The Fine Film Flubs of Fried Green Tomatoes

Most compiled by NEVERSam@aol.com

• Idgie Short/Long Stockings:  As Idgie comes down the stairs she's wearing ankle socks.  When her socks come floating down from the treehouse, they're long like kneesocks.  She's wearing the long socks in the next scene at the church.  They're clearly too long to have been scrunched down for ankle socks in the earlier scene.
  

• Two Many Stories: At Eva's, Ruth climbs stairs to a landing.  She enters the club; goes inside; down a flight of stairs; and confronts Idgie. She grabs the money; goes out the door and is back on the first landing.
  

• Pot Vs. Stake: In the same scene as the above, Ruth grabs the pot, not Idgie's stake.
  

• Towanda!! Reeboks?: As Ruth jumps off the train she is seen wearing sneakers.
  

• Big George Mistake: When Idgie, Julian, and Big George go to take Ruth away from her abusive husband, they put Ruth in the front, Julian in the back, and Ruth's baggage in the rumble seat.  Big George is nowhere to be seen as the car pulls away.
  

• Poof, the Miraculous Appearing Smokey (with dinner): When the scene begins Idgie and Grady go out the door on the far side of the kitchen into the dining room.  Two men, neither of whom are Smokey are sitting at the counter.  The camera and Grady follow Idgie all the way around the room while she serves dishes of cornbread.  Ruth is down by the cash register.  The last shot before Idgie re-enters the kitchen shows that the far side of the counter is now empty.  In the kitchen, Idgie talks briefly to both Big George and Sipsey, then goes out the far door again.  Smokey and a plate of food have miraculously appeared.  How did they get there?
  

• One Track Town: Just before Frank puts the baby in the car we see a passenger train standing at the station.  Next we hear a train going by at full tilt.  Since there is only a single track through Whistle Stop this has to be a foley error.
  

• Mary's Moving Mole: During the funeral for Stump's arm Ruth and Sipsy are seen standing together with Idgie a bit to their left (our right).  Idgie's mole is now in its proper place on the left side of her face.  After some words shared by Ruth and Sipsy, Idgie gives them a sidelong glance.  However, in this close-up her mole is now on the right side of her face. (In other words, the film was probably purposefully switched backwards to achieve the glance in the proper direction.)
  

• The Misspoken Prosecutor: The prsecutor misspeaks when he said Idgie threatened to kill Frank in front of the hired man in June, 1932 (Visiting Ruth).  Although Idgie did make the threat then, the hired man is nowhere to be found.  He is seen at the back door when Idgie repeats the threat when they come to collect Ruth in September.
  

• Elongated Fury:  At the beginning of the scene Evelyn is swinging an 8# long-handled sledge hammer.  Although there is no break in demolition noise, she finishes the scene with a 3# short-handled drilling hammer.
  

• Sign of the Times: When Evelyn parks at the cafe while looking for Ninny the sign on the eave of the building is not the "Cafe" sign seen when she and Ed first visit Whistle Stop.
  

• Ninny's Disappearing Suitcase: When Evelyn arrives to take Ninny home, Ninny is seen sitting on her suitcase.  As they start to leave, neither one of them has it in their hands and it is no longer in the road.
  

• Ninny or Idgie?:  The camera set-up for the shot from Ninny's house out to the street (with Pritchard's store in the background) is exactly the same as the one used for the funeral of Stump's arm.  It seems unlikely that the arm would be buried in anyone's front yard.  (The is probably left over from one of the original script drafts in which Ninny was meant to be the older Idgie, in which case it would have been Idgie and Ruth's house.)
  

• Evelyn or Ruth?: In the beginning of the movie when Ed and Evelyn are lost in Whistle Stop, Ed mistakenly refers to Evelyn as "Ruth" when they are in the car.  This flub even shows up in the closed captioning. (from sarahtemp@hotmail.com)
  

• Ruth's Plunging Neckline:  In the scene where Ruth dies, if you watch the sheets by her neck they change from the first shot of her to the next.  At the end of the scene they are in the original crumpled manner.  Her right arm even appears during one shot.  (from coolmom@mctcnet.net)
  

• Nothing Up His Sleeve:  In the scene where Idgie is confronting Frank Bennett we see Big George standing with his arms at his side.  The next shot is a close up of his hands with a knife.  Then there is a wide shot of Big George with his hands at his side again.  We never see how his hands get from the side of his body, to the front, and to the back again. (from CindyV@aol.com)
  

