Nightboob: The Voyeur Murders

Writing credits:
Harold Wells
John Le Carré (novel)

• Revealing mistakes: Nick Cassavetes, miscalibrated by his mechanic shortly prior to shooting, appeared half an inch too short in several scenes, which is why his hat sometimes appears to be floating just above his head.
• Continuity errors: though only two windows are ever seen, light shining into Adonis Manley's bedroom seems to pass through at least eight sets of Venetian blinds.
• Continuity errors: in the diner scene, most shots show Shannon Whirry holding a cigarette in her right hand. In other shots, it's a copy of the shooting script.
• Factual errors: Adonis Manley's extreme breast fetishism leads Lydia Cashew to remark that "he'd even **** a crocodile." Crocodiles do not have breasts. (more)

Lydia Cashew: Who is this? How did you get this number?
Voice on Phone: I observed, it Lydia. I observe many things. Oh, so many things. Wonderful things. (more)

• Director Harold Wells used over thirty wall-sized mirrors to create the effect of seven simultaneous shower scenes, the most simultaneous shower scenes ever filmed for a motion picture.
• Shannon Tweed's shower scene aboard the yacht took seventy-two hours to film. A special false lather had to be developed by Harold Wells' special effects company, Gallopin' Light and Magic, to retain its consistency throughout such a prolonged shoot; the lather was created using talcum powder, egg whites and tortoise down.
• The film was completed under-budget due to several innovative fiscal measures undertaken by Harold Wells, such as refurbishing money he had already spent and simply reusing it.
• Due to the film's copious nudity, Shannon Whirrey's right breast had to be sawn off at the hilt to avoid an NC-17 rating.
• The words "That sack of shit Powers Boothe fucked my wife and I want the world to know it" appear written on a bulletin board in Lydia Cashew's office. Director Harold Wells worked with Boothe on the 1987 film Copper Heart, but the meaning of the bulletin board message is unclear. Similar messages appear in Wells' films Hard Eagle (1993), Can't Resist to Kill (1994), Straight Arrow Cop (1995), Nude Reckoning (1995), Bikini Hillbillies (1995), Cyberblade: Octavian's Curse (1995), A Traipse Through the Bracken with Percy Sutton (1996), Nude Reckoning II: Nude to Kill (1996) and FBE: Federal Erotic Bureau (1997).
• The broadcast version of the film replaces several instances of the word "fuck" with a recording of Orson Welles uttering the word "hamburger" in a deliberate, sultry drawl. The recording is culled from a 1981 Cadillac commercial.
• A severe drought in Southern California forced the filmmakers to stringently conserve water during the shoot; as a result, the "water" used in the courtroom demonstration shower scene is actually swept-up hair from a nearby barbershop.
• In 1996, Harold Wells successfully sued the makers of Illicit Exposure (1996) for appropriating major plot elements from Nightboob, such as the "murderous voyeur" theme and the concept of a "breast psychiatrist." Upon being ordered to pay a large award to himself, Wells was dismayed to learn that he had directed both films.
• Maxwell Caulfield, originally cast in the Adonis Manley role, was reportedly fired after repeated attempts "ad lib" grotesquely explicit sex scenes with female costars. The resultant footage was later sold to the San Diego Zoo to be used as a film loop intended to artificially stimulate ovulation in western diamondback rattlesnakes.
• Director trademark: Camera falling over.
• Shannon Tweed was asked to gain thirty pounds for the role of Lydia Cashew, under the assumption that a heavier Shannon Tweed would be less desirable and would thus command a smaller paycheck.
• Production halted for two weeks when Nick Cassavetes went temporarily deaf and blind after successfully attempting to impress actress Becky LeBeau by smoking an entire carton of cigarettes through his ear.
• Lydia Cashew's line "Bring them over here. What the hell is it that they're doing?" was voted #31 in the American Film Institute's list of greatest movie quotes.
• The 2004 DVD "Director's Cut" features almost an hour of additional footage, most of it shot by hidden cameras planted by Harold Wells in the toilets of the cast and crew.
• Harold Wells cast Peter O'Toole in the film under the misapprehension that he was dead.
• The MPAA was aghast that the film appeared to contain a prolonged shot of Bo Svenson's erect penis, and threatened to brand the film with an "X" rating. The rating board relented when Harold Wells provided medical documentation proving that Svenson merely has a birthmark approximately the size, shape, positioning and dimensions of an erect penis.
• Director trademark: Woman chewing with her mouth open in the shower.
• Councilors were brought in to help Craig Stepp work through his morbid fear of spiders after something Becky LeBeau said reminded him of the existence of spiders.
• Shannon Whirry's shower scene on the baseball diamond was a shot-for-shot homage to a similar scene in Jean Renoir's classic film La Grande Illusion (1937).
• Foley artist "Chink" Staffordshire created the sounds for the scene in which the lovemaking couple on the beach are run over by the voyeur's speedboat by shooting a live orca with an authentic 19th century dueling-cannon. The cannon was leased and restored at great expense, but the orca was from Staffordshire's extensive private collection.
• Cameo: Orson Welles as "ham-buuuuuurger" voice (broadcast version) (uncredited).
• Producers originally sought Maria Ford for the title role, but Harold Wells insisted that Dr. Shannon Tweed was better qualified to handle the complex post-structuralist dialogue due to her PhD in semiotics. The dialogue in question, however, was cut from the American release and replaced with several shower scenes. The foreign version, retitled "The Linguistic Life of Ferdinand de Saussure," won the Grand Jury Prize at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.

• Wells' ailing dog "Stingray" was on set during most of the filming. Scenes where actors ask God to "help Stingray" still appear in the TV broadcast version of the film.
• The 2004 DVD has clips from six alternate endings, each of which suggests the story was a different character's dream. This angle was dropped altogether when producer Craig C. Doyle suggested the meteor scene.
• Footage from Nightboob appears on a TV set in Naked Sweat (1996) and on a NASA monitor in Wells' own Nudestronauts (1998).
• While directing the strangulation scenes, Harold Wells acted out the precise physical performance he wanted to see with a "victim" dummy before and during every take.
• In an elaborate on-set prank, the cast and crew were actually able to convince Harold Wells that he was dead. This is cited as his inspiration for DeathLust! (1995)
• Lydia Cashew's classification as a "weapons-grade seductress" is consistent with criteria laid out in Wells' six hundred page reference tome, Thriller Erotique.
• The "airport" visited late in the film is the same office from the "police station" scenes, with framed pictures of policemen replaced with framed pictures of airplanes.
• Financiers Jeff and Lori Folsom fled the country shortly after production wrapped; as of this writing, no one involved with the film has ever been paid and Peter O'Toole's insulin supply has not been returned.