"Lt. Cmdr. Mike Hewitt" is the torpedo operator on the surface ship who calls out the range of the torpedo fired on the Red October, only for it to be remotely detonated by James Greer (James Earl Jones) just prior to impact (to fool the Red October's crew being rescued on the surface). He is not referred to by name in the movie, but his character and the actor's name is listed in the credits. "Mike Hewitt" is a real person, although at the time of filming he was Captain Michael Hewitt (now retired - he was Captain of the USS Fulton, a "sub-tender" ship stationed at the Naval Base in Groton, CT). He was a technical advisor on the film and they gave his name to the character as thank you.

After being faxed the script, Sean Connery initially turned the role down on the basis of the plot being unrealistic for the post-Cold War era. Whoever sent the fax neglected to include the foreword explaining the movie as historical; once he received the foreword, Connery accepted the role.

Robert Garland, John Milius and David Shaber all did uncredited work on the script.

Kevin Costner was originally cast as Jack Ryan.

Klaus Maria Brandauer was originally cast as Marko Ramius, but broke his leg prior to filming. It was Brandauer who suggested his friend Sean Connery for the role, having known him since they appeared together in Never Say Never Again (1983).

$20,000 was spent on Sean Connery's hairpiece.

During filming, several of the actors portraying USS Dallas crewmen took a cruise on a real submarine. To train for his role as the Dallas' commander, Scott Glenn was installed as the "commander" of the real sub and gave orders to the crewmen as the real captain would.

The crew of the U.S.S. Dallas adopted the tagline "The Hunt Is On" as an unofficial ship's motto.

The dual-beeping sound effect of the Red October moving on the USS Dallas' sonar screen was also used in Patriot Games (1992) as the sound of Jack Ryan's EKG.

The ship escorting the Red October out of port is the USCGC Blackhaw (WLB-390), a buoy tender stationed in San Francisco California at that time.

The frigate shown when the Red October surfaces is not the real USS Reuben James, an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate with hull number 57. USS Gary, hull number 51, portrayed Reuben James and also provided some of the engine room shots of Red October. The crew also participated on some scenes.

The underwater model of the Red October has never been in the water. This effect was achieved using smoke on the 'underwater' set and a few digital touch-ups. The sub was hung by 12 wires from an overhead grid which gave the ability to tilt and turn the model as needed.

For the purposes of filming the underwater model of the Red October, only the left side of the sub was detailed to appear as an authentic submarine. The effect of showing the right side of the boat was achieved by simply turning the frame and reversing the image.

Director Trademark: [John McTiernan] [teddy bear] Jack Ryan takes a teddy bear home with him at the end of the film. McClane has one at the start of Die Hard (1988) (it's the same bear).

Sean Connery joined the cast after turning down the role of The Player in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990).

Rip Torn was announced for this film.

When the movie was first released on VHS in 1991, the tapes were red.

While preparing for his role in the film, Scott Glenn met the captain of the U.S.S. Salt Lake City. Glenn then composited the captain into Bart Mancuso.

Two torpedoes are dropped from the air at the Red October. One from a Bear-Foxtrot bomber and the other from a Seahawk helicopter. There was only one actual torpedo drop which was incorrectly reported here as: "filmed from two different angles for the attacks". By watching carefully the two sequences, played at the same time, it can be easily seen that the splash pattern around the torpedo of the second sequence is just the mirror image of the first sequence.

To help the audience quickly grasp which sub's interior they were seeing as the movie jumped from scene to scene and sub to sub, the filmmakers created a subtle lighting scheme: blue for Red October, red for Dallas, and green for the other Russian sub, the Alfa class "V. K. Konovalov".

During filming in 1989, the USS Houston, which was used as the USS Dallas in the movie, snagged the tow cable between the commercial tugboat Barcona and a barge sinking the tugboat, 10 miles off Long Beach, California. One crewman drowned and two more were rescued.

Most of Gates McFadden's role as Cathy Ryan was deleted from the final print.

