Foul Play - Production

Production

Foul Play is an homage to director Alfred Hitchcock, several of whose films are referenced during the film. The premise of an innocent person becoming entangled in a web of intrigue is one common in Hitchcock films such as The 39 Steps, Saboteur, North by Northwest and, most notably, The Man Who Knew Too Much, which inspired the opera house sequence in Foul Play. When Gloria is attacked in her home, she reaches inside her knitting basket and almost chooses a pair of scissors to defend herself -- a reference to Dial M for Murder. Other Hitchcock films which receive a nod from screenwriter/director Colin Higgins include, Notorious, Vertigo, and Psycho. In addition, the plot includes a MacGuffin - an object that initially is the central focus of the film but declines in importance until it is forgotten and unexplained by the end - in the form of the roll of film concealed in the pack of cigarettes. Hitchcock popularized the term MacGuffin and used the technique in many of his films.

The name Gloria Mundy is a reference to "Sic transit gloria mundi," a Latin phrase meaning "Thus passes the glory of the world." It was included in the ritual of papal coronation ceremonies until 1963.

Higgins had written the role of Stanley Tibbets for Tim Conway, but when the actor turned it down he offered it to Dudley Moore instead. It was Moore's American film debut and led to his being cast in 10 by Blake Edwards the following year.

The film was shot in and around San Francisco, in locations including Noe Valley, the Mission District, Hallidie Plaza, Telegraph Hill, Hayes Valley, Nob Hill, Pacific Heights, Fort Mason in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, the Marina District, the Presidio, Potrero Hill, Japantown, and the War Memorial Opera House. The Nuart Theater, in which Bob Scott dies early in the film, is an art house located on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Los Angeles. The houseboat, "Galatea," located at 15 Yellow Ferry Harbor in Sausalito.

The film's theme song, "Ready to Take a Chance Again", was composed by Charles Fox, with lyrics by Fox's writing partner, Norman Gimbel and performed by Barry Manilow, who conceived and supervised the song's recording in partnership with Ron Dante. The soundtrack also includes "Copacabana" written by Manilow, Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman, and performed by Manilow; "I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King, and "Stayin' Alive," written and performed by the Bee Gees. Excerpts from Act I of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado, conducted by Julius Rudel, are performed by members of the New York City Opera.

The film aroused some controversy in the albino community for contributing to the filmic cliché of albinos as villains.