Hitchcock briefly pursued a musical theme, appearing in various films carrying a violin, a cello, a trumpet, and in Strangers on a Train (1951) – magnificently – a double bass. The most unsettling sequence is surely in Topaz (1969), where the director is pushed through an airport terminal in a wheelchair, only to stand up, shake hands with a fellow traveller and walk out of the picture; the most brazen is the shot where Cary Grant travels on a bus and Hitchcock sits stony-faced and unmissable right beside him (To Catch a Thief, 1955).
1944 NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART
A young ne’er-do-well tries to reform his life.
ERNIE
They say money talks. . . all it’s ever said to me is goodbye.
Dir: Clifford Odets • Scr: Clifford Odets • Based on a novel by Richard Llewellyn • Cast: Cary Grant (Ernie Mott)
1945 BRIEF ENCOUNTER
Married Laura feels guilty about the affair she is having.
LAURA
It’s awfully easy to lie when you know that you’re trusted implicitly. So very easy, and so very degrading.
Dir: David Lean • Scr: David Lean • Based on a play by Noël Coward • Cast: Celia Johnson (Laura Jesson)
1947 OUT OF THE PAST
Gangster Whit Sterling realizes he is still in love with a woman from his past.
WHIT
My feelings? About ten years ago, I hid them somewhere and haven’t been able to find them.
Dir: Jacques Tourneur • Scr: Daniel Mainwaring, based on his novel (writing as Geoffrey Homes) • Cast: Kirk Douglas (Whit Sterling)
1950 SUNSET BOULEVARD
A proud but ageing film star implores her favourite director to cast her just one more time.
NORMA
And I promise you I’ll never desert you again because after Salome we’ll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.
Dir: Billy Wilder • Scr: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D. M. Marshman Jr • Cast: Gloria Swanson (Norma Desmond)
Legendary studio head Louis B. Mayer felt the film painted an unfairly bleak portrait of the film business and told Wilder: ‘You bastard! You have disgraced the industry that made and fed you. You should be tarred and feathered and run out of Hollywood.’ Wilder, never usually lost for an elegant riposte, could only muster, ‘Fuck you.’
1951 THE LAVENDER HILL MOB
PENDLEBURY
Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these — ‘it might have been’.
Dir: Charles Crichton • Scr: T. E. B. Clarke • Cast: Stanley Holloway (Alfred ‘Al’Pendlebury)
The poignant words spoken by the crooked Pendlebury are from the poem Maud Muller by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92).
The Bank of England was consulted to find a plausible way to steal a million pounds, and their plan formed the basis for the plot. The only reason the robbers fail in their mission at the end is that the British producers were aware US censorship rules regarding criminal behaviour would have meant the film could not be released in America.
1954 ON THE WATERFRONT
Boxer Terry Malloy is furious with his brother Charley for persuading him to participate in fixed bouts.
TERRY
It wasn’t him, Charley, it was you. Remember that night in the Garden you came down to my dressing room and you said, ‘Kid, this ain’t your night. We’re going for the price on Wilson.’ You remember that? ‘This ain’t your night’! My night! I coulda taken Wilson apart! So what happens? He gets the title shot outdoors on the ballpark and what do I get? A one-way ticket to Palookaville! You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit. You shoulda taken care of me just a little bit so I wouldn’t have to take them dives for the short-end money.
CHARLEY
Oh, I had some bets down for you. You saw some money.
TERRY
You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum — which is what I am, let’s face it. It was you, Charley.
Dir: Elia Kazan • Scr: Budd Schulberg • Cast: Marlon Brando (Terry Malloy), Rod Steiger (Charley Malloy)
Before sending the screenplay to Marlon Brando, producer Sam Spiegel slipped small pieces of paper between its pages so he could check in due course whether it had ever been opened. Brando turned the project down and the scraps were still in place when he returned the script; only after Spiegel approached Frank Sinatra for the role did Brando change his mind and ask to ‘re’-read it.
1960 THE APARTMENT
Baxter discovers Fran’s private life is less glamorous than he has imagined.
BAXTER
The mirror. . . it’s broken.
FRAN
Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.
