Ronald Reagan as the hired ranch hand, to skinny-dipping Barbara Stan-wyck as Sierra Nevada Jones in Cattle Queen of Montana, 1954
THE STUPIDEST ATTEMPTS AT HISTORICAL DIALOGUE
How did people talk in bygone days? This is a burning question that has long plagued Hollywood. Lacking tape recordings from biblical times, ever-resourceful screenwriters have been forced to hypothesize—and two distinct schools of thought seem to have evolved:
1. The Classic School: In the past, people apparently spoke as though they were walking thesauri. They were prone to using unwieldy words (“abjure,” “bereft,” “hardihood,” and the like), stilted syntax (always heavy on compound verbs), and convoluted sentences (replete with dependent clause upon dependent clause). Declamation was extremely popular, as was speaking as though one were not completely comfortable with the use of action verbs.
2. The Modern School: In the past, people apparently were hip New York/LA types, and talked and acted exactly like New York/LA film people. Great figures like Moses, Columbus, and Washington were more concerned with looking cool than with saving their people or discovering new lands. They used words like “hip,” “drag,” “dig” (if it was a 1960s film), or “bitch,” “dude,” “awesome” (if it was a 1990s film), and posed a lot, as if they were aware that someday someone would come along and film them. In most cases, everyone has styled hair, which was, of course, the big thing from biblical times onward.
In either case, the result is more hysterical than historical, as the following demonstrate.
On Biblical Chitchat, Common:
Abjure this woman and her idolatries. Tear down the obscene abomination she has erected!
An elder to King Solomon in Solomon and Sheba, 1959, starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida
On Romantic Dialogue, Great Moments in:
Genghis Khan: I shall keep you, Bortai. I shall keep you unresponding to my passion. Your hatred will kindle into love.
Bortai: Before that day dawns, Mongol, the vultures will feast on your heart!
John Wayne and Susan Hayward in The Conqueror, 1956
On Things We’re Willing to Bet Columbus’s Men Never Said:
It’s not just about how far we’ve come, it’s this bitch of a wind.
Andy Robert Davi, the captain of the Pinta, to Columbus in Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, 1992, starring Georges Corraface
On Sludge Monsters, Weakness of:
Dr. Yano: In each creature a weakness exists.
Ken: Hedorah’s only sludge—we could dry it out!
The scientist and his young son discussing ways to rid the world of the smog monster in Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1972
On Sly Stallone Films, Moving Moments from:
Did you bump uglies with my sister?
From the Sylvester Stallone—Kurt Russell buddy film Tango and Cash, 1989
On Solaronite, Fascinating Info on:
Colonel: You speak of solaronite, but just what is it?
Eros: Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now you spread a thin line of it to a ball representing the earth. Now the gasoline represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline—the sunlight—then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can—or the sun itself. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline—our sunlight—touches. Explode the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe. Explode the sunlight here and a chain reaction will occur directly to the sun itself and to all the planets that sunlight touches. To every planet in the universe.
Colonel Edwards (Tom Keene) and Eros the Alien (Dudley Manlove) having a scientific discussion in Plan 9 from Outer Space, 1959
On Song Lines, Utterly Banal:
I’m just the total of what I’ve become.
Song in The Harrad Experiment, 1973
On Songs, Messy:
Go on away and leave me alone …
I don’t care whether I live or I die.
Why is it everything happens to me
And my dreams all explode in my face?
Song sung by nightclub chanteuse Ann Pellegrino, after she learns that her sister (a drum majorette) has been kidnapped by the evil Herr Doktor in The Yesterday Machine, 1963
On Songs That Never Made the Top Ten:
We have cobalt,
it’s full of mercury.
Too many fumes in our oxygen.
And the smog now
is choking you and me.
Good lord, where is it gonna end?
It’s up to us
to make a choice.
Save the earth!
Chorus: Save the earth!
Save the earth!
Title song “Save the Earth” from Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1972
On Soothsaying, Stupid:
Gods of fire and gods of water.
Gods of air and gods of thunder.
Show thy message in the blade bones
Burning hot before my eyes.
Through the vapors,
From the heavens,
Make the truth arise! Arise!
Mina mina chey tambina,
Nee nee nee nee shockazee!
The double-dealing shaman (John Hoyt) reading the portents, in The Conqueror, 1959
On Sound Tracks, How to Cover Up Problems with:
The sergeant, a shaken man, returned babbling about what had happened. Colonel Caldwell, realizing the full danger of the situation, decided that he had only one means left to stop the monster: grenades! Now Professor Bradford made a drastic move. Acting on his superior authority, he forbade Caldwell to destroy the creature. The colonel, more concerned with saving lives than advancing science, told Bradford to go to hell.
Narrator in a scene in which the dialogue was apparently unusable in The Creeping Terror, 1964
On Space Crews, Childish:
There’s too much infantile romanticism on this crew!
An annoyed captain (Sonny Tufts) in Cat Women of the Moon, 1954
On Space, Good Points About:
There’s a lot of space out there to get lost in.
