Martin later elucidates: ‘I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?’
1999 FIGHT CLUB
Tyler Durden founds an anarchic self-help group where members fight one another to vent their anger against a conformist, consumerist world.
TYLER
Welcome to Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The third rule of Fight Club: someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. The fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. The fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. The sixth rule: no shirts, no shoes. The seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.
Dir: David Fincher • Scr: Jim Uhls • Based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk • Cast: Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden)
When Tyler first sleeps with Marla, she was supposed to shock him with the line: ‘I want to have your abortion.’ The studio objected, so director David Fincher agreed to change it provided the executives made no further comment. They agreed, so Fincher had Marla say: ‘I haven’t been fucked like that since grade school [primary school].’ Author Chuck Palahniuk said he thought the film better than his novel.
2000 THE CONTENDER
Republican Congressman Shelly Runyon challenges Democrat President Evans over the appointment of a new vice president.
SHELLY
We’re both sticking to our guns. The difference is, mine are loaded.
Dir: Rod Lurie • Scr: Rod Lurie • Cast: Gary Oldman (Shelly Runyon)
2001 HEIST
Two gold thieves have fallen out over how to divide the spoils.
MICKEY
Don’t you want to hear my last words?
JOE
I just did.
Dir: David Mamet • Scr: David Mamet • Cast: Danny DeVito (Mickey Bergman), Gene Hackman (Joe Moore)
BEND OVER
David Mamet (b. 1947) rose to fame as a playwright, winning a Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Glengarry Glen Ross in 1984. Hollywood studios soon wooed him, hoping his terse, intelligent dialogue and tight plotting would translate into Oscar successes for their movies. The producers he worked with were soon to discover that his uncompromising working methods and dislike of leaving his home town Chicago made for a distinctly un-Californian partnership. His thoughts on the film industry are as lively as his screenplays:
Working as a screenwriter, I always thought that ‘Film is a collaborative business’ only constituted half of the actual phrase. From a screenwriter’s point of view the correct rendering should be ‘Film is a collaborative business: bend over’.
Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it’s full of surprises, and you’re constantly getting fucked.
Thank God Hollywood people don’t have souls so they don’t have to suffer through their lives.
Hollywood is like cocaine. You cannot understand its attraction until you are doing it. And when you are doing it, you are insane.
Nevertheless his Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997) and his success with The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) and The Untouchables (1987) have kept him in fierce demand. Many of his statements in interviews have become mantras for screenwriters:
We respond to a drama to that extent to which it corresponds to our dream life.
Every scene should be able to answer three questions: ‘Who wants what from whom? What happens if they don’t get it? Why now?’
People may or may not say what they mean, but they always say something designed to get what they want.
He often uses the fees he earns from uncredited rewriting on troubled projects to fund his own directorial efforts. These include House of Games (1987), State and Main (2000) and Heist (2001). The latter film contains much of his famous ‘Mamet-speak’, as well as some outstanding dark humour:
PINKY: My motherfucker is so cool, when he goes to bed, sheep count him.
BERGMAN: Everybody needs money. That’s why they call it money.
BERGMAN: Do you want to tell me what made you a criminal?
JOE MOORE: What made you a criminal?
BERGMAN: Nothing made me a criminal. I am a criminal.
JOE MOORE: She could talk her way out of a sunburn.
BOBBY BLANE: There’s nothing wrong with prayer. We knew this firefighter, this trooper, who always carried a bible next to his heart. We used to mock him, but that bible stopped a bullet.
JIMMY: No shit.
BOBBY BLANE: Hand of God, that bible stopped a bullet, would of ruined that fucker’s heart. And had he had another bible in front of his face, that man would be alive today.
D.A. FRECCIA: You’re a pretty smart fellow.
JOE MOORE: Ah, not that smart.
D.A. FRECCIA: If you’re not that smart, how’d you figure it out?
JOE MOORE: I tried to imagine a fellow smarter than myself. Then I tried to think, ‘what would he do?’
2008 IN BRUGES
Ray goes to make a surprising confession.
PRIEST
Why did you murder someone, Raymond?
RAY
For money, father.
PRIEST
For money? You murdered someone for money?
RAY
Yes, father. Not out of anger. Not out of nothing. For money.
PRIEST
Who did you murder for money, Raymond?
RAY
You, father.
PRIEST
I’m sorry?
RAY
I said you, father. What are you, deaf?
He raises a pistol.
RAY
Harry Waters says hello.
Dir: Martin McDonagh • Scr: Martin McDonagh • Cast: Ciarán Hinds (Priest), Colin Farrell (Ray)
Daredevil archeologist Dr Indiana Jones takes us back to the days of the Saturday matinée adventure movie in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate was a critical and financial disaster but offered stunning performances and photography.
