All the Best Lines

by George Tiffin

  • I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn’t like it.

  • Flashbacks are a thing of the past.

  • I don’t care if my pictures never make a dime, so long as everyone keeps coming to see them.

  • I’ll give you a definite maybe.

  • I read part of it all the way through.

  • Don’t talk to me while I’m interrupting.

  • Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

  • Tell me, how did you love my picture?

  • Don’t pay any attention to the critics; don’t even ignore them.

  • Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg.

  • If I could drop dead right now, I’d be the happiest man alive.

  • I never put on a pair of shoes until I’ve worn them five years.

  • The scene is dull. Tell him to put more life into his dying.

  • Go see it and see for yourself why you shouldn’t see it.

  • For your information, I would like to ask a question.

  • When I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.

  • It’s more than magnificent; it’s mediocre.

  • We want a story that starts out with an earthquake and works its way up to a climax.

  • Never make forecasts, especially about the future.

  • I don’t think anyone should write his autobiography until after he’s dead.

  • I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell me the truth — even though it costs him his job.

  • We’d do anything for each other; we’d even cut each other’s throats for each other.

  • We’ve all passed a lot of water since then.

  • The next time I send a damn fool for something, I’ll go myself.

  • (On William Wyler’s films) I made them — Willy only directed them.

  On a more charitable note, these statements contain — for all their clumsiness — more than a grain of truth:

  • A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.

  • When everybody’s happy with the rushes (daily footage), the picture’s always a stinker.

  • God makes stars. I just produce them.

  • A producer shouldn’t get ulcers; he should give them.

  • I am a rebel. I make a picture to please me. If it pleases me, there is a chance it will please others. But it has to please me first.

  • Actors think with their hearts. That’s why so many of them die broke.

  • It’s a mistake to remake a great picture because you can never make it better. Better you should find a picture that was done badly and see what can be done to improve it.

  • (On actor Fredric March) I’m overpaying him, but he’s worth it.

  1966 THE PROFESSIONALS

  Rico, a mercenary hired to find Joe’s kidnapped wife, realizes Joe has tried to deceive him.

  JOE

  You bastard.

  RICO

  Yes, sir. In my case an accident of birth. But you, sir, you’re a self-made man.

  Dir: Richard Brooks • Scr: Richard Brooks • Based on a novel by Frank O’Rourke • Cast: Ralph Bellamy (Joe Grant), Lee Marvin (Henry ‘Rico’ Fardan)

  1973 PAPER MOON

  Nine-year-old Addie travels with conman Moses – whom she suspects to be her father.

  MOSES

  I got scruples too, you know. You know what that is? Scruples?

  ADDIE

  No, I don’t know what it is, but if you got ’em it’s a sure bet they belong to somebody else.

  Dir: Peter Bogdanovich • Scr: Alvin Sargent • Based on a novel by Joe David Brown • Cast: Ryan O’Neal (Moses Pray), Tatum O’Neal (Addie Loggins)

  The film is based on the novel Addie Pray by Joe David Brown, but director Peter Bogdanovich proposed renaming it Paper Moon. Uncertain about his decision, he consulted his great friend Orson Welles who replied: ‘That title is so good, you shouldn’t even make the picture, just release the title!’ Tatum O’Neal remains the youngest-ever Best Actress – at the age of ten – to win an Oscar.

  1987 THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK

  Alexandra scorns a lover – secretly, the devil in human form – who has mistreated her.

  ALEXANDRA

  I think — no, I am positive — that you are the most unattractive man I have ever met in my entire life. You know, in the short time we’ve been together, you have demonstrated every loathsome characteristic of the male personality and even discovered a few new ones. You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you’re morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humour and you smell. You’re not even interesting enough to make me sick. Goodbye, Darryl, and thank you for a lovely lunch.

