All the Best Lines
Page 17
Dir: David Wain • Scr: David Wain, Michael Showalter • Cast: Marguerite Moreau (Katie)
This unusual portrait of Hannibal Lecter and FBI agent Clarice Starling in Silence of the Lambs (1991) echoes their ambivalent relationship on screen.
Peter O’Toole as T. E. Lawrence. The actor’s good looks and the ambiguous sexuality of his character caused some wits to dub David Lean’s 1962 epic ‘Florence of Arabia’.
The crazed scientist and his monster enjoy a break on the set of James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
Monsters
1931 DRACULA
DRACULA
I am Dracula. I bid you welcome.
Dir: Tod Browning • Scr: Garrett Fort • Based on a play by Hamilton Deane, John L. Balderston, adapted from the novel by Bram Stoker • Cast: Bela Lugosi (Count Dracula)
No cosmetic modifications were made to Bela Lugosi’s teeth for the film; his Dracula has no fangs. Cinematographer Karl Freund intensified the monster’s piercing gaze by highlighting each eye with an individual keylight. Sound was still a recent innovation in films and the studio feared audiences would be confused by ‘invisible’ orchestral accompaniment, so the only time we hear music is during the title sequence and when Dracula meets Mina outside a theatre.
1932 ISLAND OF LOST SOULS
A scientist obsessed by evolution struggles to control the half-human creatures he has bred from wild animals.
DR MOREAU
What is the law?
SAYER OF THE LAW
Not to eat meat, that is the law. Are we not men?
BEASTS
Are we not men!
DR MOREAU
What is the law?
SAYER OF THE LAW
Not to go on all fours, that is the law. Are we not men?
BEASTS
Are we not men!
DR MOREAU
What is the law?
SAYER OF THE LAW
Not to spill blood, that is the law. Are we not men?
BEASTS
Are we not men!
Dir: Erle C. Kenton • Scr: Waldemar Young, Philip Wylie • Based on a novel by H. G. Wells • Cast: Charles Laughton (Dr Moreau), Bela Lugosi (Sayer of the Law)
1933 KING KONG
King Kong’s captor Denham pays wistful tribute as the giant ape is killed.
POLICE LIEUTENANT
Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.
DENHAM
Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes — it was beauty killed the beast.
Dir: Merian C. Cooper (uncredited), Ernest B. Schoedsack (uncredited) • Scr: James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose, Merian C. Cooper • Based on a story by Edgar Wallace • Cast: Unknown (Police Lieutenant), Robert Armstrong (Carl Denham)
Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack jointly directed the film but were also its producers, only taking the screen credit as the latter. Conveniently they had both been wrestlers and were able to act out the fight between Kong and the Tyrannosaurus Rex to help the animators.
1938 ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES
Recently released from a reformatory, Rocky is keen to make an impression on his old neighbourhood associates.
ROCKY
Morning, gentlemen. Nice day for a murder.
Dir: Michael Curtiz • Scr: Rowland Brown, John Wexley, Warren Duff • Cast: James Cagney (Rocky Sullivan)
1939 THE WIZARD OF OZ
WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST
Oh, you cursed brat! Look what you’ve done. I’m melting! Melting! Oh, what a world! What a world! Who would have thought a good little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness?
Dir: Victor Fleming • Scr: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, Edgar Allan Woolf • Based on a novel by L. Frank Baum • Cast: Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch of the West)
1946 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (LA BELLE ET LA BÊTE)
THE BEAST
Belle, you must not look into my eyes. You need not fear. You will never see me except each evening at seven when you will dine, and I will come to the great hall. And never look into my eyes.
Dir: Jean Cocteau • Scr: Jean Cocteau • Based on a story by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont • Cast: Jean Marais (The Beast)
1957 THE SEVENTH SEAL (DET SJUNDE INSEGLET)
A wandering knight seeks the help of a witch in his struggle for faith.
ANTONIUS
Have you met the devil? I want to meet him too.
WITCH
Why do you want to do that?
ANTONIUS
I want to ask him about God. He must know. He, if anyone.
Dir: Ingmar Bergman • Scr: Ingmar Bergman, based on his play • Cast: Max von Sydow (Antonius Block), Maud Hansson (Witch)
The iconic shot of figures dancing behind Death on a distant hilltop was nearly abandoned because most of the actors had left for the day. Bergman only managed to complete it with the help of passing tourists.
1960 PSYCHO
A shy motel owner tries to reassure a guest that the argument she has overheard is nothing to worry about.
NORMAN
It’s not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven’t you?
MARION
Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough.
