Soylent Green/Trivia

• Beam Me Up, Scotty: An unusual instance. While Heston does actually yell "Soylent Green is people!" during the film's climax, most people get the context wrong and believe that he screams it while running down the street and fleeing from the police. In actual fact he says it to the police, in the middle of a cathedral that has been converted into a homeless shelter, while being carried away on a stretcher. The "running down the street" scenario was actually from a Saturday Night Live parody of the film. They may also be getting it confused with the ending of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• Defictionalization: You can actually find Soylent Green crackers out there, though it's not really made of people (or so we hope...).
• Enforced Method Acting: Heston during Sol's "going home". Robinson had privately told Heston that he was actually dying of cancer. This was Edward G. Robinson's last film; he died twelve days after it was made.
• Hey, It's That Guy!:
  • T'Pau as the Exchange Leader.
  • Dick Van Patten of Eight Is Enough as an assisted suicide attendant.
• Reality Subtext: Edward G. Robinson was really dying from cancer during filming. Thorn's tears are Charlton Heston's real tears during the assisted suicide scene.
• Technology Marches On:
  • Shirl is shown playing an early-70's arcade machine. It was Computer Space, one of the first computer arcade games ever.
  • Thorn uses a police call box from time to time, since this movie predates the rise of mobile communications.