  Dir: George Miller • Scr: Michael Cristofer • Based on a novel by John Updike • Cast: Cher (Alexandra Medford)

  Amazingly, the genial Bill Murray was originally proposed for the role of Daryl Van Horne, the satanic figure played by Jack Nicholson. Australian director George Miller (Mad Max, 1979) was a newcomer to Hollywood and the producers (Warner Brothers and Guber-Peters) proved frustratingly unsupportive. In one scene where Cher had to get into bed with a huge pile of snakes, she asked, ‘which one is Jon Peters?’

  1988 MISSISSIPPI BURNING

  An FBI agent warns his partner not to underestimate the racism of the South.

  RUPERT

  When I was a little boy there was an old negro farmer lived down the road from us, name of Monroe. And he was, uh — well, I guess he was just a little luckier than my daddy was. He bought himself a mule. That was a big deal around that town. Now, my daddy hated that mule, ’cause his friends were always kiddin’ him about oh, they saw Monroe out plowin’ with his new mule, and Monroe was gonna rent another field now they had a mule. And one morning that mule just showed up dead. They poisoned the water. And after that there was never any mention about that mule around my daddy. It just never came up. So one time, we were drivin’ down the road and we passed Monroe’s place and we saw it was empty. He’d just packed up and left, I guess. Gone up north, or somethin’. I looked over at my daddy’s face and I knew he’d done it. And he saw that I knew. He was ashamed. I guess he was ashamed. He looked at me and he said: ‘If you ain’t better than a nigger, son, who are you better than?’ He was an old man just so full of hate that he didn’t know that bein’ poor was what was killin’ him.

  Dir: Alan Parker • Scr: Chris Gerolmo • Cast: Gene Hackman (Rupert Anderson)

  Although fictionalised, the story was inspired by an actual investigation following the murder in 1964 of voting rights activists James Earl Chaney, Mickey Schwerner and Andrew Goodman; the film aroused controversy among those who felt the powerful narrative oversimplified the legally established facts.

  1991 POINT BREAK

  BEN

  You’re a real blue flame special, aren’t you, son? Young, dumb and full of come, I know. What I don’t know is how you got assigned here. Guess we must just have ourselves an asshole shortage, huh?

  JOHNNY

  Not so far.

  Dir: Kathryn Bigelow • Scr: W. Peter Iliff, Rick King • Cast: John C. McGinley (Ben Harp), Keanu Reeves (Johnny Utah)

  2002 25TH HOUR

  When Monty, a drug dealer sentenced to seven years in prison, glimpses his reflection in a restroom mirror, he sees the graffiti: ‘Fuck You’.

