History Trivia / ToraToraTora

** It's often claimed that Creator/JohnFord was originally hired to direct the American segments, although this appears to be an exaggeration. According to biographer Joseph [=McBride=], Ford was interested in directing the film, but Darryl Zanuck never seriously considered hiring him since Ford was in too ill of health to take on such a large-scale project.

** Another story told about Kurosawa's involvement and firing was that he seemed to not be taking the film seriously and was acting increasingly erratic, causing massive delays. He had, according to an article in ''Military History Quarterly'', hired Japanese business executives as opposed to actual actors to play major roles, including that of Admiral Yamamoto [[note]] Kurosawa claimed this was because he believed that the business execs would bring the proper ''gravitas'' to the role, while ''Tora Tora Tora's'' producers suspected he was essentially selling plum roles in the film to gain financing for future projects[[/note]]. Further, the notoriously autocratic director started throwing temper tantrums on set, including hitting the clapboard person with a script over an unspecified slight. He also demanded changes on the sets that the audience would never even notice [[note]]on one occasion, demanding that a wardroom set be repainted from one shade of off-white to another shade that was functionally indistinguishable from it, and on another occasion, demanding the set dressers replace the books in an admiral's quarters set with different titles, on the rationale that the admiral in question wouldn't have read those books -- even though the bookcase in question would not be legible on screen[[/note]]. He began arguing with the producers about the budget. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And he started wearing a helmet on set for the hell of it]]. And with all this, after months of production, Kurosawa had managed only six minutes of footage, none of it useable. Richard Williams, after trying to work with Kurosawa, finally had to fly to Japan and fire the great director, only to have Kurosawa threaten suicide by ''seppuku'', a threat he did not carry out. The whole affair made it all to Fox's chairman, Darryl Zanuck, who came close to demanding the film become an American-only production. It was only when Williams, who championed the "tell the story from both sides" angle, reminded Zanuck that the sets built in Japan at great expense were still useable that Zanuck relented.

* EnforcedMethodActing: A radio-controlled aircraft was supposed to roll down the runway past a bunch of extras, and then blow up. The model was specifically constructed to not be able to generate enough lift to take off, and yet [[EpicFail it started to take off nonetheless]]. The model was equipped with a self-destruct that could be triggered in a case like this, but [[FromBadToWorse the detonation charge failed to halt the now runaway, and on fire, model]]. It went out of control and swerved towards the extras, who then really did start running for their lives as the completely berserk contraption smashed through a group of static mockups of other P-40s. However, because the entire accident looked on film like something that plausibly would have happened during the real attack [[note]] on film, the sequence looks like the plane was strafed just as it was about to lift off [[note]] and since nobody was killed, director Richard Fleischer decided to [[ThrowItIn keep the happy accident in the finished film]].

* EnforcedMethodActing: A radio-controlled aircraft was supposed to roll down the runway past a bunch of extras, and then blow up. The model was specifically constructed to not be able to generate enough lift to take off, and yet [[EpicFail it started to take off nonetheless]]. The model was equipped with a self-destruct that could be triggered in a case like this, but [[FromBadToWorse the detonation charge failed to halt the now runaway model]]. It went out of control and swerved towards the extras, who then really did start running for their lives. However, because the entire accident looked on film like something that plausibly would have happened during the real attack [[note]] on film, the sequence looks like the plane was strafed just as it was about to lift off [[note]] and since nobody was killed, director Richard Fleischer decided to [[ThrowItIn keep the happy accident in the finished film]].

* EnforcedMethodActing: A radio-controlled aircraft was supposed to roll down the runway past a bunch of extras, and then blow up. It went out of control and swerved toward the extras, who then really did start running for their lives.

* TheCameo: Kiyoshi Atsumi, best known as [[Film/TorasPureLove Tora-san]] cameos as a knowledgable Japanese cook who fails at clarifying the idea of the International Date Line to a shipmate.

* MultipleLanguagesSameVoiceActor: The Japanese dub offers an interesting case: All the American characters are dubbed to Japanese, while for obvious reasons the Japanese one keeps their original voices intact. The only exception on this rule was the Japanese dub voice for the Japanese ambassador in the U.S.,Kichisaburo Nomura, who was played by Shôgo Shimada in-film, but dubbed in Japanese by Creator/KiyoshiKobayashi instead. In this case, this is justified, since Nomura speaks mostly in English due to his diplomatic role.

