Four I noticed:
* Jesus is blonde. Like really blonde.
* Is that a Hoover in the Communist household?
* The mermaid gets pregnant after a sperm whale encounters her. (She marries a whale too.)
* Hobie makes a spaghetti western.
I loved the sexual innuendo in the sailor scene too!
* Jesus is blonde. Like really blonde.
* The mermaid gets pregnant after a sperm whale encounters her. (She marries a whale too.)
Jonah and the whale! They both got Scarlett Johansen. These Coens are insane.
There are visual parallels between the scenes of whale and the submarine. The blonde-as-Jesus Burt Gurney leaps to the submarine before dropping the loot, mimicking the blonde-as-Jesus mermaid's dive to the whale before tossing away her crown. If the surfacing and submerging whale/submarine represents a vessel to another type of world, then the discarding of the money/crown represents ridding one's self of unnecessary earthly possessions, as in: rendering unto (Hail) Caesar what belongs to Caesar (Matthew 22:21). There are 12 musicians in the mermaid scene to match the number of Jewish communists/apostles.
On the topic of the blonde Jesus/mermaid/Gurney, the origin of the name Whitlock is "someone with white or fair hair", from Middle English whit ‘white’ + lock ‘curl’.
Joe Silverman (Joseph) is the foster parent to the child of Moran (Mary).
The New York based studio boss's given name is Nick, Nicholas, like the last Russian czar... The word "czar" is derived from "Caesar".
On the topic of the blonde Jesus/mermaid/Gurney, the origin of the name Whitlock is "someone with white or fair hair", from Middle English whit ‘white’ + lock ‘curl’.
Wayne Knight, playing the extra who slips Baird Whitlock a mickey, was Newman in "Seinfeld".
I thought it was Stephen Root for a minute or so too. They do kind of have the same nervous energy.
shareYou're gonna have to beat it.
She has a kind of psychiatric cabaret. Very good. There was something about Suez.
A Star is Born (1954)
Musical actors Vicki Lester and Burt Gurney both have a house at Malibu beach, where, at the end, Vicki's husband Norman Maine and Burt Gurney both "take a dive".
Marathon Man (1976)
Laurence Laurentz, repeatedly saying the line "would that it were so simple" to Hobie Doyle, to get the pronunciation right; like torture dentist Szell (Laurence Olivier), repeatedly asking Babe (Dustin Hoffman) "is it safe?", and mentioning that he is a fanatic about spoken language.
"Would that it were so simple." - "Life can be that simple: relief, discomfort; of which of these I next apply, that decision is in your hands. So, take your time. Tell me. Is it safe?"
Laurence Laurentz' efforts are fruitless (the line has to be changed), like Szell's efforts (Babe knows nothing).
Babe studies history, like the Communists in "Hail, Caesar!". His father got black-listed by McCarthy.
After the downfall of the Third Reich, Szell fled to Uruguay. - "All the Way to Uruguay"
In Auschwitz, Szell was called "the white angel", "der weiße Engel" (pronounced "angle" by William Devane). Burt Gurney's dog is named "Engels" (after Karl Marx' buddy Friedrich Engels, pronounced "angles" by one of the screenwriters).
Also, as far as I remember, there are anecdotes told by Dustin Hoffman (remember Eddie Mannix referring to Hobie Doyle as a "dust(!) actor") about Laurence Olivier trying to impart (some traditional, theatrical) acting knowledge to him.
Seinfeld (1989)
The Communists, who kidnap Baird Whitlock, want to "bring on the new man". "In pursuing our interest with vigor, we accelerate the dialectic (*) and hasten the end of history and the creation of the Newman." Wayne Knight, playing the extra who slips Baird Whitlock a Mickey, was Newman in "Seinfeld", Jerry Seinfeld's arch-enemy.
Also, in "Seinfeld" Mickey was "the little guy" (Kramer's little friend), and at the end of the episode "The Pothole" Kramer tells Newman "I gotta skedaddle", like Hobie tells Carlotta.