Dr. John Robinson (William Hurt), in Lost in Space, 1998
On Spelling Problems, Bo Derek and:
… ecstasy. What a beautiful word: E-X-T- …”
Bo Derek misspelling “ecstasy” (unless she was talking about the hip eighties drug “extasy”) in Bolero, 1984
On Stomach Problems, Communist:
You’re in a fine state! God, has someone cut your tongue off? Why do you get like this? Is it the altitude in—or is it something you’ve eaten?
Gita (Romy Schneider) to her silent boyfriend in The Assassination of Trotsky, 1972
On Strippers, Politically Correct:
We hate these. They degrade women and beavers.
Stripper Erin Grant (Demi Moore), protesting the design on the coasters and napkins at the “Eager Beaver Bar” to the manager in Striptease, 1996
On Studs, Real Sensitive:
I’d like to meet the kid that I was when I was five years old, because I think he’s the only person on the planet who knows who I really am.
Sensitive (and satisfied) stud Don Johnson after finally making it with nice girl Laurie Walters in The Harrad Experiment, 1973
On Stupid Sex Confessions:
After sixteen years of marriage, cool Amy Hughes, who liked it in the dark, always pretended it was rape, finally pulls her pants down.
Dr. Richard Crenna, discussing his own wife’s seduction of himself in Doctors’ Wives, 1970
On Stupid Sex Descriptions:
Sex is a pleasant, friendly thing, like shaking hands or making sure you catch a person’s name when you’re introduced.
George Hamilton as an on-the-make Ivy Leaguer trying to seduce Dorothy Hart in Where the Boys Are, 1960
On Success, How to Know When You’ve Got It:
Dr. Ed
Wainright: Well, there’s one thing I have to get myself, something that will tell me I’ve succeeded.
General Hanson: What’s that?
Ed: A live giant grasshopper.
Peter Graves and Morris Ankrum, in Beginning of the End, 1957, in which the earth is populated by giant grasshoppers
On Suicide, Unusual Reaction to:
Connie, everybody reacts differently to suicide. With Allison, it’s severe shock.
Wise Dr. Swain (Lloyd Nolan) explaining to Connie (Lana Turner) why her teen-age daughter Allison has taken to bed after she found the body of her best friend’s mother hanging in her bedroom, in Peyton Place, 1957
On Superchicks:
She’s all woman—all every woman wants to be. Forceful, feminine, free. Superbrain, superbody, supercharged—Superchick. A swinging motion picture experience about a super kind of woman. In public she’s a mild-mannered stewardess. In private she’s … Something Else! Superchick—she’s more than just one woman and too much for just one man! In New York she has Brian. In Los Angeles it’s Dave, and in Miami there’s Johnny. Superchick—the super kind of woman—always in the middle of where the action is—always ready for a new adventure. You can’t afford to miss—Superchick—she’s much more than you ever had before.
Promo for Superchick, 1973, starring Joyce Jillson
On the Super-H-Bomb, Angelic Comments About:
First angel: Some devilish fellow down on the earth has actually discovered the secret of the super-H-bomb!
Second angel: That’s impossible! The super-H-bomb is not scheduled for invention by the Devil until the year … let’s see … until … here it is … until the year 2016. Why, they’re not ready or wise enough to handle it yet. According to our heavenly statistics, if exploded now, the bomb would blow Man and his earth sky-high. No one would be left alive … everyone would be dead.
First angel: My, my, the housing shortage up here would be terrible! What’ll we do?
Opening sequence, The Story of Mankind, 1957
On Supermodels, Useful:
Besides being one of our top models, she could be most helpful to our government.
South Vietnamese colonel urging the Green Berets to make use of the beautiful Miss Saigon (Irene Tsu) in The Green Berets, 1968
On the Supersonic Age, Typical Problems in:
Dr. Chapman: After her marriage, her health seemed to rise and fall with the tide of her emotions.
Other Doctor: Ah, a sad case. A case not infrequent in this supersonic age we live in.
Two doctors discussing the problems of the alcoholic woman who has become fifty feet tall, in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, 1958
On the Supernatural:
Supernatural—perhaps. Baloney—perhaps not.
Bela Lugosi cautioning the unbelievers in The Black Cat, 1934
On Supposedly Intense Seductions:
Have you ever seen animals make love, Frank? It’s intense!
Rebecca Carlson (Madonna) to her lawyer and lover (Willem Dafoe), in Body of Evidence, 1993
On Surfers, Anti-Oceanographic Biases of:
There’s more to life than test tubes and fish! I’m going to surf on the beach in Waikiki—and enjoy it! Man, life goes too fast!
Rebellious surfer son of the oceanographer in The Beach Girls and the Monster, 1965
On Surfing Songs, Ones the Beach Boys Didn’t Write:
There’s a monster in the surf—
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
There’s a monster in the surf—
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Everybody’s sleeping,
Monster comes a-creeping,
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Surfer son of the oceanographer (Arnold Lessing) singin’ a song on the beach in The Beach Girls and the Monster, 1965
On Sweater Addiction, Going Cold Turkey:
I tried to keep away from these things. I tried, honestly, I tried. I hadn’t had a stitch of them on for nearly a week. And then I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to put it on or go out of my mind!