  MONTY

  Yeah, fuck you too. Fuck me? Fuck you. Fuck you and this whole city and everyone in it. Fuck the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. Fuck the squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car — get a fucking job! Fuck the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores stinking up my day. Terrorists in fucking training. Slow the fuck down! Fuck the Chelsea boys with their waxed chests and pumped-up biceps. Going down on each other in my parks and on my piers, jingling their dicks on my Channel 35. Fuck the Korean grocers wit
h their pyramids of overpriced fruit and their tulips and roses wrapped in plastic. Ten years in the country, still no speaky English? Fuck the Russians in Brighton Beach. Mobster thugs sitting in cafés, sipping tea in little glasses, sugar cubes between their teeth. Wheelin’ and dealin’ and scheming. Go back where you fucking came from! Fuck the black-hatted Hassidim, strolling up and down 47th Street in their dirty gabardine with their dandruff. Selling South African apartheid diamonds! Fuck the Wall Street brokers. Self-styled masters of the universe. Michael Douglas, Gordon Gekko wannabe mother fuckers, figuring out new ways to rob hard working people blind. Send those Enron assholes to jail for fucking life! You think Bush and Cheney didn’t know about that shit? Give me a fucking break! Tyco! Worldcom! Fuck the Puerto Ricans. Twenty to a car, swelling up the welfare rolls, worst fuckin’ parade in the city. And don’t even get me started on the Dominicans, ’cause they make the Puerto Ricans look good. Fuck the Bensonhurst Italians with their pomaded hair, their nylon warm-up suits, their St Anthony medallions, swinging their Jason Giambi Louisville Slugger baseball bats, trying to audition for The Sopranos. Fuck the Upper East Side wives with their Hermès scarves and their fifty-dollar Balducci artichokes. Overfed faces getting pulled and lifted and stretched, all taut and shiny. You’re not fooling anybody, sweetheart! Fuck the uptown brothers. They never pass the ball, they don’t want to play defence, they take five steps on every lay-up to the hoop. And then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man. Slavery ended one hundred and thirty-seven years ago. Move the fuck on! Fuck the corrupt cops with their anus-violating plungers and their 41 shots, standing behind a blue wall of silence. You betray our trust! Fuck the priests who put their hands down some innocent child’s pants. Fuck the church that protects them, delivering us into evil. And while you’re at it, fuck J.C.! He got off easy! A day on the cross, a weekend in hell, and all the hallelujahs of the legioned angels for eternity! Try seven years in fuckin’ Otisville, J.! Fuck Osama Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and backward-ass cave-dwelling fundamentalist assholes everywhere. On the names of innocent thousands murdered, I pray you spend the rest of eternity with your seventy-two whores roasting in a jet-fuel fire in hell. You towel-headed camel jockeys can kiss my royal Irish ass! Fuck Jacob Elinsky. Whining malcontent. Fuck Francis Xavier Slaughtery my best friend, judging me while he stares at my girlfriend’s ass. Fuck Naturelle Riviera, I gave her my trust and she stabbed me in the back, sold me up the river, fucking bitch. Fuck my father with his endless grief, standing behind that bar sipping on club sodas, selling whiskey to firemen, and cheering the Bronx Bombers. Fuck this whole city and everyone in it.

  Dir: Spike Lee • Scr: David Benioff, based on his novel • Cast: Edward Norton (Monty Brogan)

  2008 THE DARK KNIGHT

  Realizing that Batman has spared his life, the Joker taunts his rival that their battle will never be over.

  THE JOKER

  You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. You truly are incorruptible, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.

  Dir: Christopher Nolan • Scr: Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan, David S. Goyer • Cast: Heath Ledger (The Joker)

  2010 THE SOCIAL NETWORK

  Erica ends her relationship with Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.

  ERICA

  You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you’re going to go through life thinking that girls don’t like you because you’re a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won’t be true. It’ll be because you’re an asshole.

  Dir: David Fincher • Scr: Aaron Sorkin • Based a book by Ben Mezrich • Cast: Rooney Mara (Erica Albright)

  Mark Zuckerberg was initially reluctant to see a film which painted such an uncompromising portrait of his company’s meteoric success. When he did watch it, he is reported to have said that it was ‘interesting’, and that the film-makers got his clothes right.

  An unknown photographer satirizes the advent of the Motion Picture Production Code banning references to sex, violence and alcohol in the early 1930s.

  Lauren Bacall is almost as captivating in this 1946 poster as she is in the film itself.

  Carrie Ann Moss and Keanu Reaves exploit the ‘time slice’ photography that was a hallmark of The Matrix series (1999–2003).

  Partners

  1932 TROUBLE IN PARADISE

  A millionairess brushes off an eager suitor.

  MARIETTE

  No, no, François, I tell you, no. You see, François, marriage is a beautiful mistake which two people make together.

  Dir: Ernst Lubitsch • Scr: Samson Raphaelson, Grover Jones • Based on a play by Aladár László • Cast: Kay Francis (Madame Mariette Colet)

  1940 HIS GIRL FRIDAY

  WALTER

  You’ve got an old-fashioned idea divorce is something that lasts forever, ‘Till death do us part’. Why, divorce doesn’t mean anything nowadays, Hildy, just a few words mumbled over you by a judge.

  Dir: Howard Hawks • Scr: Charles Lederer • Based on a play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur • Cast: Cary Grant (Walter Burns)

  1941 THE LADY EVE

  Colonel Harrington encourages his daughter, also a confidence trickster.

  COLONEL HARRINGTON

  Let us be crooked, but never common.

