Some scenes were so noisy during filming, the crew could not hear Steven Spielberg yell, "Cut". He had to fire a prop machine gun in the air to get the action to stop.
Often regarded as Steven Spielberg's first failure. It was actually a moderate box-office success, earning $92 million worldwide on a budget of $35 million. But when compared to his early hits Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), it didn't meet expectations.
The extras cast as the Japanese submarine crew were hired because they were Asian. Most were typical laid-back Southern Californians, and none had any acting training. Toshirô Mifune (an actual Japanese World War II veteran) was so outraged at their attitudes, that he asked Steven Spielberg if he could deal with them. He then started yelling at them to get in line, and slapped one of them, saying, "This is how Japanese men are trained!" Mifune worked with them from that point on.
The scene where Captain Wild Bill Kelso (John Belushi) slips and tumbles off of the wing of his airplane, as he is about to take off, was a real accident. Belushi slipped as he was climbing into the plane. It was kept in the movie, because it fit his character.
According to co-writer Bob Gale in the DVD documentary, many of the events in the movie are based on real incidents. The Army really put an anti-aircraft gun in the yard of a homeowner on the Maine coast. The Japanese submarine I-17 shelled a refinery in Ellwood on the California coast on the evening of February 23, 1942. Although the shells missed the refinery by a wide margin, the unexpected attack started an invasion panic that late the next night resulted in an air raid false alarm over Los Angeles. Civil Defense and Army weapons ended up firing into the air for about an hour, thinking they were being attacked by the Japanese. The infamous Zoot Suit Riots, between Hispanic youths and servicemen, took place in June 1943.
John Landis: Played the dirt-covered soldier Sergeant Mizerany, whose motorcycle is stolen in front of the Hollywood Strand cinema by Captain "Wild" Bill Kelso (John Belushi).