Groundhog Day

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Groundhog Day Trivia

Among Phil's books in the coffee shop are "Treasury of the Theatre: From Agamemnon to A Month in the Country" by John Gassner (Simon & Schuster, 1964), and "Johann Strauss: Father and Son, a Century of Light Music" by H.E. Jacob (Greystone Press, 1939). The classical piano piece that draws his attention in the same scene is Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, K. 545.
The scene where Bill Murray gets out of the news van and talks to the state trooper was filmed on the Amstutz Expressway under the Grand Avenue overpass just outside of downtown Waukegan, IL. You can see the Waukegan business district in some of the shots. The Amstutz Expressway was also used for the filming of the big chase scene in the The Blues Brothers.
Premiere voted this movie as one of "The 50 Greatest Comedies Of All Time" in 2006.
Debbie and Fred's last names are given briefly as "Kleiser".
Harold Ramis kept Bill Murray's overcoat.
According to director Harold Ramis, most of the times when he tried to explain a scene to Bill Murray, Murray would interrupt and ask, "Just tell me - good Phil or bad Phil?"
One of the groundhog officials is Brian Doyle-Murray, one of Bill Murray's five brothers.
The scene where Phil picks up the alarm clock and slams it onto the floor didn't go as planned. Bill Murray slammed down the clock but it barely broke, so the crew bashed it with a hammer to give it the really smashed look. The clock actually continued playing the song like in the movie.
Harold Ramis considered Chevy Chase, Steve Martin and John Travolta for the role of Phil Connors, but he considered them as "far too nice" compared to Bill Murray.
The "clocks" restaurant in Woodstock, IL is now a Starbucks.
The interiors of Bill Murray's room at the bed and breakfast were filmed in an empty warehouse in Cary, Illinois.
Bill Murray was bitten by the groundhog twice during shooting.
In the penultimate encounter between Connors and annoying insurance salesman Ned Ryerson, Bill Murray was ad-libbing when he tells Ned, "I don't where you're headed, but can you call in sick?" and causes Ned to run away.
There are exactly 38 days depicted in this film either partially or in full.
The song that plays over parts of the opening and closing credits is "Weatherman", co-written by 'George Fenton (I)' and director Harold Ramis.
At one point in chase scene involving the red Cadillac Eldorado, Bill Murray and friends were to race along the sidewalk in front of the movie theater, barely missing the ticket booth, which was still occupied. The scene was filmed, but left on the cutting room floor.
The French poem Phil recites in the German restaurant was written by Danny Rubin, based on the lyrics of Jacques Brel's "Bachelor's Dance". Translated into English the poem reads: The girl I will love / is like a fine wine / that gets a little better / every morning.
Since the film's release, the town of Punxatawney has now become a major tourist attraction.
Despite the fact that this was filmed in the standard spherical format, "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.
The concept has since been borrowed in other films, including the Disney cartoon Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas (1999) (V), the TV show Day Break and the Adam Sandler comedy, 50 First Dates.
After its release, several writers emerged, claiming that the story was stolen from their idea. Science-fiction author Richard Lupoff claimed that it was a rip-off from his short story '12:01pm', whilst Ken Grimwood - author of 'Replay' - was another.
Tori Amos was considered for the role of Rita.
When Phil is explaining to Rita his experiences he first says "I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, frozen" and so on. Those were all methods used by the assassins of Russian mystic Grigory Rasputin, but (with the exception of electrocution) were not seen done to Phil.
Originally, Phil was supposed to murder the groundhog in his lair. This was changed, however, since it seemed too much like Caddyshack.
In one scene, Connors throws himself from the bell tower of a high building. This building is actually an opera house in Woodstock, Illinois. Local legend has it that a ghost of a young girl haunts the building since a girl once fell off of the balcony section inside the opera house and died.
The store Lloyds - always seen in the background in the scenes where Bill Murray encounters Stephen Tobolowsky - tried to sue the production for several thousand dollars for lost business, a rather spurious claim seeing as their suit exceeded the store's average earnings.
Director Harold Ramis originally wanted Tom Hanks for the lead role, but decided against it, saying that Hanks was "too nice".
