On People, Gaseous:
People are like gas … I mean, gas fills whatever space it’s in … and people do, too.
Sexy French lover girl/philosopher/archeologist Valerie Quennessen in Summer Lovers, 1982, also starring Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher
On Philistines, Snappy Comments from:
Samson: If you had not plowed with my heifer, you would not have answered my riddle.
Philistine: You’re a bad loser, strongman.
Samson and Delilah, 1949, starring Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr
On Philosophical Talks About Death, Stupid:
Billy Jack: Long ago, I learned that he’s my constant companion. He eats with me, he walks with me, he even sleeps with me.
Prosecutor: I’m sorry, I must have missed something back there. Who is this faithful companion of yours?
Billy Jack: Death.
Tom Laughlin (Billy), during his trial in The Trial of Billy Jack, 1974
On Philosophy, Cool, Man:
We’re just God’s grass. We get burned and He gets a high, man.
Dennis Hopper as a drunk staying in a very bad motel where he’s about to be stabbed in Eye of the Storm, 1991
On Philosophy Degrees, What You Learn with:
Man’s search for faith, that sort of shit.
Cool bouncer Patrick Swayze explaining what he learned while getting his philosophy degree, to Kelly Lynch in Road House, 1989
On Pick-up Lines, One of the Worst:
Is it just me or does the jungle make you really, really horny?
Owen Wilson, as documentary sound mixer Gary in the Amazon jungle, to his coworker in Anaconda, 1997
On Plants, Smart ’n’ Sassy:
Plants are the most cunning of all life forms!
Doc Roller (Bernard Kates) in Seedpeople, 1992
On Pleas, Heartfelt:
I don’t want to be killed! I just want to teach English.
Panicking actor in the TV movie Echoes in the Darkness, 1987
On the Pleasures of Life:
Texan: A little poontang might ease your mind a bit.
Cochran: I killed a man I hated today.
Texan: I got ya. You don’t want to mix your pleasures.
James Gammon (Texan) and Kevin Costner (Cochran) as two down-and-outers bent on revenge against Anthony Quinn in Revenge, 1990
On Poems About Electricity, Bad:
Oh, I had worshiped thee, false god,
For thou art false—electricity!
But one day, our god Kilowatt left us;
Could we then go back to the gods of our childhood?
To reindeer?
Santa Claus?
Poem written and recited by rich poetess Olivia de Havilland when she’s trapped in an elevator in Lady in a Cage, 1964
On Poems, Monstrously Bad:
Atomic bombs, hydrogen bombs,
and radioactive fallout
Fall into the sea.
Godzilla would rage,
If he could see.
He’d turn the page
And clear it for you and me.
Poem written and read by youngster Ken to a rapt audience in Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1972
On Points About Demons, Good:
I may not be able to kill you, but I can dismember you.
Girl to demon in The Granny, 1995
THE STUPIDEST QUASI-INTELLECTUAL MOVIE LINES
Hollywood, many insiders say, is not the most intellectual of places. People spend their free time in pursuits other than talking about the meaning of life or what Spinoza really meant.
Yet, all too often, a film character is called upon to say something (theoretically) profound. How can one be sure that the not-terribly-profound profundity is adequately appreciated by the audience?
Often screenwriters take the simplest route—have one character say the erstwhile profound line, then have the next character reply by saying something such as, “That was very profound.” (This, of course, is designed to tip off any confused viewers.)
Other screenwriters—particularly those who believe in their own mighty intellectualism—opt for the more highbrow: A character spouts forth a slew of random words and thoughts, most often in a bored manner. The savvy viewer will notice that these lines make no sense. This is the vital clue that something profound was just said.
In either case, the results, if not thought-provoking, are singularly laughter-provoking.
On Time, Ponderous Thoughts About:
Girl: What are you thinking about?
Boy: Time.
Girl: It’s about two-thirty.
Boy: I meant centuries. I was thinking about the guy who made this [Greek ruin]. His work is still here after two thousand years. What was he thinkin’ when he chipped right there?
Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher as young American lovers vacationing in Greece in Summer Lovers, 1982
On Ugliness, Wisdom About:
Ugly bad guy: Maybe if a man is ugly, he does ugly things.
Plastic surgeon: You are saying something profound.
Boris Karloff (ugly guy) and Bela Lugosi (surgeon) having a discussion in The Raven, 1935
On Existential Observations About Hotel Hallways:
Once again everything was deserted in the immense hotel. Empty salons, corridors, salons, doors, doors, salons … empty chairs, deep armchairs … stairs, steps, steps one after another … glass objects, empty glasses … a dropped glass, a glass partition … letters, a lost letter … keys hanging from their rings … marked door keys, 309, 307, 305, 303 … chandeliers, chandeliers, pearls, mirrors … corridors without a soul in sight … and the garden, like all else, was deserted.
Fascinating monologue delivered by the intense young man X (Giorgio Albertazzi) intent on finding a woman he might have known, in Last Year at Marienbad, 1962
On Dialogue, Anyway but Good:
There’s a thousand sides to everything, not just heroes and villains.… So anyway … so anyway … so anyway … “So anyway” ought to be one word. Like a place or a river.
