12 Curious Details From Romantic Movies People Hardly Ever Notice

The purpose of romantic movies is to move us with their great stories. Although they indeed aim to make us smile, some go a little further and hide small references in plain sight. And although these details are usually simple, many people don’t even notice them.

Bright Side made this compilation of romantic movies that includes some hidden on-screen references that we didn’t see the first time we watched them.

1. Cake toppers in The Wedding Singer

The bride doll on Robbie and Linda’s wedding cake turns out to be a reference to Julia, as they bear a strong resemblance, and she is the woman Robbie decides to marry at the end of the film. So it works like a sort of premonition of what’s going to happen later in the movie. Of course, you would never know this the first time you watch it!

2. An interesting cameo appearance in Titanic

In one of the scenes of Titanic, we see a man walking on the deck with his wife. This man is actually Edward Kamuda, a historian who has dedicated much of his life to preserving the Titanic’s legacy. When James Cameron began production on the film, Kamuda assisted him as a consultant with historical details.

3. Costumes are adapted to the development of the characters in 13 Going on 30

At the beginning of the film, the protagonist of the movie is in her room. She’s showing her mom a magazine of things that 30-year-old women own and, in one of the shots, we can see the picture of a huge walk-in closet that’s illustrating a fashion article in the magazine as well. A few scenes later, when the protagonist finally turns 30 years old, we can see the same closet in her apartment, which makes us think that the protagonist has followed the dreams she had since she was a teenager.

4. The cake at the end of the film refers to a painting by Chagall that the main characters like in Notting Hill.

Spoiler alert, if you haven’t watched Notting Hill, you might want to stop reading at this point. If you have seen it though, you might remember that at the end of the movie, during the wedding, we can see that the cake has a goat with a violin on it. This rather strange design comes from a painting by Marc Chagall, titled The Bride. The actress mentions that “happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat” and we can see that at the end of the film, they decided to have a cake with that goat as a reference to that line.

5. The film that refers to the plot in Love Actually

There’s a scene where you can see that Mark has a DVD of Hitchcock’s classic thriller, Rear Window. It’s sitting right there on the shelf while he’s looking for something. Hitchcock’s movie is about a person who lives his life through the lens of his camera. This reference was used because the character from Love Actually did the same thing.

6. A reference to another film by the same director in Friends with Benefits

In the movie, Friends with Benefits, there’s a scene where Mila Kunis is at the airport holding a sign. She’s using it to welcome Justin Timberlake, and in the still, we can clearly see that the sign has the following name written on it: “O. Penderghast.” While this might seem strange, the name refers to Olive Penderghast, a character played by Emma Stone in the movie, Easy A. This reference was first included because both movies were made by the same director, Will Gluck.

7. The name of the hospital in 50 First Dates is a reference to another movie.

The psychiatric hospital Lucy goes to when she wants to investigate what happened to her has the same name as the auto parts owner, Tommy Boy Callahan, who is Chris Farley’s character in Tommy Boy. The director, Peter Segal, who worked on both movies, most likely decided to reference the 1995 film.

8. The use of blue in (500) Days of Summer was inspired by Zooey Deschanel’s eyes.

In several scenes of (500) Days of Summer, we can see that the movie’s namesake wears blue dresses, shirts, and skirts. You can also tell that throughout the whole movie, the color blue appears many times as a sort of secret code. This, in fact, is far from being a simple coincidence. That’s because the director and producers found this to be the most effective technique to highlight actress Zooey Deschanel’s blue eyes.

9. Nigel entering Bogey’s house in 10 Things I Hate About You

When Bogey is having a boring meeting at his house and he hears a knock on the door, after which he says, “That must be Nigel with the brie,” and when he opens the door, a huge group of young men comes in, but sure enough, the first one to enter the house is Nigel with a plate of brie cheese.

10. The T-shirt with Paul Rudd’s face in 40 Year Old Virgin

In this classic of comic movies, we can see that Cal (Seth Rogen) and David (Paul Rudd) are playing video games at Paul Rudd’s place. However, there’s a fun detail that not many people have noticed. Paul Rudd is wearing a T-shirt with a picture of his face printed on it, with the only difference being that in the picture printed there, the actor has a beard. It’s not clear why or who came up with this idea, but it’s certainly a funny one.

11. The reference to Saturday Night Live in the movie, Hitch

When Hitch arrives to meet Albert and opens his file, you can read that one of his favorite books is I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, written by Stuart Smalley, who is a character created by a comedian from the famous show Saturday Night Live. The book actually went on sale and the main theme is self-help in personal relationships, friendships, etc., which could definitely come in handy for the characters in the movie.

12. The server from Pretty Woman also appears in The Princess Diaries 2.

In Pretty Woman, there is an iconic scene where Julia Roberts (Vivian) goes to lunch at a very fancy restaurant together with Richard Gere (Edward). Vivian, as you might recall, is served snails, which is a sort of delicacy that she’s never had before. As she tries to grab one of them, the snail flies through the air and a server manages to catch it, and to lessen the embarrassment of the accident, he says, “It happens all the time.”

In The Princess Diaries 2, when Mia is greeting guests, a bracelet flies off her wrist, and it turns out that the one who catches it is the same actor who played the server from Pretty Woman. However, this time he’s a royal server. What didn’t change was his line, as again, he says, “It happens all the time.” This amazing Easter egg was included because Garry Marshall was the director of both films.

What films do you know of that are related to other Hollywood films?

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