Due to his obligation to this film, director John McTiernan had to pass up the opportunity to direct Die Hard 2 (1990), the sequel to his big hit Die Hard (1988).

The bible verses that Putin reads at the beginning of his conversation with Ramius come from Revelation 16:16-17.

Several employees that designed and built submarines from the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company (now known as Northrup/Grumman Newport News) were set design advisors for the submarine interiors on the Dallas and Red October. Some of the interiors actually contain real submarine items - mostly things like hatches, lights, etc, to add realism.

Director John McTiernan replaced his original editor, Peter Zinner, because Zinner found McTiernan's shooting approach difficult to work with given his classical, more traditional film background. However, Zinner has a bit part in the film as a Soviet admiral.

Richard Jordan was second choice for Dr Jeffery Pelt, the national security adviser. The role was first offered to an Irish actor.

In the opening credits, Red October is escorted by two tugs and a US Coast Guard 180 foot class bouytender, clearly seen off its starboard quarter.

Average Shot Length = ~7.2 seconds. Median Shot Length = ~6.9 seconds.

The Hunt for Red October was released in March 1990, just as Major League Baseball was entering spring training. Lou Pinella and the rest of the Cincinnati Reds used this movie all season for motivation and swept the Oakland A's in the World Series that October.

In the scene with the frigate "Ruben James", a second frigate was used during the filming. The USS Wadsworth FFG-9 was also used to depict the Ruben James. The Wadsworth's hull number 9 is clearly visible in a couple of scene's.

The scene where Jack Ryan was lowered onto the USS Dallas was filmed in the parking lot of the Mole Pier at Long Beach Naval Station on a beautiful sunny day. Editing made it look like it was the ocean.

A US Navy yard oiler was used to escort the sub at the beginning of the movie. It was in Long Beach CA, and the Red October was built to look like it submerged by using two articulated barges and flooding the front one while being towed.

Alec Baldwin was succeeded in his role by Harrison Ford; with whom he appeared in Working Girl (1988); and Ben Affleck; with whom he appeared in Pearl Harbor (2001).

It is a manly film: Gates McFadden with Louise Borras (as Jack Ryan's wife and daughter) and Denise E. James as a flight attendant have the only credited female speaking roles, and all of their dialog scenes are over before the end of the opening credits. There is an uncredited female engineer speaking in the background at Skip Tyler's dry dock and another (non-speaking) flight attendant appears at the end, but apart from that there are no other women in the film.

The name of the frigate that rescues the Red October's crew, the Reuben James, is from another of Tom Clancy's novels, ?Red Storm Rising?.

At the end of the film, Ramius quotes a poem that is attributed to Christopher Columbus. According to director John McTiernan the poem was actually written for the film by screenwriter Larry Ferguson.

The body count of this movie is debatable because of the sinking of the V. K. Konovalov - the Alpha class submarine was intended to be operated by a crew of only 16-18 officers but in actual deployment would mostly have some 23-24 officers, as well as 4 petty officers and a cook on board. Apart from the crewmen of the Konovalov, the count is five: - Victor Putin, the political officer, the pilot and navigator of the F-14 crashing onto the Enterprise, Red October XO Vasilij Borodin, and cooks assistant/saboteur Loginov.

The film footage of the crash aboard the carrier is actually that of an F9-F Panther of Korean War vintage.

Navy recruiters set up booths in some theater lobbies for people to sign up to join the service, or to at least look into it.

Continuity

When the F-14 crashes on the deck, archive footage of an F-9F crash is shown.

When Ryan is in the helicopter approaching USS Dallas the dialogue refers to the bad weather conditions making the transfer dangerous. Shots from the helicopter, however, show a completely flat sea - about as calm as it gets.

Captain Borodin unbuttons his top button twice after Ramius informs the officers of his plans to defect.

