With the Oscars upon us this weekend it seems an apt time to recall choice lines from past films.
We had better start with what was voted by the America Film Institute as the best movie line ever. In the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, Clark Gable as Rhett Butler when responding to Scarlett O' Hara's (Vivien Leigh's) tearful "Where shall I go? What should I do?'', tells her, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
For what it's worth here are some more that jog the memory.
To get a silly one out of the way, there is that iconic scene from the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally wherein Meg Ryan fakes an orgasm in a New York deli, prompting a lady at the next table to tell the waitress, "I'll have what she's having".
I'm ancient enough to recall seeing Sean Connery utter for the first time the immortal words "Bond, James Bond" when Dr No came out in 1962. I was an impressionable teenager and it just sounded cool to my juvenile ears.
Another quote ingrained in my mind is the scene in Apocalypse Now (1979) when Robert Duvall as a US officer in Vietnam commands his men to go surfing in the middle of a battle, noting that "Charlie don't surf!". He later delivers the classic "I love the smell of napalm in the morning".
Then there is a scene from the splendid satire Dr Strangelove (1964). At the Pentagon the president, played by Peter Sellers, attempts to break up a scuffle between the Russian ambassador and a US officer. He admonishes them with "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room!"
Pedestrian power
One line I have always related to comes from the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy when Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo is nearly run over by a taxi while walking on a pedestrian crossing in New York. He turns on the offending cabbie passionately shouting "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" while banging his fist on the bonnet.
There are so many times I have felt the same way at pedestrian crossings in Bangkok, although my language was a bit stronger than Rizzo's. In fact "I'm walkin' here!" should be adopted as the official slogan to protect pedestrians in Thailand.
Incidentally Midnight Cowboy, which won three Oscars including best film and best director, was not shown in Thailand until 10 years after its release because its homosexual content was regarded by the authorities as "inappropriate" for Thai audiences. Oh well.
Unlucky punk
I've enjoyed Clint Eastwood films since his days as the mysterious unshaven stranger in spaghetti westerns, where he was known as "the man with no name". Eastwood had previously starred as a clean-cut cowboy in the TV series Rawhide. He explained, "I got tired of playing the hero who kissed old ladies and dogs."
Eastwood came into his own as police detective Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series and most are familiar with "Go ahead, make my day" from Sudden Impact (1983). Equally memorable is his "Do you feel lucky punk?" in Dirty Harry (1971). Although what he actually says is: "You've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do you punk?"
Dirty rodents
As in Dirty Harry there are a number of famous lines in films that were not spoken exactly in the way we recall.
One of the most famous quotes is "Play it again Sam" from Casablanca (1942). However neither Humphrey Bogart nor Ingrid Bergman uttered that line. The nearest they came is when Bergman says, "Play it Sam, play As Time Goes By", while later Bogart says, "You played it for her, you can play it for me."
Impersonators and comedians have long thrived on James Cagney skits using the "you dirty rat" line. But Cagney publicly claimed, "I never did say 'you dirty rat'." However, he came very close. In Taxi! (1932) he snarled "you dirty yellow-bellied rat" while in Blonde Crazy (1930) it was "dirty double-crossing rat". If nothing else, it raised the profile of the American rodent population.
War wounds
Some quotes highlight the understatement and dark humour so beloved by the British. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), after King Arthur has chopped off both arms and legs of the Black Knight, the knight dismisses it as "just a flesh wound".
Then there is a scene from the 1970 film Waterloo concerning the 1815 battle. Lord Uxbridge is sitting on a horse surveying the scene alongside the Duke of Wellington when he winces in pain after taking a cannon shot in the leg. Uxbridge exclaims to Wellington, "By God sir, I've lost my leg!" and to which Wellington replies in deadpan fashion, "By God sir, so you have!"
Graduation day
Finally there's the oft-misquoted line from 1967's The Graduate when Dustin Hoffman in the title role says to the wonderfully sensuous Anne Bancroft, "Mrs Robinson you are trying to seduce me" followed by a delicious pause before he adds nervously, "Aren't you?" The term "Mrs Robinson" is now an established entry in the English lexicon, but we still don't know her first name.
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