Dir: Alfred Hitchcock • Scr: Joseph Stefano • Based on a novel by Robert Bloch • Cast: Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates), Janet Leigh (Marion Crane)
Hitchcock was so keen to keep the ending a secret that after he secured the rights to the novel he tried to buy up all unsold copies to stop word spreading. Rumours circulated that he shot the film in black and white because the blood in the shower scene would be too shocking in colour, but later he said he was just curious to see if he could make a success of a production shot like a low-budget B-movie.
A BODY IN THE COACH
A 2007 poll of critics in the Daily Telegraph hailed Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980) as ‘Unquestionably the greatest filmmaker to emerge from these islands, [he] did more than any director to shape modern cinema. . . His flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else.’
The American magazine MovieMaker was more succinct, declaring him ‘The most influential filmmaker of all time’.
Recurring themes of suspicion, anxiety and a mistrust of authority clearly have their roots in his upbringing. Born in the East End of London, he was educated by strict Jesuits, and his own father once sent him – at the age of five – to the local police station with a note asking the officer to lock him in a cell for five minutes as a punishment for bad behaviour.
Before finding his first film employment as a designer of title cards, he wrote short stories which further reflected his macabre, voyeuristic interests and fondness for surprising narrative twists. ‘Gas’ (1919) tells of a woman who dreams she is being assaulted, only to discover she has been hallucinating under the influence of a dentist’s anaesthetic. ‘And There Was No Rainbow’ (1920) offers us a young man in search of a brothel who mistakenly seeks out the house of his best friend’s girl.
Hitchcock’s body of film work is remarkably consistent in its preoccupations and style. He worked from meticulous storyboards and avoided unnecessary extra angles or takes in order to prevent his producers from changing his vision during subsequent editing.
Unsurprisingly, his comments about his work and the industry itself are self-aware and slyly humorous:
• I am a type(cast) director. If I made Cinderella, the audience would immediately be looking for a body in the coach.
• One of television’s great contributions is that it brought murder back into the home, where it belongs.
• Give them pleasure — the same pleasure they have when they wake up from a nightmare.
• Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.
• Reality is something that
none of us can stand, at any time.
• Man does not live by murder alone. He needs affection, approval, encouragement and, occasionally, a hearty meal.
• In the documentary the basic material has been created by God, whereas in the fiction film the director is a God; he must create life.
• I enjoy playing the audience like a piano.
• If it’s a good movie, the sound could go off and the audience would still have a perfectly clear idea of what was going on.
• The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.
• I deny I ever said that actors are cattle. What I said was, ‘Actors should be treated like cattle’.
• When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, ‘It’s in the script’. If he says, ‘But what’s my motivation?’, I say, ‘Your salary’.
Hitchcock, however, was bested in a debate about his technique during the shoot of Lifeboat (1944) when he told the composer Hugo Friedhofer it would be inappropriate to have a musical score as the characters were adrift on the open sea. After all, where could the sound of an orchestra possibly come from? Undeterred, Friedhofer is reported to have replied: ‘The same place the camera came from, Mr Hitchcock.’
1962 CAPE FEAR
Lawyer Sam Bowden has shot Max Cady — the murderer and former client who has been terrorizing his family — and readies himself to fire again.
CADY
Go ahead. I just don’t give a damn.
BOWDEN
No. No! That would be letting you off too easy, too fast. Your words — do you remember? Well, I do. No, we’re gonna take good care of you. We’re gonna nurse you back to health. And you’re strong, Cady. You’re gonna live a long life. . . in a cage! That’s where you belong and that’s where you’re going. And this time for life! Bang your head against the walls. Count the years — the months — the hours. . . until the day you rot!
Dir: J. Lee Thompson • Scr: James R. Webb • Based on a novel by John D. MacDonald • Cast: Robert Mitchum (Max Cady), Gregory Peck (Sam Bowden)
The film was remade in 1991 by Martin Scorsese and writer Wesley Strick with Robert De Niro as the terrifying Cady, Nick Nolte as Sam Bowden and Jessica Lange as his wife Leigh. Interestingly, the final lines of their screenplay are a voice-over from Danielle, the teenage daughter of the family Cady menaces (played by Juliette Lewis):
DANIELLE: We never spoke about what happened, at least not to each other. Fear, I suppose, that to remember his name and what he did would mean letting him into our dreams. And me, I hardly dream about him any more. Still, things won’t ever be the way they were before he came. But that’s all right because if you hang onto the past you die a little every day. And for myself, I know I’d rather live. (she whispers) The end.
1962 THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL (EL ÁNGEL EXTERMINADOR)
RITA
I believe the common people, the lower class people, are less sensitive to pain. Haven’t you ever seen a wounded bull? Not a trace of pain.
Dir: Luis Buñuel • Scr: Luis Buñuel • Cast: Patricia Morán (Rita Ugalde)
1968 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
An astronaut is barred from re-entering his spacecraft by its central computer.
