* ActorAllusion: This is [[Film/OSS117CairoNestOfSpies not the first time]] Dujardin and Béjo lead a movie together.
* AlanSmithee: One of Peppy's film posters gives a director's credit to Alan Smithee.
* CastTheRunnerUp: Creator/MalcolmMcDowell was originally meant to play Clifton, but couldn't due to a scheduling conflict. He got a cameo though and very good billing.
* FakeAmerican: French-Argentine Creator/BereniceBejo as Peppy Miller. Averted by George Valentin, however, as revealed by the very last line (although his name gives away his nationality).
* FontAnachronism: The movie features an array of anachronistic and stylistically questionable type treatments. Some of these are deliberate to evoke the silent film era rather than copy it. Whether intentional or by oversight, all of the typefaces do their aesthetic and evocative duty.
* PlayingAgainstType: Dujardin, a comedian by trade, portrays George as happy-go-lucky in the beginning. But it gets progressively darker.
* ProductionPosse: Dujardin and Hazanavicius previously teamed up to make the spy satires ''Film/OSS117CairoNestOfSpies'' and ''Film/OSS117LostInRio'', and Bejo also starred in ''Nest of Spies''.
* StarringAStarAsAStar: Jean Dujardin, best known for spy parody films, plays silent film star George Valentin.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The original script was much darker, being an {{homage}} to ''Film/{{Metropolis}}'', Creator/FritzLang, and GermanExpressionism. The advent of talkies would have paralleled the rise of Nazism, culminating with [[spoiler:the main character committing suicide for real]].
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