In the heyday of the studio system – from the dawn of the talkies to the 1950s – the heads of MGM, Universal or Fox could green-light their favourite projects with a simple memo, choosing among their tightly controlled empire of stars, directors and writers to create an instant team. Many of their contracted artists resented this control:
I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer. . . Ninety per cent of the producers I have known were not bright. They were as slow-witted and unprofessional toward making up a story as stockbrokers might be, or bus drivers.
Ben Hecht
By 1950, two changes had begun to be felt: the Supreme Court had ended the studios’ monopoly over cinema distribution, and television had given artists greater freedom to work on their own terms. Even so, working outside the framework of Hollywood’s fiefdoms, film-makers still needed financiers and ambassadors for their projects. Thus began the rise of the independent producer. Sam Spiegel (Lawrence of Arabia, 1962), Robert Evans (Chinatown, 1974) and Joseph E. Levine (A Bridge Too Far, 1977) were some of the first in the industry to gain a reputation for power, integrity and intelligence. Not surprisingly, such men took care to protect themselves when they hired the rest of the talent:
Hollywood has always been full of bartenders and waiters who want to be directors. Trouble is, most of them have achieved their ambition.
Sam Spiegel
When a director hires a producer, you’re in deep shit.
A director needs a boss, not a yes man.
Robert Evans
The ultimate sign of success for a producer is when his own name helps sell the film to the public, or when he can be associated with a distinct style of production. Familiar names today include:
• Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Armageddon)
• Kathleen Kennedy (Schindler’s List, The Sixth Sense)
• Ron Howard (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind)
• Brian Grazer (Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon)
• Scott Rudin (The Social Network, No Country for Old Men).
1969 THE ITALIAN JOB
Charlie’s henchmen use too much explosive when breaking into a car.
CHARLIE
You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!
Dir: Peter Collinson • Scr: Troy Kennedy Martin • Cast: Michael Caine (Charlie Croker)
Director Peter Collinson was raised by his grandparents before attending the Actors’ Orphanage in Surrey. Noël Coward was President there and became Collinson’s godfather, helping him find his way into the world of entertainment. When Collinson got his first big break on the film, he repaid the favour by casting Coward as Mr Bridger, the pampered criminal mastermind.
1973 BADLANDS
Two lovers flee after killing the girl’s father.
HOLLY
I didn’t feel shame or fear but just kind of. . . blah. Like when you’re sitting there and all the water’s run out of the bathtub.
Dir: Terrence Malick • Scr: Terrence Malick • Cast: Sissy Spacek (Holly Sargis)
1976 THE PINK PANTHER STRIKES AGAIN
A bumbling detective discovers that assumption is not the same as deduction.
CLOUSEAU
Does your dog bite?
HOTEL CLERK
No.
Clouseau pets the dog.
CLOUSEAU
Nice doggie.
The dog barks and bites Clouseau.
I thought you said your dog did not bite!
HOTEL CLERK
That is not my dog.
Dir: Blake Edwards • Scr: Frank Waldman • Cast: Peter Sellers (Chief Inspector Clouseau), Harold Berens (Hotel Clerk)
Clouseau is painfully aware of his mistakes. In the same film he tries to suggest his frequent clumsiness is just part of a detective’s technique: ‘I see you are familiar with the falling-down-on-the-floor ploy.’
1980 CADDYSHACK
A golf caddy consoles himself over the lost opportunity of a tip.
CARL
So I jump ship in Hong Kong and I make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas.
MAGGIE
A looper?
CARL
A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I’m a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald. . . striking. So, I’m on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one — big hitter, the Lama — long, into a ten-thousand-foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga. . . gunga, gunga-lagunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, ‘Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know?’ And he says, ‘Oh. . . there won’t be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness.’ So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Dir: Harold Ramis • Scr: Harold Ramis, Douglas Kenney, Brian Doyle-Murray • Cast: Bill Murray (Carl Spackler), Sarah Holcomb (Maggie O’Hoolihan)
1982 TOOTSIE
An actor complains to his agent that he is not getting enough work.
MICHAEL
Are you saying that nobody in New York will work with me?
GEORGE
No, no, that’s too limited. . . nobody in Hollywood wants to work with you either. I can’t even set you up for a commercial. You played a tomato for 30 seconds — they went a half a day over schedule because you wouldn’t sit down.
MICHAEL
Of course. It was illogical.
