Rat Race (film) - Production Notes

Production Notes

• Rat Race is the first film to feature two African-American actors who had previously won Academy Awards: Gooding, Jr. (for Jerry Maguire) and Goldberg (for Ghost).
• Lawyer Gloria Allred is featured in two scenes; the first is when she happens to be nearby when a woman slips on an overturned empty shot glass (meant for Blaine Cody) and injures herself after falling down a flight of stairs, prompting her to decide to take up the woman's case against the hotel, and the second is when she is sitting on her balcony as Enrico Pollini is hit by Zack's van, during which she tries to take up Pollini's case against Zack.
• Sinclair and the gamblers' eccentric gambling habits are even further exaggerated in deleted scenes, where they partake in many more ridiculous bets, including playing Monopoly with real money. In another scene, one of the high rollers pretends to find what they are doing as immoral.
• Professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page and his wife, Kimberly, had a cameo in the film that was cut when test audiences failed to give his appearance any reaction. The scene is available on the DVD release.
• Vieluf lost billing when his agent attempted to secure him star billing. As a result, Vieluf was left out of all promotional material, even though his character was seen in a majority of the film. Vieluf later fired that agent.
• Director Zucker's late mother, Charlotte, made a cameo appearance as one of the Lucille Ball impersonators.
• Cleese's character of Donald Sinclair may be based on the hotelier of the same name, the presumed inspiration for Cleese's famous Basil Fawlty character from Fawlty Towers.
• This is the fourth film that actresses Goldberg and Najimy were cast in together with their previous efforts Soapdish, Sister Act and Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.
• This is the second film actors Meyer and Smart worked together in, and were also each other's love interest; the first being Road Trip.
• This film reunited Chapman and Goldberg who worked together on Star Trek:The Next Generation.
• Meyer and Najimy would reunite on Meyer's legal comedy series Franklin & Bash with Meyer playing attorney Jared Franklin and Najimy in a recurring role as Judge Sturges.

Filming locations

• The climactic railroad station scenes in Silver City, New Mexico were filmed at the restored train station at East Ely, Nevada, a popular tourist destination, as Silver City has no real train station.
• The scene with the coin toss by Owen Templeton was filmed at McMahon Stadium in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.