"Nods" in Movies

In the movie Grease, they do a nod to the 1950s by casting actors who were well known in that time period: Sid Caesar, Eve Arden, Frankie Avalon, Joan Blondell, Edd Byrnes, Dody Goodman

What are some other movies that do a nod?

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Mel Brooks' SILENT MOVIE only has one line of audible dialogue; spoken by Marcel Marceau, of course.

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The card players in Sunset Boulevard are all former silent film stars.

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There's a ton a film that have nods to French New Wave Cinema:

The Truth About Charlie- This Charade remake gets more into the Paris of the period that first film was made. Charles Aznavour of Shoot the Piano Player makes an appearance, as does Anna Karina, and Agnes Varda

Potiche- This period political drama is extremely playful with the occupation of the film's matriarch Catherine Deneuve, a woman trying to run an umbrella factory when her husband takes ill. A definite nod to her in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

Pulp Fiction- Pulp Fiction is an homage to many things but the most visible is the wig Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace wears; that is the same hairdo Anna Karina had in those early Godard films. Plus the famous dance sequence is a nod to Karina's non-stop dancing in Vivre Sa Vie.

Frances Ha- The film being in black and white is not just a stylistic choice but is stylistically tied to early French New Wave such as the jump cuts and editing. There's also a poster of Truffaut's Small Change seen in the film along with using music directly from, The 400 Blows, one of the most influential French New Wave films.

There's actually quite a ton of these but those immediately spring to mind.

The moment post-modernism happened, I think there became an infinite amount of films that had 'nods'. Brian DePalma's whole filmography is pretty much that.

And ever one to pat itself on the back as much as send itself up, Disney feature animation has "nodded" from one film to another with either visual cameos in the background or audio references. It's a long list.


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Then I'd add Jaclyn Smith's cameo in the 2nd Charlie's Angels movie as a nod to the original TV series.

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Pulp Fiction is an homage to many things but the most visible is the wig Uma Thurman's Mia Wallace wears; that is the same hairdo Anna Karina had in those early Godard films.

And, of course, that hairstyle is a nod to Louise Brooks (specifically her hairstyle in PANDORA'S BOX), Karina's character in VIVRE SA VIE being modeled on Brooks' character. (The Cahiers du Cinema crowd also being largely responsible from rescuing Brooks and her films from obscurity in the fifties and sixties)

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Speilberg and Lucas always nod to each other movies Elliot plays with Star Wars Figures and in Temple of Doom Indy is seen walking by a bar called Club Obi-Wan.

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Airplane! took a lot from The High and the Mighty, the Airport films, and Zero Hour! but casting Robert Stack in particular, who seemed to play a lot of pilots in his film career but most notably as John Wayne's co-pilot who had a nervous breakdown during that whole in The High and The Mighty, was in it. Robert Hays' character in those sweating scenes was pretty much playing Stack and Dana Andrews (who bore the name Ted Stryker to Hays' Ted Striker).

Updated On: 2/13/14 at 06:26 PM

I think one of the best "nods" ever on TV is the final moment of the "Newhart" series when Bob wakes up next to Suzanne Pleshette from The Bob Newhart Show.

That was brilliant, and such a great surprise.

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I know we're moving away from casting to other "nods," so I have one, too ...

A really powerful image in "Pleasantville" is the black & white courtroom scene toward the end with all the "colored" people sitting in the balcony. It's a shot taken directly from "To Kill a Mockingbird," where the African Americans are all sitting in the balcony for Tom Robinson's trial.

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Airplane! does a Spielberg nod in it's opening with the plane's tail fin protruding from the clouds to the Jaws theme.

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Rapunzel from TANGLED is in the crowd at the coronation in FROZEN.