  Dir: Preston Sturges • Scr: Preston Sturges • Based on a story by Monckton Hoffe • Cast: Charles Coburn (Colonel Harrington)

  1944 DOUBLE INDEMNITY

  An insurance claims adjuster suspects murder in a case he has paid out on, little knowing one of his own salesmen is the killer.

  BARTON

  It’s beginning to come apart at the seams already. Murder’s never perfect. Always comes apart sooner or later, and when two people are involved it’s usually sooner. Now we know the Dietrichson dame is in it and somebody else. Pretty soon, we’ll know who that somebody else is. He’ll show. He’s got to show. Sometime, somewhere, they’ve got to meet. Their emotions are all kicked up. Whether it’s love or hate doesn’t matter — they can’t keep away from each other. They may think it’s twice as safe because there’s two of them, but it isn’t twice as safe. It’s ten times twice as dangerous. They’ve committed a murder! And it’s not like taking a trolley ride together where they can get off at different stops. They’re stuck with each other and they got to ride all the way to the end of the line, and it’s a one-way trip — and the last stop is the cemetery.

  Dir: Billy Wilder • Scr: Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler • Based on a novella by James M. Cain • Cast: Edward G. Robinson (Barton Keyes)

  1945 DETOUR

  Two strangers join forces to claim a dead man’s inheritance.

  VERA

  Shut up — you’re making noises like a husband.

  Dir: Edgar G. Ulmer • Scr: Martin Goldsmith • Cast: Ann Savage (Vera)

  Detour was the first B-movie – and the first film noir – to be included in the Library of Congress’s register of films deemed ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically’ significant.

  1946 NOTORIOUS

  A spymaster suspects his female agent is a romantic at heart.

  ALICIA

  This fog gets me.

  DEVLIN

  That’s your hair in your eyes.

  Dir: Alfred Hitchcock • Scr: Ben Hecht • Cast: Ingrid Bergman (Alicia Huberman), Cary Grant (T. R. Devlin)

  After working with Hitchcock, Ingrid Bergman said: ‘I’d like to know more about his relationships with women. No, on second thoughts, I wouldn’t.’

  THE SHAKESPEARE OF HOLLYWOOD

  Lured to Hollywood by his friend Herman Mankiewicz in 1926, Ben Hecht (1894–1964) won his first Oscar within a year for the screenplay of Underworld (Paying the Penalty). He won again for The Scoundrel in 19
35, and as Hollywood’s most famous and best-paid scribe wrote or contributed to Scarface (1932), Gone with the Wind (1939), Notorious (1946), Gilda (1946) and Wuthering Heights (1939).

  Often spoken of as the ‘Shakespeare of Hollywood’, he personified the media’s view of the hard-boiled, hard-drinking wordsmith and was famed for delivering drafts in as little as two weeks. In ‘Elegy for Wonderland’, published in Esquire magazine in 1959, he wrote:

  Most of my script-writing friends — I never had more than a handful — took eagerly to the bottle or the analyst’s couch, filled their extravagant ménages with threats of suicide, hurled themselves into hysterical amours. And some of them actually died in their forties and fifties. Among these were the witty Herman Mankiewicz and F. Scott Fitzgerald, the fine novelist.

  Hecht also penned several Broadway hits, including The Front Page (1928), and the fact that this parallel career gave him independent fame may have prompted his diatribes against the film studios who set little store by the notion of authorship:

  The factors that laid low so whooping and puissant an empire as the old Hollywood are many. I can think of a score, including the barbarian hordes of television. But there is one that stands out for me in the post-mortem. . . The factor had to do with the basis of movie-making: ‘Who shall be in charge of telling the story?’ The answer Hollywood figured out for this question was what doomed it. It figured out that writers were not to be in charge of creating stories. Instead, a curious tribe of inarticulate Pooh-Bahs called supervisors and, later, producers were summoned out of literary nowhere and given a thousand sceptres. It was like switching the roles of teacher and pupil in the fifth grade. The result is now history. An industry based on writing had to collapse when the writer was given an errand-boy status.