Harold Ramis has stated that the inspiration for this movie was NOT the 1905 novel "The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" by P.D. Ouspensky, but many others think that it was. Ramis made this denial within his contributions to a jacket blurb for one edition of the Ouspensky book. In the book, Osokin is given the opportunity to live his life over again by a magician... and Osokin takes him up on the offer, only to make the same mistakes all over again. Eventually he reaches the point in time where he met the magician, who explains to Osokin that he cannot change the recurring wheel that is "this trap called life"... and that Osokin must learn to sacrifice in order to escape it, to find his salvation.
Andie MacDowell asked Harold Ramis if she could speak with her normal (and rather heavy) North Carolina accent.
On the DVD, Harold Ramis states that the original idea was for him to live February 2nd for about 10,000 years. Later he says that Phil probably lived the same day for about 10 years.
Andie MacDowell was hired on the basis of her performance in Michael Lindsay-Hogg's film, The Object of Beauty (1991).
The interior scenes of the Cherry Street bed and breakfast were not filmed inside the actual house. The only times the crew entered the house at all were to turn on lamps for the proper lighting effects needed for the exterior shots.
Phil at the piano teacher's house, when he is fumblingly playing Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", is actually Bill Murray playing. He does not read music, but he learned that much of the song by ear. Sergei Rachmaninoff's "Rhapsody on a Theme by Paginini", specifically its 18th Variation, was also used in another time fantasy movie, Somewhere in Time.
On February 2 1993 the sun did not rise until 7:25am in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania so the film is technically inaccurate - it would still have been dark at 6am.
Bill Murray quotes lines from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Work Without Hope": "All Nature seems at work; slugs leave their lair, The bees are stirring; birds are on the wing, And winter, slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of spring; And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing, Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing."
One of Roger Ebert's Great Movies.
Stephen Tobolowsky, who played Ned "the head" Reyerson the insurance agent was the honorary grand marshal in Punxsutawney, PA on Feb. 2nd, 2010. During his speech on stage he performed the "whistling belly button" act he refers to in the film.
According to the website Wolf Gnards, Bill Murray spends 8 years, 8 months and 16 days trapped in Groundhog Day.
Early drafts of the script explained the cause of Phil Connors' weird experience: a disaffected ex-lover called Stephanie cast a spell on him to teach him a lesson.
A family of groundhogs was actually raised for the production.
The idea comes from 'The Gay Science', a famous book by Friedrich Nietzsche. In his book, Nietzsche gives a description of a man who is living the same day over and over again.
In the original version of the script by Danny Rubin, Phil Connors was already trapped inside Groundhog Day at the start of the story. We joined him on a typical day, with the audience wondering how he knew everything that was going to happen. Harold Ramis promised not to change this aspect of the script, but ultimately decided to do so.
Unlike the scenes for the bed and breakfast, the scenes at the piano teacher's home were indeed filmed inside the actual house, right in the front room as it appears in the film.
Director Harold Ramis was surprised to find that his film was attracting a lot of attention from various religious groups, meditative gurus and other parties who were into metaphysics. Ramis was particularly surprised as he was expecting a backlash against him.
According to an interview with Harold Ramis, he and Bill Murray argued over the tone of the film. Murray wanted the film to be more philosophical while Ramis wanted it to be more comedic. The two argued throughout the production and have not spoken to each other since.
Bill Murray was undergoing a divorce at the time of filming and was obsessing about the film. He would ring Harold Ramis constantly, often in the early hours of the morning. Ramis eventually sent writer Danny Rubin to sit with Murray and iron out all his anxieties, one of the reasons why Murray stopped speaking to Ramis for several years.
The song that greets Bill Murray every morning - "I've Got You Babe" by Sonny and Cher - was in Danny Rubin's original script from the very beginning.
Bill Murray and Harold Ramis have both been honorary grand marshals for the Groundhog Day celebrations in Punxsatawney, PA.
Chosen to be preserved by the National Film Registry in 2007.
Following the film's success, the term Groundhog Day has now entered into common parlance.