GEORGE
You were a tomato. A tomato doesn’t have logic. A tomato can’t move.
MICHAEL
That’s what I said. So if he can’t move, how’s he gonna sit down, George? I was a stand-up tomato: a juicy, sexy, beefsteak tomato. Nobody does vegetables like me. I did an evening of vegetables off-Broadway. I did the best tomato, the best cucumber. I did an endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass.
Dir: Sydney Pollack • Scr: Larry Gelbart, Murray Schisgal, Don McGuire • Cast: Dustin Hoffman (Michael Dorsey/Dorothy Michaels), Sydney Pollack (George Fields)
1983 KING OF COMEDY
An embittered stand-up comedian forces a TV talk show host to put him on his programme.
SECRETARY
Is Mr Langford expecting you?
RUPERT PUPKIN
Yes, I don’t think he is.
Dir: Martin Scorsese • Scr: Paul D. Zimmerman • Cast: Marta Heflin (Secretary), Robert De Niro (Rupert Pupkin)
1984 THIS IS SPINAL TAP
Marty, a documentary film-maker, interviews rock star Nigel as he improvises at the piano.
MARTY
It’s very pretty.
NIGEL
Yeah, I’ve been fooling around with it for a few months.
MARTY
It’s a bit of a departure from what you normally play.
NIGEL
It’s part of a trilogy, a musical trilogy I’m working on in D minor which is the saddest of all keys, I find. People weep instantly when they hear it, and I don’t know why.
MARTY
It’s very nice.
NIGEL
You know, just simple lines intertwining, very much like — I’m really influenced by Mozart and Bach, and it’s sort of in between those, really. It’s like a ‘Mach’ piece, really. It’s sort of...
MARTY
What do you call this?
NIGEL
Well, this piece is called ‘Lick My Love Pump’.
Dir: Rob Reiner • Scr: Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, Rob Reiner • Cast: Rob Reiner (Marty DiBergi), Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel)
The film was improvised by all the performers, so lead actors Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McK
ean and Harry Shearer went to the Writers’ Guild hoping to give proper credit to everyone. The Board of Directors voted fifteen to none that the credits should stay as they were, listing only the four of them.
1984 AMADEUS
Though a fierce rival, Salieri recognizes Mozart’s genius.
SALIERI
I heard the music of true forgiveness filling the theatre, conferring on all who sat there perfect absolution. God was singing through this little man to all the world, unstoppable, making my defeat more bitter with every passing bar.
Dir: Miloš Forman • Scr: Peter Shaffer • Cast: F. Murray Abraham (Antonio Salieri)
Prague, where the film was shot, still contained so much of its original architecture that only four sets needed to be built. Sir Neville Marriner agreed to conduct the Academy of St Martin in the Fields for the soundtrack on condition that not a single note of Mozart’s music be changed.
1986 FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF
A freewheeling high school student fears his best friend is too timid.
FERRIS
Cameron is so tight that if you stuck a lump of coal up his ass, in two weeks you’d have a diamond.
Dir: John Hughes • Scr: John Hughes • Cast: Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller)
1987 WITHNAIL AND I
Marwood and Withnail are startled by Danny’s politics - and his narcotics.
MARWOOD
Give me a Valium, I’m getting the fear!
DANNY
You have done something to your brain. You have made it high. If I lay 10 mils of diazepam on you, it will do something else to your brain. You will make it low. Why trust one drug and not the other? That’s politics, innit?
MARWOOD
I’m gonna eat some sugar.
He goes to the kitchen.
DANNY
I recommend you smoke some more grass.
MARWOOD
No way, no fucking way.
DANNY
That is an unfortunate political decision. Reflecting these times.
WITHNAIL
What are you talking about, Danny?
DANNY
Politics, man. If you’re hanging onto a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision — let go before it’s too late — or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworth’s, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.
Dir: Bruce Robinson • Scr: Bruce Robinson • Cast: Paul McGann (Marwood, ‘I’), Ralph Brown (Danny), Richard E. Grant (Withnail)
1987 WHITE MISCHIEF
A jaded British expatriate opens her curtains to reveal the gorgeous hills of Kenya.
ALICE
Oh God — not another fucking beautiful day.
Dir: Michael Radford • Scr: Michael Radford, Jonathan Gems • Based on a novel by James Fox • Cast: Sarah Miles (Alice de Janzé)
1988 A FISH CALLED WANDA
A con artist finds her plans undermined by her idiotic partner-in-crime.