(*) Following Professor Marcuse's argumentation, one might get the impression, that, over the last decades, the Chinese Communists have tried to "accelerate the dialectic" ("plus make a little dough"). ;-)
Perhaps no "hidden" joke, but nevertheless worthwhile mentioning, considering the movie's McCarthy era "Red Scare" theme:
Baird Whitlock threatens the communist screenwriters: "What if I name names?" To "name names": a common phrase used with respect to testimonies before the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC). Many witnesses who refused to "name names", and also persons whose names got named (and who refused to name names by themselves), got black-listed.
Many continued to write under pseudonyms and so when those Oscars were handed out, didn't get credit. I doubt they were paid scale either.
Kirk Douglas insisted that Dalton Trumbo's name be on the credits of Spartacus even though Trumbo was blacklisted at the time.
I find it ironic that the twelve writers in Hail, Caesar are Communists.
BTW Gurney reminded me of Alan Ladd for some reason.
The "army weapons guy" meets Eddie Mannix in a Chinese restaurant ("I like this place"). After the end of the Cold War (to the present) the USofA have been outsourcing big parts of their manufacturing labor to China, including (parts of) army weapons manufacturing (like e.g. cruise missiles).
shareStupid lame, not funny jokes, sorry.
shareGeorge Orwell's "1984":
- The Lockheed man smokes Victory cigarettes. (*)
- Hobie, driving along highway 101 at the end, encounters the biggest nightmare of the upright American: Commies.
Continuity error, but maybe deliberate:
The last piece of the Communists' picture(!) puzzle changes. From the Communists' point of view it doesn't fit, from the "outside" view its shape seems to be right.
edit:
(*) rather "Viceroy". So this item can be cancelled.
Kudos to sussman. I'm truly impressed by all the knowledge you contribute here.
shareYup, really impressed with his comments about this film. Even things that seem obvious in hindsight such as the puzzle piece, didn't occur to me. I guess The Coens are very deliberate writers/directors so anything in the film serves a purpose. Though I felt I was able to get more of them from A Serious Man than Hail, Caesar!Wonder if there was more to the scarf strangling scene than just the obvious physical humour from it. Koalas are telepathic. Plus, they control the weather.
shareWonder if there was more to the scarf strangling scene than just the obvious physical humour from it.
I think the female film editor may have been a homage to Margaret Booth. Not sure if she was a chain smoker.
She died in 2002 at the age of 104. Received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in the 80s.
This in here, it's writing, and it's people reading. That threw me a little at first, but I think I get my leg upon on that. ;)
I'm just trying to spot some of the little puzzle pieces, to stay in the metaphor. ;) It's quite interesting to read, what kind of pictures evolve, when different viewers try to put the pieces together to figure out "what's going on": homage, satire, a story in favor of Christianity, a story against blind adherence to religion/ideology, so forth and whatnot. It's almost like reading the Torah/Bible or the Koran: the conclusion one comes to depends less (or at least not only) on the text/film, but more (or at least also) on the perspective or "mental state" (to use an expression employed by Johnny Caspar in "Miller's Crossing") of the reader/viewer.
"The Communist Manifesto" starts with the words "A spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of Communism". In "Hail, Caesar!" it's haunting Hollywood. When Natalie briefs Eddie Mannix about Baird Whitlock's disappearance, who has been kidnapped by Communists, a poster of the 1944 Olsen & Johnson comedy "Ghost Catchers" is hanging in the hallway they walk through.
The Communists practice cutting-edge sandwich preparation & guerilla-style dialectic acceleration. Capitol Pictures employs top-notch artistic people, like A. Harris, cinematographer of "Merrily We Dance", who seems to have joined the Communist Party not long ago (according to the member list seen in one scene, listing an Andy Harris).
On the horse pictures & sculptures in the Communists' beach house:
Latin horse = equus -> aequus = equal. Equality, something Communism is especially concerned for, and an idea also appearing in Autolycus' speech at the feet of the penitent thief: "This man was giving water to all. He saw no Roman, he saw no slave, he saw only men, weak men, and gave succor."
Tobacco trademarks of cigarettes smoked...
- ...by the Lockheed man: Viceroy. "Military Industrial Complex" controlling Uncle Sam's "colonial" territory.
- ...by the Communists: Elysian. Communists dreaming of "workers' paradise".
The trademark "Elysian" seems to be made-up. Or does/did it exist?
Disclaimer in end credits:
"This motion picture contains no visual depiction of the godhead."