Rewatchables Reference

• The opening scene – Sarah's harness fails, Gabe tries to save her, she falls. 'One of the greatest opening scenes of all time.'
• Rooker vs. Delmar – the soccer play-by-play kicking scene, ending with 'Season's over, asshole.' People in the theater applauded.
• Stallone vs. Leon/Kynette: 'No bullets, bitch.'
• The plane-to-plane transfer – stuntman paid $1 million for the actual aerial stunt.
• Clark's meltdown when Lithgow kills his girlfriend: 'Do you know what real love is? Sacrifice.'

• Rooker being so irrationally mad at Gabe – 'You did it your way and she died.' Gabe's comeback: 'It was a bad time for everybody.'
• The score by Trevor Jones with the National Philharmonic Orchestra.
• The rabbit scene: test audiences were so upset the rabbit died that Stallone spent $100K to reshoot it.
• Stallone in the early 90s – Kyle: 'This is actually maybe Stallone's most handsome movie.'
• Lithgow killing his girlfriend Crystal – 'Do you know what real love is? Sacrifice.'

The opening shot of Stallone hanging on a cliff over the title 'Cliffhanger.' Kyle: 'That's the coolest shot.'

The compromised FBI agents concept – 'You're devoted. All these background tests, all these checkpoints. Then you get in there and you're just going to throw it away after 20 years.'

• Some rough green screen effects – Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible stunts 'took 'Cliffhanger' and took a shit on it.'
• The abrupt ending – 1 minute 24 seconds from Lithgow's death to rolling credits.
• The Bill & Ted rip-off stoner guys.
• By the end Lithgow is going for ~$30 million – 'Hans Gruber was going after 640 million in the mid-80s.'

• Kyle: Sarah wanted to die – it was a suicide/inside job. She rigged the equipment, and her kiss to Gabe was saying goodbye.
• Bill: Janine Turner was 'market corrected by Demi Moore' – both started on General Hospital as the Templeton sisters.

• David Bowie was Renny Harlin's first choice for Eric Qualen (declined).
• Christopher Walken was cast as Qualen, left before filming. Bill: 'I think this movie's better with Walken.'
• Dana Delaney was offered Jessie, turned it down.

• Michael Rooker – 'Don't you lose her, Gabe!' / 'You did it your way and she died' / 'This man never hurt anybody.'
• Rex Linn as Travers – 'Tucker and Walker, we're missing 3 bags. What's in 'em? None of your fucking business.'

• Winner: Zach Grenier (Davis, the FBI guy in the helicopter) – 'That guy's the winner because I didn't even look up his name. He's in everything.'
• Also: Rex Linn, Caroline Goodall (mom in Hook, role in 'Disclosure'), Bruce McGill, Ralph Waite.

Co-winners: Leon (as Kynette) and whoever played Delmar – 'completely heat checking the shit out of both those parts.'

• Kyle: Sandra Bullock in the romantic role, Wesley Snipes instead of Leon, Mel Gibson instead of Rooker.
• Bill: Paul Newman as Frank, Tommy Lee Jones as Travers.

• Carolco was funded by shady money, possibly 'Middle Eastern mobsters or arms dealers.'
• Before 'Cliffhanger', Stallone/Carolco cycled through three failed projects: 'Bartholomew vs. Neff' (comedy with John Candy), 'ISO Bar' (sci-fi horror), and 'Gale Force' ('Die Hard' in a hurricane).
• Stallone sacrificed $2M of his salary when production ran out of money.
• The glove in the opening: they used a glove two sizes too big filled with Vaseline.
• Mountain scenes shot at the Dolomites in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.

• Janine Turner: Yes – still on Northern Exposure plus lead in a $255M Stallone movie.
• Michael Rooker: No – 'Days of Thunder' edges it for this era.
• Botched plane transfers: 'This might have taken the cake.'
• Renny Harlin: Maybe – this was one of his most successful movies.

• Hal hates Gabe but then immediately tries to save him for the rest of the movie.
• Gabe would die of frostbite wearing a T-shirt on a snowy mountain.
• Nobody wears ski hats or ear protection.
• The Denver Mint doesn't make paper money – it only produces coins.
• Gabe's bodybuilder physique is wrong for a mountain climber.

A sequel was planned called 'The Dam' – 'Die Hard' in a dam at the Hoover Dam. Planned for '94-'95, didn't happen.

Sam Jackson as Travers: 'Of course it's better.'

• How good of a striker was Delmar? 'Second level English, cup of coffee, couple tryouts with Chelsea?'
• Is the movie better if Rooker throws Jessie off the mountain at the end and says 'Now we're even'?

Both Bill and Kyle: The glove from the opening scene – 'up there with the Freddy Krueger glove, Michael Jackson's glove.'

Bill: Don't take your novice climber girlfriend up to the scariest mountain, especially with an old knee injury.

• Bill: Shoot to Kill (1988, Tom Berenger and Sidney Poitier).
• Kyle: Drop Zone (Wesley Snipes) – 'kind of the same movie, just with Snipes instead of Stallone.'

Unanimous: Michael Rooker. Kyle: 'Sylvester Stallone is a bit of a passenger. The actual acting, dialogue and story goes to Rooker.' Craig: 'Clean sweep Rooker.'

Craig Horlbeck hadn't seen it before. Loved it. Puts it ahead of Rambo in the Stallone filmography, alongside 'Cop Land'.