The Oktoberfest scene at the beginning of the film was not staged. The filmmakers hid cameras to prevent people from knowing they were being filmed. Walter Matthau, who lost family and friends in the Holocaust, only agreed to travel to Germany to shoot the opening Oktoberfest scene on condition that his son, David Matthau, was cast as Ross. After agreeing to be filmed in Germany, Walter Matthau resisted filming scenes showing him drinking at Oktoberfest until his stepdaughter Lucy Saroyan ...[Read Story ]