Trivia

Carl Reiner's favorite film that he's directed.

Final film of legendary costume designer Edith Head. There is a tribute to her and the personnel who worked on films from the Golden Age of Hollywood in the closing credits. Head died on 24 October 1981, a short time after production on the movie had wrapped. Fittingly, the film features many of her earlier designs in cleverly edited clips from old movies. According to Carl Reiner, Head had possession of a hat that Ava Gardner had worn and was protective of the prop. She designed a total of 20 suits to be worn by Steve Martin, in the style of those worn by Cary Grant and James Stewart during their classic-era Hollywood pictures.

The movie initially was planned by Steve Martin and Carl Reiner to be a '30s-era film titled "Depression". After Reiner incorporated some footage of a '30s star into the movie, he and Martin decided that the entire movie should be done that way and rewrote it into a mock-detective story.

Rigby Reardon (Steve Martin) tells Lana Turner he left her sitting at a counter at Schwabs. Turner is rumored to have been discovered sitting at the counter in a Schwabs drugstore.

The idea for this arose from a conversation between Carl Reiner and Steve Martin about trying to find the right vintage clip to insert into a movie. From there, the idea took shape to make an entire film out of vintage clips.