Just after the Red October's caterpillar drive is engaged, as the crewmen are singing, Ramius orders a turn to 250 degrees, right full rudder. However, shown on the navigator's chart when he draws the new course, the boat is making a left turn from 310 degrees (much sharper than a 60 degree turn as well), and the subsequent exterior shot shows a left full rudder application.

When Ramius gets the mission orders the instructions are to return to base by the 16th of this month. When Ryan is briefing the generals it is the 23rd of the month (the anniversary of Ramius's wife's death).



Factual errors

The crew of the Konovalov is shown to include petty officers and seamen, but a real Alfa class submarine is crewed entirely by officers. (This may not have been known in the West at the time of filming.)

Many Soviet officers are show wearing beards. Moustaches and beards were not permitted in the Soviet army and fleet.

After the Red October is called a rogue sub, the question is asked when it will be able to fire its missiles on the U.S. (we're told in three days when it's off the coast of the U.S.). Given that Typhoon class SSBNs carry the R-39 Rif-M intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of over 8000 kilometers, the answer given is off by a factor of 10 (Typhoons could launch from dock in the former USSR).

Although it is true that sailors would receive on-the-job training, They must first attend schooling in their specific fields. In the case of sonar-man Beaumont, he would not be so clueless as to not know how to handle his station when on an actual deployment. It would be dangerous for the Navy to operate that way.

During scenes on the American and Soviet ships, the crews read out distances in yards and meters respectively, which is correct. When Captain Mancuso takes command of the Red October to evade the Alfa's torpedoes, the American and Russian crews call off distances in yards, not meters. The Soviet crew certainly would not have done that and the Red October's instruments would have not been calibrated to give distances in yards in any case.



Incorrectly regarded as goofs

While loudly singing the national anthem in "Silence" mode may be a violation of procedure, it is clear within the context of the movie that this was a spontaneous outburst of patriotic sentiment following the revelation of their (ostensible) orders. Borodin plainly points out that the singing is a serious issue; Captain Ramius' response confirms that while it is unorthodox, he nevertheless explicitly permits the singing to continue. Captain Ramius even joins in himself.

When the second torpedo is fired at the Red October by the Russian Alpha sub, Capt. Ramius (Sean Connery) orders the Red October to change course to heading 315. Several characters are astonished by this order. They indicate that this will turn Red October into the oncoming torpedo. This is often regarded incorrect, as it is understood that the torpedo is traveling on the same course as the new heading (i.e. 315). However, the sonar officer did report the torpedo as being on _bearing_ 315, not course, which indicates that Captain's choice of course, is, in fact correct, as to reach an item on bearing 315 you need to take a course of 315 (by the definition). As the torpedo is making (roughly) a beeline to the target sub, it can be easily calculated that it is traveling on course of 135 (i.e. the opposite of 315), and both the sub and the torpedo are going to be on a collision course.

A Soviet crewman is shown doing a Roman Catholic rather than a Russian Orthodox cross. This is entirely possible: some parts of the USSR, such as Ramius's home republic of Lithuania, were heavily Roman Catholic.

When on top of the Red October, the Soviet officer identifies the American warship at "six miles and closing fast." No Soviet officer would have used miles, instead he would have said "10 kilometers" since the USSR like essentially the rest of the planet used the metric system. He's not speaking American English. This is the translation from Russian.

Ramius's safe has two dials on it, presumably so no one person could open it: two people would each know only one of the combinations, not unlike the keys to the missiles. Ramius, however, is able to open it having only operated one dial. The political officer was already present in his quarters however, and may simply have dialed his combination before the captain entered.



Revealing mistakes

During the aerial shot for when the Russian Alfa explodes, you can see the pyrotechnics floating in the water for a brief second before they are set off to the right side of the screen.

On the Penobscot River, while Ryan and Ramius are talking on the bridge of the Red October, just before Ryan states, "Welcome to the new world, sir," the tree line behind him can be seen through his hair, revealing that the scene was shot on a bluescreen. Also, the background seems to move along with the camera, not changing when the camera zooms in on Ryan and Ramius.

