During the scene where James Stewart hiccups when drunk, you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn’t scripted, Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly. Stewart (apparently spontaneously) thought of hiccuping in the drunk scene, without telling Grant. When he began hiccuping, Grant turned to Stewart, saying, “Excuse me.” Grant turned his head to stifle his laughter and said, “Nothing”. The scene required only one take.
“‘When Adrian showed me the sketch, I laughed,’ remembers Hepburn. […] 'Then he explained to me how he saw Tracy’s character. She comes on, you know, and she wants to be running the show. Very bossy. She wants to defy convention, and she won’t take advice from anyone. But inside there’s a frightened young girl. He thought the hat would help show that Tracy wasn’t as stiff as she seemed on the surface, and also give a glimpse of that girl inside. Well, you know, I loved it.’” - Katharine Hepburn on Adrian (Gowns by Adrian: the MGM years 1928-1941)
KATHARINE HEPBURN as TRACY LORD The Philadelphia Story | Costuming (and included sketches) by Adrian Greenburg
I feel like a description of this phenomenon could be used very effectively to make an organism on an alien planet feel eerie and uncanny, and yet it happens routinely right here on earth.
even more awe inspiring: this phenomenon is an emergent property of each individual bird in the swarm following a few very simple rules, like “stay so close to these other birds around me.”