WANDA
Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not ‘Every man for himself’. And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.
Dir: Charles Crichton, John Cleese (uncredited) • Scr: John Cleese, Charles Crichton • Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis (Wanda Gershwitz)
The scenes in which Otto seduces Wanda in clumsy Italian had to be dubbed into Spanish for the Italian market. During the scene where a poodle is buried, the choirboys sing ‘Miserere Dominus, canis mortuus est’ (‘Have mercy, Lord, the dog is dead’).
John Cleese insisted the film was really directed by Crichton alone, and that Cleese had agreed to share the role solely because Crichton was seventy-seven and the financiers were nervous he might have lost his touch. Crichton was responsible for the Ealing comedies The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953).
1995 COPYCAT
A serial killer taunts one of his targets.
PETER
Don’t you ever get tired. . . Of being a day late and a dollar short?
Dir: Jon Amiel • Scr: Ann Biderman, David Madsen • Cast: William McNamara (Peter Foley)
1995 CASINO
Ferocious mobster Nicky Santoro does not suffer fools gladly.
NICKY
This guy could fuck up a cup of coffee.
Dir: Martin Scorsese • Scr: Nicholas Pileggi, Martin Scorsese • Based on a book by Nicholas Pileggi • Cast: Joe Pesci (Nicky Santoro)
The owners of the Riviera casino where the film was shot did not want the production to deter their real gambling clients, so scenes were scheduled in the brief slot between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Somewhat disingenuously, the casino owners boosted business by posting a large sign outside saying ‘Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, and Joe Pesci Filming the New Movie “Casino” Inside!’
‘YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER’
An insult can be a finely honed stiletto or a sledgehammer, each effective according to adversary and circumstance. Screenwriters in the earlier part of the twentieth century were hamstrung by censors and public sensitivities but these constraints only served to focus their barbs. The following quotes, in chronological order, show how changing times can sharpen – or not – cinema’s rapier wit.
You clinking clanking clattering collection of caliginous junk!
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
There’s a name for you ladies, but it isn’t used in high society. . . outside of a kennel.
The Women (1939)
UGARTE: You despise me, don’t you?
RICK: If I gave you any thought, I probably would.
Casablanca (1942)
I know you like a book, you little tramp. You’d sell your own mother for a piece of fudge. But you’re smart with it. Smart enough to know when to sell and when to sit tight. You’ve got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart.
The Killing (1956)
You’re the son of a thousand fathers, all bastards like you.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.
True Grit (1969)
Well, if it isn’t fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou!
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
You know, I’d almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow.
Get Carter (1971)
I don’t wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed, animal food trough wiper. I fart in your general direction. Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
The day they lay you away, what I do on your grave won’t pass for flowers.
The Shootist (1976)
You punch like you take it up the ass!
Raging Bull (1980)
You’re not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.
Body Heat (1981)
You’re a neo maxi zoom dweebie.
The Breakfast Club (1985)
Did your parents have any children that lived?
Full Metal Jacket (1987)
You’re in more dire need of a blow job than any white man in history.
Good Morning Vietnam (1987)
You’re one ugly motherfucker.
Predator (1987)
I’ll use small words so that you’ll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
The Princess Bride (1987)
[Soldier], you’d need three promotions to get to be an asshole.
Biloxi Blues (1988)
She’s got a heart like a twelve-mi
nute egg.
Bright Lights, Big City (1988)
To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people. I’ve known sheep who could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs.
A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
If my dog had a face like yours, I’d shave his ass and teach him to walk backwards.
Gleaming the Cube (1989)
I wouldn’t live with you if the world were flooded with piss and you lived in a tree.
Parenthood (1989)
He was so crooked, he could eat soup with a corkscrew.
The Grifters (1990)
You lewd, crude, rude, bag of pre-chewed food dude.
Hook (1991)
Sit your five-dollar ass down before I make change.
New Jack City (1991)
Mr Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Billy Madison (1995)
Were you always this stupid, or did you take lessons?
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
I don’t give a tuppeny fuck about your moral conundrum, you meat-headed shit sack.
Gangs of New York (2002)
You cock-juggling thunder-cunt!
Blade: Trinity (2004)
Harry, let’s face it. And I’m not being funny. I mean no disrespect, but you’re a cunt. You’re a cunt now, and you’ve always been a cunt. And the only thing that’s going to change is that you’re going to be an even bigger cunt.
All the Best Lines Page 27