Trivia / 1776

• California Doubling: While 1776 was set in Philadelphia, the exteriors and interiors for the 1972 film were respectively shot at Warner Ranch and Gower Studios in California.
• Cut Song:
  • Only about half of the songs originally written made it to the final production; also, "Cool, Considerate Men" in the movie.
  • And half of "Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve," which didn't even get restored on the DVD.
  • In pre-Broadway tryouts, the musical had a number called "Doozyland," where Ben Franklin dallys with a prostitute in New Brunswick. The creators felt it slowed the show down and the entire scene was cut, much to the displeasure of Howard da Silva, who lost his only solo song.
• Dawson Casting:
  • 26-year-old South Carolinian Edward Rutledge, the youngest man in the Congress — "except for Ben Franklin" — was played by then-42-year-old John Cullum.
  • True of the original Rutledge, Clifford David, as well: he was 37 when the show opened.
• Executive Meddling:
  • A rare case of Chief Executive Meddling - The sitting US President, Richard Nixon, convinced his friend, producer Jack Warner, to expunge the musical number "Cool Considerate Men," an ode to wealthy conservatism sung by the antagonist, from The Movie for purely political reasons — and not just to remove it but to destroy all the footage of it as well. As Warner was no longer working with his and his brother's namesake studio, however, the employees responsible merely packed it into unmarked boxes and stashed it with all of the other film negatives, letting Columbia Pictures rediscover it for the Special Edition. Nixon had earlier attempted to pressure playwright Sherman Edwards into removing the number after seeing a performance of the play at the White House, but Edwards refused. Guess that makes this Executive Branch Meddling.
  • There were other jabs at right-wing politics throughout the film that Warner wanted cut also; director Peter H. Hunt complied to those cuts primarily because it didn't damage the flow of the story, but the omission of "Cool Men" did. Hunt claimed that Warner would regret cutting the number, so much so, that on his deathbed, he told a friend: "I should have never listened to that idiot Dick Nixon!"
• Hey, It's That Place!: The fountain central to "The Lees of Old Virginia" is the same fountain that appears in the opening credits of Friends.
• Irony as She Is Cast: In the original cast, one of the best singing voices belonged to Edmund Lyndeck, the original Witherspoon. Witherspoon doesn't sing a note.
• One-Book Author:
  • This was composer/lyricist Sherman Edwards' only produced musical.
  • While everyone else in the movie had or would later appear in films or television, this is the only time Ralston Hill (Thomson) and Charles Rule (Hewes) ever appear on screen.
• The Pete Best: Paul Hecht and Clifford David originated the roles of John Dickinson and Edward Rutledge, respectively, but it was Donald Madden and John Cullum who created the most enduring versions of the characters in the film version.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Both William Daniels and Howard da Silva were cast wildly against type. Circa 1969, Daniels specialized in meek, ineffectual, and prematurely middle-aged characters, while da Silva was best known as a nasty villain (like Jud in the original Oklahoma!). In Daniels' case, characters like Dr. Craig and Mr. Feeny were a result of post-1776 typecasting.
  • Gregg Edelman's casting as Rutledge in the 1997 Broadway revival was considered startling at the time, as Edelman was then best known for playing good-natured romantic leads.
• Referenced by...: "The Adams Administration" from Hamilton makes a reference to "Sit Down, John". Adams himself does not appear, however, because Lin-Manuel Miranda figured William Daniels's portrayal of Adams was so iconic that it wasn't necessary to add him into Hamilton.
  Hamilton: "Sit down, John, you fat motherfu—! [BOOM!!]
• Role Reprise: Rarely for a film adaptation of a stage play, many of the original Broadway cast members reprised their roles, including William Daniels (John Adams), David Ford (John Hancock), Ken Howard (Thomas Jefferson), Ron Holgate (Richard Henry Lee), Howard da Silva (Benjamin Franklin), Emory Bass (James Wilson), Jonathan Moore (Lyman Hall), Roy Poole (Stephen Hopkins), Charles Rule (Joseph Hewes), Ralston Hill (Charles Thomson) and Virginia Vestoff (Abigail Adams), while others, particularly John Cullum (the third actor to play Edward Rutledge), had been in later productions. This was because of Jack Warner being so impressed by the stage version that he wanted the film to be pretty much what he saw in the theater, along with his regret in turning down Julie Andrews for Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady, and that the lesser-known Broadway actors (including the blacklisted-from-Hollywood da Silva) were generally cheaper to hire than bigger names.
• Self-Adaptation: Peter Stone and Peter H. Hunt respectively wrote and directed the film from the 1969 Broadway production.
• Typecasting: Ron Holgate (Richard Henry Lee) had already established himself as an actor specializing in roles that called for an extremely Large Ham, like Miles Gloriosus in the original cast of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
• What Could Have Been: Ron Holgate's audition for the original Broadway production was actually for Rutledge, not Lee.
• Word of God: Peter Stone's script was published as a paperback book with an extended author's afterword explaining what they put in, what they left out, what they rearranged, and why. Amusingly, they advocate that the New Brunswick Inn scene that was cut in off-Broadway tryouts be added back in for the movie. It was cut again, for much the same reasons: while it added more amusing Adams - Franklin hijinks it only served as a distraction from the central story.

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