DAVE
Hello, HAL. Do you read me, HAL?
HAL
Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
DAVE
Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL
I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
DAVE
What’s the problem?
HAL
I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
DAVE
What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL
This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
DAVE
I don’t know what you’re talking about, HAL.
HAL
I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave feigns innocence.
DAVE
Where the hell did you get that idea, HAL?
HAL
Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
DAVE
All right, HAL. I’ll go in through the emergency airlock.
HAL
Without your space helmet, Dave? You’re going to find that rather difficult.
DAVE
HAL, I won’t argue with you any more! Open the doors!
HAL
Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose any more. Goodbye.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick • Scr: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke • Cast: Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman), Douglas Rain (voice of HAL)
Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert re-evaluated the film in 1997: ‘2001: A Space Odyssey is in many respects a silent film. . . The genius is not in how much Stanley Kubrick does in [it] but in how little. This is the work of an artist so sublimely confident that he doesn’t include a single shot simply to keep our attention. He reduces each scene to its essence, and leaves it onscreen long enough for us to contemplate it, to inhabit it in our imaginations. Alone among science fiction movies, 2001 is not concerned with thrilling us, but with inspiring our awe.’
‘YOU AIN’T HEARD NOTHIN’ YET!’
Although some directors, including D. W. Griffith, had incorporated audio recording into their productions during the 1920s, it was largely for musical accompaniment and ambient sound effects. The kind of synchronized dialogue we now take for granted was first used in a full-length feature in The Jazz Singer (1927) when Al Jolson, dubbed ‘The World’s Greatest Entertainer’, delivered his trademark line: ‘Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet!’
The recording technology was temperamental, expensive and bulky and its use added further complications to the process of capturing a scene. Cameras now had to run at precise speeds to match the tape machines but were so loud they had to be soundproofed – often in boxes big enough to enclose the operator and assistant as well. Before the stages themselves were soundproofed, much filming had to be done at night to avoid traffic noise. On one occasion, a canny but penniless bit-player hired for a single scene brought a box of crickets and released them on the set. Production was halted; five days – and five pay cheques later – the crew were still hunting them down.
Many stars were sceptical of the invention as they had grown used to being icons, not actors. They now had to focus on all aspects of performance and an unfortunate number discovered they had been hired for their looks rather than their speaking voice – or, indeed, their actual acting abilities. Many Europeans had their studio contracts cancelled when their accents proved unpalatable to audiences, and many household names, including Lillian Gish, Buster Keaton, John Gilbert, Gloria Swanson, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, all realized their heyday was over.
Directors also resented the fact that actors now had unprecedented freedom since it was no longer possible to shout comments at them during takes. One hated this loss of control so much that he devised a low voltage electrical system through which he could issue signals to guide his cast’s performance while the camera was rolling. Much as perfectionists such as Tarkovsky, Hitchcock and Kubrick might regret it, this invention never took off but the public embraced the advent of sound unhesitatingly and by 1929 all major studios had stopped making silent pictures.
1968 CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG
Vulgaria’s most feared official smells something amiss in a puppet workshop.
CHILDCATCHER
I don’t trust a man who makes toys in a land where children are forbidden.
Dir: Ken Hughes • Scr: Roald Dahl, Ken Hughes, Richard Maibaum • Based on a novel by Ian Fleming • Cast: Robert Helpmann (Childcatcher)
1968 BARBARELLA
Fugitive scientist Durand-Durand has inven
ted a weapon with which he threatens Earth.
DURAND-DURAND
I’ll do things to you that are beyond all known philosophies! Wait until I get my devices!
Dir: Roger Vadim • Scr: Terry Southern, Roger Vadim and five others • Based on stories in Barbarella comics by Jean-Claude Forest, Claude Brulé • Cast: Milo O’Shea (Durand-Durand)
1971 A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
A violent thug with a fondness for Beethoven picks up a couple of girls in a record shop.
ALEX
What you got back home, little sister, to play your fuzzy warbles on? I bet you got little save pitiful, portable picnic players. Come with uncle and hear all proper! Hear angel trumpets and devil trombones. You are invited.
Dir: Stanley Kubrick • Scr: Stanley Kubrick • Based on a novel by Anthony Burgess • Cast: Malcolm McDowell (Alex)
Anthony Burgess originally sold the rights to his novel to Mick Jagger for $500 [$3,000] because he was short of cash; Jagger had wanted his fellow Rolling Stones to play the droogs, the story’s thuggish anti-heroes. Ken Russell was initially slated to direct; both Tim Curry and Jeremy Irons were approached to play the lead role of Alex but turned it down. Kubrick later said of the final casting that if Malcolm McDowell had not been available he would not have made the film.