Daria Halprin, a far-out young woman in Zabriskie Point, 1970
On Points about Godzilla, Pretty Obvious:
This thing is much too big to be some lost dinosaur.
Dr. Niko Tatopoulus (Matthew Broderick), in Godzilla, 1998
On Points, Debatable:
It’s better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool.
Said by both Mickey Rourke and Don Johnson as the ultra-cool biker boy and the hip cowboy in Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man, 1991
On Points, Obvious:
It must be the sulfur in the walls of his cave that has kept this creature alive for all these years.
Mr. Miller, explaining to the teenagers how the monster-man Eegah (Richard Kiel) has survived in the desert since prehistoric times in Eegah!, 1962
On Points to Ponder, Part 1:
Novice bartender: The waitresses hate me.
Old-hand bartender: Wait till you’ve given them crabs—then you’ll really know hatred.
Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown in Cocktail, 1988
On Points to Ponder, Part 2:
Only the infinity of the depths of a man’s mind can really tell the story.
Bela Lugosi, narrator in Glen or Glenda?, 1952
On Poison, Problems with:
Louise was feeling good until you gave her that poison.
The detective (Stuart Whitman) making a sinister observation about his sister’s death to the doctor (Martin Landau) in Strange Shadows in an Empty Room, 1976
On Police Intelligence:
This criminal must be found. Otherwise, these acts will continue!
Very smart cop in Rock ’n’ Roll Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Ape, 1962
On Pornography, Succinct Thoughts On:
Pornography. It’s a nasty word for a dirty business.
Detective Kenne Duncan summing up the movie in The Sinister Urge, 1960
On Post-death Aging:
Ghost: I died when I was twenty and it’s seventeen years ago!
Carry Ng as a snotty ghost in The Ultimate Vampire, 1987
On Potatoes:
Laurie: But if this thing is actually killing people, then why is the mayor trying to keep it quiet?
Mort: Potatoes.
Laurie: Potatoes?
Mort: Around here that means big money.
Marianne Gordon and Johnny Commander after toxic waste turned a young Idaho boy into a killer mutant monster, in The Being, 1983,
On Prayer, Cloying Moments in:
Dondi (praying to God): I wish you make them let me stay in America, Mr. Big-Buddy, please.
Patti Page (weeping): Dondi’s talking to the most influential friend of all!
Dondi (David Kory), the poor little Italian orphan, and Patti Page in Dondi, 1961
On Prehistoric Man, Little-Known Inventions of:
Strangely enough, the swan dive was invented before the swan.
Narrator explaining a swimming scene in the prehistoric romance Prehistoric Women, 1950
On Premarital Sex, the Price of:
Poor kid! Maybe this is the price you pay for sleeping together.
Rock Hudson, to the camera, as Jennifer Jones dies in childbirth in A Farewell to Arms, 1957
On Premarital Sex, the Tragedy of Non–Ivy League:
You want to hear a big joke? They weren’t even Yalies.
Hospital-bed-ridden, social-climbing, suicidal Yvette Mimieux, realizing she had sullied her reputation for nothing, in Where the Boys Are, 1960
On Pre-nups, Native Style:
Princess Kahlua: The gods have smiled on us. Now we can be one. You can buy me.
Princeton Student: Buy you?
Princess Kahlua: Yes, from my father. It is the custom. I will be very expensive.
Princeton Student: You will be worth it.
Polynesian Princess Kahlua (Debra Paget) and the young Princeton student she loves (Louis Jourdan), discussing their upcoming marriage in Bird of Paradise, 1951
On Pretentious Convicted Killers, Statements from:
Mendacity is the great sin that’s destroying America, and I’m a living reproach to you ’cause I’m an honest man.
Mickey Rourke as a convicted killer holding a family hostage in Desperate Hours, 1990
On a Pretty Bad Morning:
Then, one morning I woke up, the sun was shining … Jack was dead, dead inside me, dead in bed. That must have been when I started to smell bad.
Helena Kallianiotes as Frieda, the demented mining town madam, mourning her lost love in Eureka, 1981
On Priorities:
Jack: Listen. There’s a girl out there who might be running for her life from some gigantic turned-on ape!
Fred: Jack, I know how you feel. I feel the same. But there’s a national energy crisis which demands that we all rise above our private selfish interests.
Fred the expedition leader (Charles Grodin) explaining to Jack the concerned scientist (Jeff Bridges) why he can’t spare the men to go save Jessica Lange as Dwan from King Kong, in King Kong, 1976
On Problems, Getting to the Heart of:
It’s in a doll. Unfortunately, I can’t find the doll.
Man (Robert Culp) explaining what’s happened to his heart, in Spectre, 1977
On Problems, Problems:
Mike Brady: We have a very serious situation on our hands here.
Businessman: Situation? What kind of situation?
Mike Brady: This entire area used to be a toxic waste dump. And not only that, we have a mutant form of killer slug in our water system!
