As Christmas approaches, it’s appropriate to recall my favorite Christmas feel-good movie: “Die Hard.”
In the original “Die Hard” movie, Bruce Willis was the sixth choice for John McClane. It went through Arnold Schwarzenegger (it would have been a sequel to “Commando,” if you can imagine that), Sylvester Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, and Mel Gibson before ending up with Bruce. I can’t really see Arnold crawling through ductwork.
The movie occurs on Christmas Eve. The head terrorist is Hans Gruber, a German. “Silent Night” was written by Franz Gruber, an Austrian.
In dubbing the movie for German audiences, the terrorists were turned into Brits. You know, Heil Churchhill!
The book was based on another book, which was also made into a movie in the 1960s. The star of that movie was Frank Sinatra. He had contractual rights to play the McClane role in the sequel, but turned it down. The movie then languished for many years.