* CastTheExpert: Jason Robards (General Short) was a Navy sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. He was not present, as his ship was out to sea at the time.

* BoxOfficeBomb: Budget, $25.5 million. Box office, $29,548,291. This film began the disintegration in the relationship between Fox chairman Darryl F. Zanuck and his son Richard. Shortly after this film, Richard fired his father's girlfriend, producer Genevieve Gilles, which led Darryl to convince the Fox board to fire Richard, which led his ex-wife and Richard's mother Virginia to convince shareholders to fire Darryl. Richard won the feud and became a long-running producer that helped the careers of Creator/StevenSpielberg, Creator/TimBurton, and other Hollywood heavyweights, while Darryl never worked in Hollywood again. It was also part of a series of Fox flops that put the studio in dire straits until ''Film/StarWars''. As for the crew of the film, it's the final co-American film co-director Kinji Fukasaku ever took part in and put dents in the careers of the writers and co-director Richard Fleischer. All this said, it would eventually be VindicatedByCable and gain notoriety for its groundbreaking visual effects.

* TheCameo: Who plays the cook who explains the International Date Line? [[TorasPureLove Tora-san!]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The movie was originally slated to be directed by British director Creator/DavidLean (American side) and beloved Japanese auteur Creator/AkiraKurosawa (Japanese side), but Lean pulled out early in production. Kurosawa continued on for a while, until he was told that the Japanese section had been shortened to 90 minutes (the script Kurosawa had written was four hours long). Despite this, Kurosawa ''did'' begin production, but was replaced after three weeks. His experiences with ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and the failure of his next film ''Dodesukaden'' led to his CreatorBreakdown in 1971.

* RealLifeWritesThePlot:
** Some sources claim one of the five [=B-17s=] used in the film actually had a landing gear failure so they rushed a film crew to the airfield to capture the emergency landing while the pilots circled to burn off fuel. Note that the footage of the actual one-wheel landing is lower quality than the rest of the film. Other sources state this is not true, however.
** The famous scene of the [=P-40=] veering out of control and plowing into the middle of a line of parked planes was an accident (it was supposed to just blow up). The stuntmen seen OutrunningTheFireball really are running for their lives.

* BackedByThePentagon: The armed forces let the filmmakers do extensive location work and numerous large scale action sequences on active military bases, even allowing the producers to build a partial replica of the USS ''Nevada'' at Battleship Row. Some scenes even had real-life military personnel in bit parts and as extras.

* BeamMeUpScotty: It makes for a great movie line but there is no evidence that Admiral Yamamoto ever said the "[[AwakeningTheSleepingGiant sleeping giant]]" quote commonly attributed to him.

* BeamMeUpScotty: It makes for a great movie line but there is no evidence that Admiral Yamamoto ever said the "sleeping giant" quote commonly attributed to him.

* BackedByThePentagon - The armed forces let the filmmakers do extensive location work and numerous large scale action sequences on active military bases, even allowing the producers to build a partial replica of the USS ''Nevada'' at Battleship Row. Some scenes even had real-life military personnel in bit parts and as extras.

* EnforcedMethodActing - A radio-controlled aircraft was supposed to roll down the runway past a bunch of extras, and then blow up. It went out of control and swerved toward the extras, who then really did start running for their lives.

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[Film/HanzoTheRazor Snake Magobei]] is Admiral Yamamoto.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The movie was originally slated to be directed by British director David Lean (American side) and beloved Japanese auteur Creator/AkiraKurosawa (Japanese side), but Lean pulled out early in production. Kurosawa continued on for a while, until he was told that the Japanese section had been shortened to 90 minutes (the script Kurosawa had written was four hours long). Despite this, Kurosawa ''did'' begin production, but was replaced after three weeks. His experiences with ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and the failure of his next film ''Dodesukaden'' led to his CreatorBreakdown in 1971.

* HeyItsThatGuy: [[HanzoTheRazor Snake Magobei]] is Admiral Yamamoto.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: The movie was originally slated to be directed by British director David Lean (American side) and beloved Japanese auteur AkiraKurosawa (Japanese side), but Lean pulled out early in production. Kurosawa continued on for a while, until he was told that the Japanese section had been shortened to 90 minutes (the script Kurosawa had written was four hours long). Despite this, Kurosawa ''did'' begin production, but was replaced after three weeks. His experiences with ''Tora! Tora! Tora!'' and the failure of his next film ''Dodesukaden'' led to his CreatorBreakdown in 1971.