• Canned Corn?:  During the scene when Idgie and Ruth ride in the train pass the people in the shanty town they throw cans of food but someone catches an ear of corn. (from Baileyaka@aol.com)
  
  

Fun Fried Facts

• Peter Masterson, Mary Stu's father, wrote "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" for Broadway. Fannie Flagg starred in that show in its first run. (from gj@csonline.net)
  

• Fannie Flagg and Kathy Bates collaborated on that masterpiece "I Was A Teenage Vampire" a few years before "Fried Green Tomatoes."  (from gj@csonline.net)
  

• Mary Stu got her Southern accent training during the stage play of "Lily Dale."  (from gj@csonline.net)
  

• Ninny vs. Idgie :  I have received many e-mails asking me whether or not Idgie and Ninny are the same person so I decided to describe my belief here.  I respect the fact that other people have different opinions but I have read the book and seen the movie and from those experiences I can tell you that Ninny and Idgie are two separate people. When I first saw the movie I thought that Ninny was the grown Idgie as many other people did. You were supposed to think that. It was written that way. You see, (from what I understand) there were at least two different scripts written. The first was written by Jon Avnet who directed the film and the revision was done by Fannie Flagg. In Avnet's version Ninny was supposed to be the older Idgie. This element can still be seen in the final version by certain facts (i.e. Ninny doesn't seem to be present in the memories, she knows so much about Idgie and Ruth's relationship, who left the honey, and also because when her house is missing she is looking towards where Idgie and Ruth's house used to be and the grave for Stump's arm is where Ninny's front yard should have been). However, when Fannie Flagg revised the script she made sure to mention that Ninny was the wife of Idgie's brother Cleo. According to the book Idgie has many siblings but the only three we really see in the movie are Buddy, Julian, and Leona. Therefore we must assume that out of all those other people at the wedding and Buddy's funeral there must have been at least some of the rest of the siblings and young Ninny as well. (My FGT discussion group likes to label the young man in the Threadgoode house during the wedding preparation who is having his bow-tie fixed by a woman his age as Cleo and the woman as Ninny. You can see them in the background briefly once.) I do recommend reading Fannie Flagg's book for further clarification.
  

• Interesting FGT tid-bits as noted by Jeff Clute (CluteW@sti.imshealth.com), an FGT extra:

• "Juliette was a ghost town before the producers found it. The cafe was actually a General Store when the mill was running and later a Real Estate office. In 1991 it looked just like it did in the movie during the first scenes with Ed & Evelyn. That phone booth was placed there and all the leaves were brought in since it was filmed in June & July."
  

• "The few days I was there I watched them film the food fight between Idgie and Ruth. A huge air conditioning truck with a large hose was placed in the back door of the cafe since it was so hot in there. The food stylist at first didn't use any seasonings or salt and pepper when they cooked and all the extra's complained that the food was horrible, so they finally made it edible."
  

• "The railroad tracks where Buddy got killed are no longer in use and the tracks are overgrown. The old wooden bridge that little Idgie and Ruth stood on was torn down and a new wooden bridge was built -- but it looks just the same."
  

• "Back in Juliette in 1991 you could walk right across the railroad tracks and see the river and the dam that the 3 of them walked over. If you notice in the movie you never see their faces up close on the dam because the actors never actually walked on the dam. It was stunt doubles because that water was racing very fast."
  

• "I remember the day they filmed the truck coming out of the river. It actually rained that day. Did you notice the night that little Idgie was sitting at the river and the lightening in the background? It was storming that night. That same night they also filmed Ruth & Idgie at the river -- drunk.
  

• "They film the whole movie out of sequence. The first day of filming was Ruth & Idgie's food fight. They brought Cicley Tyson right to the front door of the Cafe in a limo while the other actors walked from their trailers.  The second scene was Frank Bennett sitting in his truck reading the paper and looking at Big George chopping wood. That scene took forever because every time Big George hit the piece of wood his ax would go flying. So the prop men finally split the log into 4 pieces and then glued it together. If you watch the final scene, the wood breaks into 4 nice even pieces."
  

• "Another funny story that happened on the set. You know when Idgie handed Smokey Lonesome that bottle of liquor. Well, the prop guys gave Mary-Stuart a huge bottle and it was weighting down her apron so badly that it looked silly. She marched up the street to the prop building and got a smaller bottle full of tea. It still pulled her apron down. I was standing there and being bold and silly said, "dump half of it out so they know you were drinking it!" Everyone laughed and she dumped a bunch of it out!! Silly little tidbit but true."