Billy Crystal’s 1991 film City Slickers was released on June 7th, which is a good enough excuse to look back on what made it the comedy hit it was. Many would say the secret to the movie’s success was Jack Palance, but he was balanced out by city boys Bruno Kirby, Daniel Stern, and Crystal. Did you know that
1. JACK PALANCE WAS BILLY CRYSTAL’S ORIGINAL CHOICE TO PLAY CURLY.
When Crystal first came up with the seed of the idea for City Slickers, he immediately thought of Jack Palance as the crusty bad guy with the heart of gold. He thought of him because the first movie he had ever seen was the 1953 movie Shane, where Palance played the bad guy. The actor left a lasting impression on Crystal, who was seven years old at the time of his first movie-going experience. Because his father produced jazz concerts, Billy saw Shane seated on Billie Holiday’s lap.
6. PALANCE GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT WITH THE DIRECTOR ON THE FIRST DAY OF SHOOTING.
The veteran actor yelled at Ron Underwood over his first direction, but everything went smoothly after that. When Crystal asked what had happened, Palance explained that he always gets nervous on his first day of shooting. Sure enough, Tim Burton told a similar story about Palance snapping at him on his first day of shooting on Batman over how he was told to walk out of a bathroom, with Burton admitting that the incident scared him "to death—I literally saw white and left my body.”
Those are just a couple of the 15 stories about the making of City Slickers that you’ll enjoy at mental_floss. Don’t miss the explanation of how they faked the calf birth.