Health Inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) explaining some of the problems of doing business in his town to a businessman, in Slugs, 1988
On Producers, Inside Hollywood View of:
Once in a while you bring me meat like this. It all has different names: prime rib of Gloria, shoulder cut of Johnny. Meat!
Studio mogul Joseph Cotten, talking about his new actor Frankie (Stephen Boyd), in The Oscar, 1966
On Producers, the Sensitive Other Side:
Mr. Merlin: I’m a producer of movies. I get my wagonloads of poets and dramatists, but I can’t buy common sense—I cannot buy humanity!
Hazel: Well, I don’t know why, Mr. Merlin, there’s an awful lot of it.
Mr. Merlin: Yes, I know, but the moment I buy it, it turns into something else, usually genius, and it isn’t worth a dime. Now, if you could stay just as simple as you are, you’d be invaluable to me.… I’ll put you on my staff.… I’ll give you a title: Miss Humanity. Don’t rush, you can finish your ice-cream soda.
Adolphe Menjou and Andrea Leeds in The Goldwyn Follies, 1938
On Profundity, Not So Profound:
Forgive me for being profound, but it’s good to be alive.
Troy Donahue falling in love with Suzanne Pleshette over spaghetti and meatballs in Rome Adventure, 1962
On Promiscuous Sex, Advantages for Smokers and:
Tough girl: Before you go any further, you should know there are certain initiation requirements.
New girl: Well, all right. What are these so-called requirements?
Tough girl: Well, you have to make love to five boys who belong to the club.
New girl: Oh, well, that’s easy enough.
Tough girl: Maybe you didn’t quite understand. I mean make love to each one, intimately.
New girl: You mean … have relations with five boys? Oh, I don’t think I could.
Tough girl: Well, you’ll have plenty of free smokes from the boys, and you won’t even know it.
Girl Gang, 1954
On Promos, Bad Puns and:
She’s got the biggest six-shooters in the West!
Ad for The Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend, 1949
On Promos, Disturbing:
Please Don’t Disturb Evelyn. She Already Is.
Promo for Mountain Motel Massacre, 1986
On Protection, Cellulite and:
Resistin’s gonna be a darn sight harder for you than for females protected by the shape of sows.
Preacher (Walter Huston) explaining to gorgeous half-breed (Jennifer Jones) why the boys might have more fun in Duel in the Sun, 1946
On Proverbs, Well-Known:
A toad is no match for a swan.
Robotrix, 1991
On Psychiatrists, Disapproving:
You believed in these drugs and you rebuilt this man and you did put him back on the street. But now he’s out there killing people, and we can’t have that.
Psychiatrist to a colleague in Nightmare, 1981
On Psychos, Distinctions About:
You may be a bit psychotic, but I didn’t figure you for stupid.
Policeman chatting with motorcycle gang member in Savage Dawn, 1985
On Psychos, Problems of:
Why is it I always gotta kill somebody to get them to take me seriously?
Misunderstood psycho Kevin Dillon in Misbegotten, 1997
On Public Service Announcements We Hope We Never Hear:
The survival command center at the Pentagon has disclosed that a ghoul can be killed by a shot in the head.… Officials are quoted as explaining that since the brain of a ghoul has been activated by the radiation, the plan is: Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul!
TV newsman giving the world some hope in Night of the Living Dead, 1968
On Publicity Problems, Monsters and:
We can’t let them out into the city. All they would have to do is eat a couple of small children and we would have the most appalling publicity.
Scientist (Christopher Lee) explaining the problem in Gremlins 2: The New Batch, 1990
On Puns, Large:
You know what they wrote about me in the high school yearbook? The man most likely to reach the top!
The really tall colossal man talking to his fiancée in The Amazing Colossal Man, 1957
On Puns, Truly Terrible
:
You go for deserts while I’m hot for peaks, and not just through doors, either.
Mountain climber Grant Williams to girlfriend Connie Stevens in Susan Slade, 1961
On Put-downs, Snappy:
Dewey: How ’bout it? Come on. Let’s hit the high spots.
Girlfriend: Why don’t you go somewhere and catch yourself, you foul ball!
Conrad Janis (Dewey), the bad boy, and a friend in That Hagen Girl, 1947, starring Shirley Temple and Ronald Reagan
Q
On Queens, Potentially Fecund:
My breasts are full of love and life. My hips are round and well apart. Such women, they say, have sons.
Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor) seducing Caesar (Rex Harrison) in Cleopatra, 1963
On Questions About the Neighbors, Intriguing:
How many of our neighbors have their girlfriends’ heads in their freezers?
Wife of philandering husband Peter Gallagher in Virtual Obsession, 1998
On Questions, Good:
We sold our bodies; why can’t we sell some wood?
Interesting question posed by liberated western gal soon-to-be-entrepreneur in Bad Girls, 1994, starring Andie MacDowell, Drew Barrymore, Madeleine Stowe, and Mary Stuart Masterson
Stupid Movie Lines Page 9