Trivia / Shadows

• The Danza: The entire cast used their real first names for their characters to make ad libbing easier. Ben Carruthers plays Ben, Hugh Hurd plays Hugh, Lelia Goldoni plays Lelia (and was married to Carruthers off screen), Anthony Ray plays Tony, Dennis Sallas plays Dennis, Tom Reese plays Tom, David Pokitillow plays David, David Jones plays Davey, and Rupert Crosse plays Rupert.
• No Budget: To the point where Cassavetes had to borrow the camera he used to shoot the movie.
• What Could Have Been: One of the most intriguing and elusive examples in the history of cinema is the fate of the rare 1958 screening cut of the film, which was presented to a small audience at the Paris Theater in Manhattan. Most of the audience disliked the film, prompting Cassavetes to totally rework it for its wider release a year later. However, avant-garde film critic Jonas Mekas declared it one of the best independent films he had ever seen and lamented that the final 1959 version "destroyed" everything that was good about the 1958 cut in his opinion, spurring decades-long goose chases for the divisive original. Currently, only film preservationist Professor Ray Carney is known to have possession of the original reel after it had been left in the attic of a second-hand shop in Florida for half a century, and he has allowed very few people to witness it at private screenings and small festivals.