Sharon Stone in her most controversial role in Basic Instinct (1992) – the perfect pin-up for the glossy 1990s.
Vamps
1930 HELL’S ANGELS
Helen exchanges her fur wrap for a dressing gown.
HELEN
Would you be shocked if I put on something more comfortable?
Dir: Howard Hughes • Scr: Howard Estabrook, Marshall Neilan, James Moncure March, Harry Behn • Cast: Jean Harlow (Helen)
1932 THE CABIN IN THE COTTON
After asking Marvin out on a date, Madge finds herself bashful.
MADGE
I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair.
Dir: Michael Curtiz • Scr: Paul Green • Based on a novel by Harry Harrison Kroll • Cast: Bette Davis (Madge Norwood)
Davis claimed in an interview after she retired that this was her all-time favourite movie line. Her reputation as a competitive actress caused Vincent Sherman to say of her and Miriam Hopkins, who co-starred in Old Acquaintance (1930): ‘I didn’t direct them, I refereed.’
‘EXCESSIVE OR LUSTFUL KISSING’
The Cinematograph Act of 1909 was introduced largely to protect the public from the hazards of highly flammable nitrate prints but the authorities quickly realized that the content of a motion picture could also be incendiary.
Although we tend to look back on the earliest surviving films as charming echoes of a bygone era, we should remember that some of the pioneers – Eisenstein, Griffith and Chaplin – were trying to tell stories as sophisticated as those of their literary peers. Crude technologies may have hampered them, but they dealt with controversial subjects such as racism, revolution and sexual desire. As early as 1906 some American cities passed local laws regulating content, but most forms of censorship proved unwieldy and unenforceable. Meanwhile, directors grew bolder and stars m
ore smouldering.
At the same time, audiences were growing at an astonishing rate; by 1930 two thirds of Americans were going to the movies at least once a week. Governments remained slow to react to this new influence on their citizens and were forced to invoke outdated laws regulating obscenity, blasphemy and libel as guidelines; religious groups were far quicker to show outrage at themes they considered unsuitable for their congregations.
Incensed by the further danger of talking pictures, Daniel Lord, a leading American Catholic, wrote: ‘Silent smut had been bad. Vocal smut cried to the censors for vengeance.’ Some states tried to enact legislation but with little effect, so Lord and his Jesuit brother-in-arms Martin Quigley took their crusade directly to Hollywood.
Producers, aware that the vast majority of their customers were under twenty-five, feared that unless they joined forces to regulate their own output the business would destroy itself. They agreed to Lord and Quigley’s proposals and on 19 February 1930 Variety published the Motion Picture Production Code. Will Hays, a Presbyterian Republican and President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, was chosen to be its head of enforcement.
The Hays Code, as it became known, was widely ridiculed for its moralizing tone and was initially impossible to implement. Under the section ‘The Don’ts and Be Carefuls’, it stipulated:
Those things which are included in the following list shall not appear in pictures produced by the members of this Association, irrespective of the manner in which they are treated:
• Pointed profanity — by either title or lip — this includes the words God, Lord, Jesus, Christ (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), hell, damn, Gawd, and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;
• Any licentious or suggestive nudity, in fact or in silhouette;
• Any inference of sex perversion (homosexuality);
• White slavery;
• Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);
• Children’s sex organs;
• Ridicule of the clergy.
It further advised that:
• Special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated:
• Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron);
• Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
• First-night scenes (one-night stands);
• Man and woman in bed together;
• Deliberate seduction of girls;
• The institution of marriage;
• Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a ‘heavy’.
1933 DUCK SOUP
Rufus (Groucho Marx) encourages his brothers to defend Mrs Teasdale.
RUFUS T. FIREFLY
Remember, you’re fighting for this woman’s honour, which is probably more than she ever did.
Dir: Leo McCarey • Scr: Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby • Cast: Groucho Marx (Rufus T. Firefly)
1933 I’M NO ANGEL
Jack has fallen in love with Tira, a circus lion-tamer.
JACK
You were wonderful tonight.
TIRA
Yeah, I’m always wonderful at night.
JACK
Tonight you were especially good.
TIRA
Well, when I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.
Dir: Wesley Ruggles • Scr: Mae West • Cast: Cary Grant (Jack Clayton), Mae West (Tira)
1944 TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT
Slim Browning and Harry ‘Steve’ Morgan settle their differences with a kiss.
SLIM
You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve. You don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and. . . blow.
Dir: Howard Hawks • Scr: Jules Furthman, William Faulkner • Based on a novel by Ernest Hemingway • Cast: Lauren Bacall (Marie ‘Slim’ Browning)
All great lines invite parody. In Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982), the heroine purrs: ‘If you need me, just call. You know how to dial, don’t you? You just put your finger in the hole and make tiny little circles.’
