Trivia for
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) More at IMDbPro »

• The man introducing Edward R. Murrow's keynote address to the 1958 convention of the Radio-Television News Directors Association cites Murrow's reporting on, among other topics, the plight of migrant workers. In fact, Murrow did not report on the conditions of migrant workers until 1960. His documentary on the subject, "CBS Reports: Harvest of Shame" (1960), was the last project he worked on as a CBS broadcaster.
  
  
• Most of the text of Edward R. Murrow's speech bookending the movie is taken word-for-word from the actual keynote address he delivered to the 1958 RTNDA convention. The actual conclusion to the speech, after Murrow's line about television, used strictly for entertainment rather than education, being nothing more than wires and lights in a box, went as follows: "There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful. Stonewall Jackson, who knew something about the use of weapons, is reported to have said, 'When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.' The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival."
  
  
• The movie's title was the phrase Edward R. Murrow used at the end of his TV broadcasts.
  
  
• The film was shot on color film on a grayscale set, then color-corrected in post.
  
  
• Was originally conceived as a live broadcast special for CBS.
  
  
• During the actual footage of John L. McClellan questioning Joseph McCarthy, a very young Robert F. Kennedy can be seen when the camera pans to the right. Kennedy was minority counsel to the committee.
  
  
• The first completely black-and-white film to be nominated for Best Picture since The Elephant Man (1980).
  
  
• The entire budget for this 2006 Best Picture Nominee (as well as 5 other nominations): $7 million.
  
  
• The entire set was built on one floor. The elevator interior was built on a turntable, so it could be rotated to a new "floor" during unbroken shots. (In one scene, the CBS Records office is represented by a false wall that was then raised out of shot while the door was closed.)
  
  
• Original director of photography Newton Thomas Sigel was unable to shoot the film due to his commitment to Superman Returns (2006). Director George Clooney decided on Robert Elswit as the replacement after working with him on Syriana (2005).
  
  
• Second in the poll for FIPRESCI GRAND PRIX OF THE YEAR 2006.
  
  
• The band playing throughout the movie is actually Matt Catingub's band and Matt Catingub did all the arrangements. Matt Catingub produced Rosemary Clooney's last album and George Clooney was so impressed, he personally asked Matt to do the music for this film.
  
  
• The real William Paley had a collection of microphones in his office. The crew put microphones that George Clooney used in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) in the Paley office set as a surprise for Clooney.
  
  
• 'David Straithairn', a non-smoker, smoked pipe tobacco in his prop cigarettes to portray Edward R. Murrow.
  
  
• Editing on the film was completed at George Clooney's palatial Italian villa on the shore of Lake Como.
  
  
• During the DVD commentary for this film, George Clooney says that about 20% of the test audiences had never heard of Joseph McCarthy before and wanted to know the identity of the "actor" playing him. McCarthy, of course, was played by actual footage of the real McCarthy: Joseph Raymond McCarthy (1908-1957), who was the Republican Junior Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957, when he died in office.
  
  
• Precisely every 23 minutes (the standard running time of TV shows from the 1950s), the film is punctuated by a jazz song performed by 'Diane Reeves (I)'.
  
  
• Initially, the famous concluding catch phrase "Good Night and Good Luck" that became the title of the film, was a habit Edward R. Murrow kept from his London years as a war reporter for the radio, when British people under constant night German bombing systematically ended their conversations with the very same words, uncertain to meet again.
  
  
• The last black-and-white film to date to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture.
  
  

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