Useless Movie Trivia
Shutter Island

Memorable Quotes

Teddy Daniels: We are duly appointed Federal Marshals.

Dr. John Cawley: You blew up my car. I really loved that car.

Rachel 2: You're smarter than you look, Marshal. That's probably not a good thing.

Rachel 2: Fifty years from now, people will look back and say, "Here, at this place, is where it all began. The Nazis used the Jews, Soviets used prisoners in their own Gulags. And we - we tested patients on Shutter Island."

Warden: You're as violent as they come. I know this, because I'm as violent as they come. If the constraints of society were lifted, and I was all that stood between you and a meal, you would crack my skull with a rock and eat my meaty parts. Wouldn't you?

Teddy Daniels: After she tried to kill herself the first time, Dolores told me she... she had an insect living inside her brain. She could feel it clicking across her skull, just... pulling the wires, just for fun. She told me that. She told me that but I didn't listen. I loved her so much.

Trivia

Before settling on Mark Ruffalo for the role of Chuck Aule, Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese also considered Robert Downey Jr. and Josh Brolin.

This was originally commissioned as a directing vehicle for Wolfgang Petersen. However, there were considerable modifications made to Dennis Lehane's novel in order to create a more action-driven blockbuster.

Shortly (August 2009) before its original release in October 2009, the movie was pushed back to February 2010. It did, however, have a special "secret" screening at Austin's "Butt-Numbathon" film festival in December of 2009. Critics attended the screening but were asked not to release their reviews until the official release date.

The movie's US$40.2 million opening weekend take in the United States marked a career best for director Martin Scorsese. It went on to gross over $293 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing film of his career.

Scenery from Peddocks Island (initial island approach), Acadia National Park in Maine, Medfield State Hospital in Medfield, MA, and the Rice Estate at Turner Hill Country Club in Ipswich, MA were combined via CGI to create the imagery of Shutter Island as a whole. The large mountainous area of the island seen during the ferry approach was added in post-production and does not exist, but the decaying brick buildings on the lowlands are real ruins from Peddocks Island.

This is the fourth time that director Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have worked on a film together. They previously collaborated in Gangs of New York, The Aviator and The Departed.

The ball-point pen Teddy uses in the film is a Parker Jotter, it was released in 1954 (the year the film takes place) and was the first successful and reliable ball-point pen to hit the market, which quickly drove fountain pens into obsolescence. Over 3.5 million pens were sold that year and the Parker Jotter dominated the ball-point pen market during that decade.

The traumatic killing of Nazi guards of Dachau concentration camp is a historical event, taking place on 29 April 1945 when the camp was liberated by the US Army.

Columbia first optioned the film rights to Dennis Lehane's novel in 2003 when it was first published but after many delays, the rights relapsed back to the author.

The film opened with a $41 million weekend, Martin Scorsese's best figures and (up until the release of Inception later that same year), Leonardo DiCaprio's.

Goofs

At the beginning of the film when Teddy and Chuck are driven up to the asylum gate for the first time they are riding in a small open truck. On the rear of the vehicle a modern white license plate can be clearly seen as it reflects the light. The truck should have sported a black 1953 Mass plate like the one seen later on the doctor's red sedan.

The "cave-dwelling" psychiatrist mentions experiments by North Koreans on POW's. However, this film is set in 1954, and these abuses would only have become known later, as the war was still raging.

When the chief of the guards is giving Daniels his tour of the island, he says that the bluffs are tangles of poison ivy and live oak. The island is in Massachusetts but Southern Live Oaks don't grow north of southern Virginia.

After the storm blows out the electricity, Daniels comments about the "electronics" being knocked out. The electrical systems used to containing the patients likely had no "electronics", just electrical switches, solenoids, and other parts.

A recording of Gustav Mahler's piano quartet plays in the SS officer's office at Dachau. Music by Jewish composers, like Mahler, was banned in Nazi Germany. No hard-line SS officer would have owned or listened to blacklisted Jewish music.

While talking to George Noyce, Teddy lights a match. The side of the bars facing the camera light up, although the match and Teddy are on the other side.

Box Office Info for the USA

Budget: $80,000,000

Gross: $128,012,934

Filming Dates: March 6, 2008 to June 30, 2008

Filming Location

Acadia National Park, Bar Harbor, Maine, USA
Borderland State Park - 259 Massapoag Avenue, Sharon, Massachusetts, USA
Boston Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Hull, Massachusetts, USA
Hyde Park, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Medfield State Hospital - 45 Hospital Road, Medfield, Massachusetts, USA
Medfield, Massachusetts, USA
Peddocks Island, Boston Harbor, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Taunton, Massachusetts, USA
Turner Hill Golf and Racquet Club, Topsfield Road, Ipswich, Massachusetts, USA
Whittenton Mills - 437 Whittenton Street, Taunton, Massachusetts, USA
Wilson Mountain Reservation, Dedham, Massachusetts, USA (forest hurricane scene)