When Jack Ryan is dragged into the Dallas after almost drowning, one of the crewman bends a valve when laying Jack on the floor.

When the DSRV is leaving the Dallas, the mini-sub pilot gives the order to "flood the skirt" to which the copilot replies that there is a soft seal, meaning the DSRV can easily detach from the Dallas since the pressure in the docking collar has been equalized with the surrounding water pressure. Yet when they get to the Red October, the copilot says they have a soft seal and can now open the hatch. This would mean that there would still be water between the two vessels' hulls and the mini-sub would risk flooding the compartment if the hatch were open without a hard seal.

When Ryan and Admiral Painter are watching the plane crash-land into the aircraft carrier on the screen, there is very little sound and vibration on the actual ship.



Miscellaneous

Larry Ferguson ("Chief of the Boat" Watson) is wearing a name tag that has the actor's last name on it instead of Watson.

Chief Cobb refers to Jonesie as "Seaman Jones", but the insignia on Jonesie's sleeve is for a Petty Officer Second Class. You would call him "Petty Officer Jones" or "ST2 Jones", which means Sonar Technician 2nd Class Jones.

After ordering a warning shot to be fired across the Red October's bow, the commander of the Reuben James tells the pilot to "come right", but the ship is then shown to turn left.

When Ryan is getting on the helo to fly out to the Dallas, the blades of the top rotor are still locked backwards and are not rotating even though you can hear them and the actors are shouting over the noise. You can see this if you look at the top left corner of the screen during the scene.

When the Konovalov is first shown, its captain's name is shown onscreen as "Tupolov," but the name is spelled "Tupolev" in the credits.



Anachronisms

The story takes place in 1984, yet on a table in Ryan's apartment in London is a 1987 issue of "Proceedings".

As Ryan is packing at the beginning of the movie, he is shown closing a clamshell-style laptop displaying rotating Typhoon images. There were no laptops available in 1984 with this type of high resolution back-lit LCD display.

Envelope with the letter from Ramius to Padorin is international type of envelope, while in 1984 in Russia were used envelopes of 160mm by 115 mm size.

The Range Rover that drops Jack Ryan at the Airport is seen to have a UK "C" registration plate - this translates to a car registered between August 1985 and July 1986, at least a year after the time frame of the film.

The USS Reuben James was commissioned in February 1985, several months after the film's setting of November 1984.



Audio/visual unsynchronized

When Captain Ramius says to Jack Ryan, in Russian, "You speak Russian," he actually says the line in English, but the Russian words are dubbed on.

When Jonesy plays the recording 'at 10x speed', the volume knob on the tape player is in the off position.

When Admiral Painter is looking out onto the flight deck and says "This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it", his head and jaw movements are not consistent with the words.



Crew or equipment visible

Two cameramen (one in wet jeans and Soviet naval shirt/hat) and equipment (camera covered by plastic) visible during the Red October evacuation.

Part of the studio set, a stage light, and a crew member walking on pavement are all reflected in the visor of the helicopter crew member.

When Tupolew's submarine arrives, there's an exterior shot of the evacuated crew with sky overcast. Studio lights are reflected in an elder crew member's glasses.

While Ramius is turning the periscope to make visual contact with the American sub, a reflection of the camera operator is clearly seen on the periscope wearing a white t-shirt and peering into the viewfinder, this occurs a few seconds after the reflection of a crew member wearing a red shirt is also seen.

During the crew evacuation scene, Ramius tells the doctor the officers will submerge and scuttle the ship. Just after that there is a shot from the upper part of the sail down toward the deck with the ladder rungs in the foreground and the open rafts below. As crewmen climb down the ladder rungs in the foreground, a man holding a camera is seen in the second raft from the bottom on the left. He is kneeling in the raft facing out with the camera plainly visible. This is just before the shot with the camera men in jeans on deck.