1946 THE BIG SLEEP
VIVIAN
Speaking of horses, I like to play them myself. But I like to see them work out a little first, see if they’re front-runners or come from behind, find out what their whole card is, what makes them run.
MARLOWE
Find out mine?
VIVIAN
I think so.
MARLOWE
Go ahead.
VIVIAN
I’d say you don’t like to be rated. You like to get out in front, open up a little lead, take a little breather in the backstretch, and then come home free.
MARLOWE
You don’t like to be rated yourself.
VIVIAN
I haven’t met anyone yet that can do it. Any suggestions?
MARLOWE
Well, I can’t tell till I’ve seen you over a distance of ground. You’ve got a touch of class, but I don’t know how far you can go.
VIVIAN
A lot depends on who’s in the saddle.
Dir: Howard Hawks • Scr: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, Jules Furthman • Based on a novel by Raymond Chandler • Cast: Lauren Bacall (Vivian Rutledge), Humphrey Bogart (Philip Marlowe)
1946 NOTORIOUS
Alicia, fond of both drink and men, falls for the man who has recruited her as a spy.
DEVLIN
Don’t you need a coat?
ALICIA
You’ll do.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock • Scr: Ben Hecht • Cast: Cary Grant (T. R. Devlin), Ingrid Bergman (Alicia Huberman)
Director Hitchcock claimed the FBI had him under surveillance during the shoot as the film dealt with uranium, a component of nuclear weapons. The famous sequence where Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman kiss, only to separate and then resume, was designed to circumvent the Hays Code ruling that a screen embrace should last no more than three seconds.
1949 WHITE HEAT
Verna tries to persuade her gangster husband to buy her a present.
VERNA
I’d look good in a mink coat, honey.
CODY
You’d look good in a shower curtain.
Dir: Raoul Walsh • Scr: Ivan Goff, Ben Roberts • Based on a story by Virginia Kellogg • Cast: Virginia Mayo (Verna Jarrett), James Cagney (Arthur ‘Cody’ Jarrett)
In the days before ‘squibs’ – tiny explosive charges detonated by special effects teams – gunfights were recreated using trained marksmen to fire actual low-velocity bullets. Cagney, a fearless performer of many of his own stunts, was nearly hit on several occasions. Despite his huge box office success he remained remarkably modest, saying: ‘I hate the word superstar... You don’t hear them speak of Shakespeare as a superpoet. You don’t hear them call Michelangelo a superpainter. They only apply the word to this mundane market.’
1950 ALL ABOUT EVE
Margo Channing, a famous actress, has lost none of her pride as she grows older.
MARGO
I’ll admit I may have seen better days, but I’m still not to be had for the price of a cocktail, like a salted peanut.
Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz • Scr: Joseph L. Mankiewicz • Based on a story by Mary Orr • Cast: Bette Davis (Margo Channing)
1951 AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
JERRY
That’s quite a dress you almost have on.
MILO
Thanks.
JERRY
What holds it up?
MILO
Modesty.
Dir: Vincente Minnelli • Scr: Alan Jay Lerner • Cast: Gene Kelly (Jerry Mulligan), Nina Foch (Milo Roberts)
195
3 GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
The wealthy Mr Esmond is suspicious of Lorelei’s love for his son.
LORELEI
Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty? You wouldn’t marry a girl just because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?
Dir: Howard Hawks • Scr: Charles Lederer • Based on the musical by Joseph Fields and a novel and play by Anita Loos • Cast: Marilyn Monroe (Lorelei Lee)
1964 GOLDFINGER
Criminal mastermind Auric Goldfinger has asked one of his associates to take care of his prisoner James Bond.
PUSSY
My name is Pussy Galore.
BOND
I must be dreaming.
Dir: Guy Hamilton • Scr: Richard Maibaum, Paul Dehn • Based on a novel by Ian Fleming • Cast: Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore), Sean Connery (James Bond)
KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP
James Bond, commander in the Royal Naval Reserve but employed by the Secret Intelligence Service under the code name 007, first appeared in Casino Royale in 1952. Its opening sentence read: ‘The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning.’
Fleming – who had been involved in intelligence work during the Second World War – intended to portray the life of a secret agent in its full seamy, cynical reality. Of his creation he once said: ‘Exotic things would happen to and around him but he would be a neutral figure – an anonymous blunt instrument wielded by a Government Department... Apart from the fact that he wears the same clothes that I wear, he and I really have little in common. I do rather envy him his blondes and his efficiency, but I can’t say I much like the chap.’
Bond’s sexual innuendo, more a hallmark of the films than of the original novels, echoes Fleming’s own chauvinism: ‘Men want a woman whom they can turn on and off like a light switch.’ Ten years after 007’s literary début, his creator admitted: ‘The target of my books lay somewhere between the solar plexus and the upper thigh.’
All the Best Lines Page 15