Naked Lunch/Trivia
The Book
- Banned in the USA: Because of anti-obscenity laws, the book could not be published in the USA until 1962. In 1965, this was the last major work of literature to get unbanned in the American town of Boston (which banned quite a lot of things.)
- Deleted Scene: The Restored Text edition of Naked Lunch contains an appendix that collects some material omitted from the original version of the novel, most memorably the conclusion to Carl's examination by Dr. Benway.
- What Might Have Been: At one point, Frank Zappa approached Burroughs with the idea of adapting the novel as a musical - an idea that Burroughs quite liked.
The Film
- Development Hell: Attempts at filming Naked Lunch have been made, on and off, since the 1960s.
- Dueling Movies: The film shares a lot of similarities with Kafka, another film released in 1991. This one focused on Franz Kafka instead, and was also a loose adaptation of his overall body of work with the writer's avatar as the protagonist. Both even have Ian Holm in them!
- Fake Brit: A.J., whose British accent 'waned with the British empire'.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: The movie has Peter Weller (aka RoboCop) as Lee, Nicholas Campbell (aka Dominic Da Vinci) as the Kerouac standin, Roy Scheider as Benway, and Ian Holm, Robert Silverman, and Julian Sands in other roles.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: The Mugwumps and the Typewriters in the film all sound a lot like Burroughs.
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