Errors in geography

When Dr. Ryan is being dropped off at Heathrow airport by his wife, there is a mistake in how the cars are supposed to be driving. They're driving the wrong way. In the UK, the curb would be on the left (UK passenger) side of the vehicle (and consequently on the right side of the screen). It's shown that the land rover pulls up to the curb with it on the UK driver's side.

On at least two occasions, maps are shown of the Barent's Sea indicating the Red October's route of departure from port. On both occasions, the boat is shown to have left from a Norwegian fjord - not Polyarny.

Near the end as the Red October sails up the wide, deep Penobscot River in Maine, Marko claims that there is a river very much like it near Vilnius in Lithuania. There is no river of that size anywhere near Vilnius.

When Jack is dropped off at Heathrow, a map of the Underground is in the left foreground. But this is not the London Underground, it looks more like a map of Chicago.

There are no submarine support facilities or graving docks at Patuxent River, Maryland. It is a Naval Air Station only.



Plot holes

Near the end of the film, a header comes up showing that the submarine is sailing on the Penobscot river north of Searsport Maine. This was done in an attempt to hide the submarine from the prying eyes of any Soviet spy satellites that may be looking for the Red October. However, unlike the wilderness that is shown as the ship moves up the river, there are in fact, several fishing towns and homes located along the length of this river, not to mention bridges that cross at various points. It is unlikely that a Soviet missile submarine that is 574 feet in length, 75 feet wide and drafting almost 40 feet of water could make its way up this river without attracting considerable attention at some point. Not to mention that a ship the size of a Typhoon class sub would have an extremely difficult time trying to navigate a waterway as narrow and shallow as the Penobscot is in spots.

Using a magnetohydrodynamic or "caterpillar" drive to evade detection would not work. As far back as WW2, airborne Magnetic Anomaly Detectors (MAD) were used to detect submarines based on the effect of their construction steel on the earth's magnetic field. Actively generating a (strong) magnetic field for propulsion would make this much easier.

After killing the political officer, Ramius burns the original order document before replacing it with his own forged order. While the paper is still burning, he calls for help. Help would arrive within seconds, finding the cabin filled with smoke and the ashtray with glowing remnants of not-still-burning paper. This would have raised serious suspicion as to what had happened.

An exterior ship-to-ship hatch on a submarine is impossible to detect by sonar and must be recognized visually when submerged. Thus, there is no possible way that the rescue sub that went from the Dallas to the Red October could have found its docking collar in such a short time, if at all, since the Red October has no visible ship-to-ship hatches along its axis, only missile hatches, and the rescue sub has no windows.

As Ramius, Borodin, and the Doctor stand together on the deck of Red October, Borodin reads out the American warship's signal warning not to submerge. Borodin's decoding of the message hails Red October by name, but the Doctor does not seem to wonder how the Americans would know the name of their boat.



Character error

When Ramius asks Ryan (in Russian) "You speak Russian?", the Russian line that Sean Connery actually says is "Govaryu po russki?" This means, "I speak Russian?", and is also grammatically incorrect as a question. The correct line should have been like "Vy govarite po russki?"

The Dallas and Red October are occasionally referred to as ships, but anyone stationed aboard a submarine would know to call it a boat.

When Petty Officer Jones first hears the Red October he says ..."We hit a boomer coming out of the barn" and then says "probably a missile boat out of Polijarny." In U.S. submarine slang 'boomer' means a missile boat and 'the barn' was slang for the Polijarny inlet in Russia. Petty Officer Jones repeated himself, obviously for the understanding of the audience but not something that would be done on a U.S. missile sub.

When the Red October opens the caterpillar doors, sonar man Jones would have heard them opening (since they were close enough for him to hear the crew singing). As such, not knowing what kind of doors they were, he would most likely have assumed they were torpedo tube doors, and sounded an alarm.

When Captain Ramius first addresses the crew, he asks Kamarov, the navigator, if there were any sonar contacts. Monitoring the sonar is not the responsibility of the navigator. Also, throughout the movie the Dive Officer and the Sonar Officer seem to be switching places.