Catch-22 Tidbits

The Book and Author Joseph Heller

• The book Catch-22 was released in 1961. It has been hailed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th Century. It is layered and clever and funny and confusing and very difficult to make into a movie.

• Author Joseph Heller was a 12th Air Force B-25 bombardier assigned to the 340th Bomb Group and based on Corsica and flew sixty combat missions. He stated on a number of ocassions that his book is based less on World War II than on 1950s Cold-War America.

• A number of incidents in the book were drawn directly from Heller's wartime experiences, including the scene in the rear of the plane with the injured gunner. Though the final part of the scene was drawn from another incident that did not involve Heller, he had personal knowledge of it. Heller died in 1999.

The Movie Production

• The movie was produced by John Calley and Martin Ransohoff. It was directed by Mike Nichols (The Graduate) and was conceived with a budget of $17 million (that would be $105 million in 2009 dollars).

• The novel was adapted for the screen by writer/actor Buck Henry. Buck Henry has had a long and noted career; prior to his screenplay for Catch-22 he was known for his screenplay for The Graduate (also directed by Mike Nichols) and his work on the TV series Get Smart. Henry also had a role in the movie as Lt. Col. Korn. Trying to adapt the novel would be a thankless job, and to Henry's credit he does a very credible job. It even earned Heller's endorsement, something that had to be difficult given the scope of the novel and how it had to be trimmed for the screenplay.

• The studio constructed the working airfield set at Guaymas, Sonora (Mexico) for $1 million ($6.2 million in 2009 dollars).

• The film has no background music.

• From Internet Movie Data Base: The film has one of the longest, most complex uninterrupted scenes ever made. In the scene, where two actors talking against a background, 16 of the 17 planes, four groups of four aircraft, took off at the same time. As the scene progresses, the actors entered a building and the same planes were seen through the window, climbing into formation. The problem was, for every take, the production manager has to call the planes back and made to take off again for every take of the particular scene. This was done four times.

• The movie has a long and notable cast with actors that had already enjoyed or went on to long and impressive careers. These include Alan Arkin, Richard Benjamin, Martin Balsam, Jon Voight, Anthony Perkins, Martin Sheen, Paula Prentiss, and even Orson Welles. By any other measure, this movie should have been a blockbuster.

• The film was released on June 24, 1970. It was not well received. It did not earn any major awards or even nominations. It enjoyed some critical success but failed miserably at the box office. Its final budget was about $18 million and it earned about $12.2 million in rentals.

• In retrospect, the film grows on you. It stands up better than the movie it is often compared with, that being M*A*S*H, also released in 1970. Though both are termed 'anti-war,' Catch-22 is probably better described as 'anti-bureaucracy.'

Miscellaneous Little Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else

• Author Richard Bach (Biplane and that seagull book) applied to Tallmantz as a Catch-22 pilot but was not hired.

• Paul Simon's 1969 song The Only Living Boy in New York begins with these lyrics:

  Tom, catch your plane ride on time.
  I know your part will go fine. Fly, down to Mexico
  doh un do doh, doh un do doh
  here I am, the only living boy in New York.

  The lyrics alude to his partner, Art Garfunkel, going to Mexico as an actor in Catch-22. "Tom" was Garfunkel's stage name when Simon and Garfunkel were "Tom and Jerry" back in the 1950s. Some have implied this as a thinly veiled attack on Garfunkel for abandoning Simon in New York but normal people think Paul Simon wrote song lyrics from his daily experience and this was one of them. The two's relationship was normally rocky anyways. When Garfunkel returned, the pair recorded the well-received album Bridge Over Troubled Water (with The Only Living Boy in New York included), released in January 1970, then broke up.

  

• Some sources cite that singer Paul Simon was also to be in the film but that his part was written out.

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Updated: 08/13/09