reads, "On the Road to Nowhere."
The book Christian is reading during class, "Junky" by William S. Burroughs, is another clue and indication of his sexual orientation, as its author had strong homosexual desires.