Glen (or was it Glenda?), played by Ed Wood, explaining his obsession with fluffy sweaters in Glen or Glenda?, 1952
On the Swinging Life:
Where sin begets sin. Nobody cares who does what to whom. Stripped of all inhibitions, everybody swings. No matter what your kick is, you name it, they’ve got it. They couldn’t wait to get into the hotbed of pleasure. Charged-up, sex-crazed women, driven by bizarre desires. Choice women, from the fleshpots of the world, each with their own specialty … and you can have them all. Where violence begets violence. Where for just one night of twisted pleasures, men turn into beasts.
Announcer during a promo for Where Sin Lives, 1963
On Swinging Parties, Great Conversations at, Part I:
Frankie: You a tourist or a native?
Kay: Take one from Column A and two from Column B. You get an egg roll either way.
Stephen Boyd to model Elke Sommer at a swingin’ Village party in The Oscar, 1966
On Swinging Parties, Great Conversations at, Part II:
Kay: I’m not the kind of woman who uses sex as a release … or as a weapon.
Frankie: Do you always talk like that?
Kay: I try.
Frankie: Do me a favor, will ya? Try droppin’ it with me. I’m not that smart. You free thinkers confuse me.
Kay (Elke Sommer) and Frankie (Stephen Boyd) getting to know each other at a swingin’ Village party, in The Oscar, 1966
T
On Tabbies, Tough:
THE CATS ARE HUNGRY …
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Alone, only a harmless pet …
One Thousand Strong, They Become a Man-Eating Machine!
Ad for The Night of a Thousand Cats, 1972
On the Tabonga, You Know One When You See One:
Native woman: I just saw the Tabonga!
Witch doctor: Well, how do you know it was Tabonga?
Native woman: Because it looked like a tree and it had eyes and hands!
Natives forecasting doom in the radioactive-tree-gone-berserk horror film From Hell It Came, 1957
On Tadpoles, Really Amazing Discoveries About:
I finally found out what it is. The tadpole is a mineral!
Scientist announcing to startled colleagues why the giant tadpole that turned into the smog monster is so strange, in Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, 1972
On Talk, Excessively Cool:
Are you holding? Do you have any shit? Hash? Downers? Anything?
Newly widowed Jacqueline Bisset to hippies at the funeral in The Grasshopper, 1969
On Talking Heads, Employment Problems of:
Who’s going to believe a talking head? Get a job in a sideshow!
Mad scientist to the head of the decapitated doctor in Re-Animator, 1985
On Talking Heads, What to Say to:
You think I’m afraid of you? A head in search of a body?
Scientist to talking head in The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, 1962
On Talkin’ Back to Commies, Beatnik Prisoners and:
Chick: Your whole caper’s a boodle of bad jive. You’re comin’ strictly from Squaresville. Ha, ha. What a gas!
Major Wan: Where are the others? How did you get here? Where are they taking the prisoner?
Chick: Crazy.
Major Wan: We will stay here until he answers … in words I understand.
The beatnik U.S. communications officer being questioned and tortured by the Reds in the Korean War film Jet Attack, 1958
On Talks in the Ladies’ Room, Ones We’d Like to Overhear:
While you were plugging your stepfather, your husband was plugging me—and he was great!
Kim Cattrall to Meg Tilly in the ladies’ room during a dinner party in Masquerade, 1988
On Tearing Off Someone’s Arm, Why Not to Be Upset:
So what? He had two.
Explanation as to why he tore off a suspect’s arm, given by c
op and Harvard grad Carl Weathers in Action Jackson, 1988
On Teenage Girls, Difficult:
Hospital orderly: She was suffering from paranoia and hallucinations, induced by tranquilizers, cocaine, amphetamines, alcohol …
Mother (shrugging): She’s always been difficult.
Bibi Besch as the mother of tramp-actress Pia Zadora in The Lonely Lady, 1983
On Teenagers, Clever:
Demonstrator: We want peace, not police.
Girlfriend: Hey, that rhymes.
Teen longhairs in Riot on Sunset Strip, 1967
On Teenage Senators, Great Speeches from:
Mr. Speaker, America’s greatest contribution has been to teach the whole world that getting old is such a drag.
Diane Varsi as the teen senator in Wild in the Streets, 1968
On Teen Dialogue, Great Moments in:
When I have a naughty dream at night she makes me feel like hanging myself.
Sandra Dee as Molly, talking about her repressive mother in A Summer Place, 1959
On Television Broadcasts, Ones You Never Hear in Real Life:
First man: This is KTTV Studios in Hollywood to Mount Wilson. We are being attacked by the Slime People. They have us walled in the city. If you have any information about this wall, please contact us immediately.
Second man: If anybody’s listening, this is no joke. I’m a marine. I was fighting the Slime People and was knocked out. I guess they thought I was dead and left me there. The Slime People made a fog, and the fog turned to a wall. If anyone knows how to get through this thing, then I’m sure that there’s a few other people just like us, that still have hope.
Stupid Movie Lines Page 11