Dir: Billy Wilder • Scr: Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond • Cast: Jack Lemmon (C. C. Baxter), Shirley MacLaine (Fran Kubelik)
‘SHUT UP AND DEAL’
Billy Wilder (1906–2002) had been impressed by Noël Coward and David Lean’s Brief Encounter (1945), in which a character who never appears in the film lends the adulterous couple a key to his home so they can meet in secret. With The Apartment (1960), Wilder wanted to tell a story in which the owner of this vital venue takes centre-stage, but because the topic of marital infidelity was still controversial he had to wait several years until the Hays Production Code (see p.190) was relaxed.
When the film finally went ahead, Wilder set much of the action in the offices of a dull insurance company as a comic counterpoint to the sexual shenanigans the story describes. Marilyn Monroe (whom Wilder disliked after her difficult behaviour on Some Like It Hot) attended an early screening, but the risqué subject matter seems to have passed her by as she declared the picture ‘a wonderful examination of the corporate world’.
Wilder and long-term collaborator I. A. L. Diamond (1920–88) wrote the script specifically with Jack Lemmon in mind as the hapless C. C. Baxter. When the director approached Shirley MacLaine for the part of Miss Kubelik, the elevator operator, he removed the last pages because he wanted her to play the lovelorn character with no idea she might eventually win Baxter’s affections; MacLaine simply assumed Wilder had not yet figured out a suitable ending. She also claimed much of the film was written as the shoot progressed, and that the recurring gin rummy game came about because she was learning to play it with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin during her lunch breaks.
The film contains plenty of classic Wilder and Diamond dialogue:
FRAN: I was jinxed from the word go. The first time I was ever kissed was in a cemetery.
BAXTER: Mrs MacDougall, I think it is only fair to warn you that you are now alone with a notorious sexpot.
MARGIE: No kidding.
BAXTER: That’s the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.
KIRKEBY: Premium-wise and billing-wise, we are 18 per cent ahead of last year, October-wise.
SHELDRAKE: Ya know, you see a girl a couple of times a week, just for laughs, and right away they think you’re gonna divorce your wife. Now I ask you, is that fair?
BAXTER: No, sir, it’s very unfair. . . Especially to your wife.
FRAN: What’s a tennis racket doing in the kitchen?
BAXTER: Tennis racket? Oh, I remember, I was cooking myself an Italian dinner.
Even the closing lines were apparently written as the final scene was being shot:
BAXTER: You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.
FRAN: Shut up and deal.
1968 FUNNY GIRL
A comedienne laments her plain looks.
FANNY
That’s my problem — I’m a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls.
Dir: William Wyler • Scr: Isobel Lennart, based on her Broadway musical • Cast: Barbra Streisand (Fanny Brice)
Cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond
– who would go on to win an Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) – was fired by Streisand after three days because he ignored her stipulation that her face should only ever be filmed from her preferred (left) side.
1972 PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM
Allan approaches a pretty girl in an art gallery.
ALLAN
That’s quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn’t it?
MUSEUM GIRL
Yes, it is.
ALLAN
What does it say to you?
MUSEUM GIRL
It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of Man forced to live in a barren, Godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation, forming a useless bleak straitjacket in a black absurd cosmos.
ALLAN
What are you doing Saturday night?
MUSEUM GIRL
Committing suicide.
ALLAN
What about Friday night?
Dir: Herbert Ross • Scr: Woody Allen, based on his play • Cast: Woody Allen (Allan Felix), Diana Davila (Museum Girl)
1976 TAXI DRIVER
TRAVIS
Loneliness has followed me my whole life. Everywhere. In bars, in cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s lonely man.
Dir: Martin Scorsese • Scr: Paul Schrader • Cast: Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle)
1977 ANNIE HALL
ALVY
A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we’ve got on our hands is a dead shark.
Dir: Woody Allen • Scr: Woody Allen, Marshall Brickman • Cast: Woody Allen (Alvy Singer)
1980 THE ELEPHANT MAN
Two doctors assume a patient with a grotesquely disfigured face and body is also mentally subnormal.
DR FOX
Have you ever mentioned his mental state?
DR FREDERICK TREVES
Oh, he’s an imbecile, probably from birth. Man’s a complete idiot. Pray to God he’s an idiot.
Dir: David Lynch • Scr: Christopher De Vore, Eric Bergren, David Lynch • Based on books by Sir Frederick Treves and Ashley Montagu • Cast: John Standing (Dr Fox), Anthony Hopkins (Dr Frederick Treves)
John Hurt’s prosthetics took eight hours to apply each day and two hours to remove, so to prevent the actor from becoming exhausted he was only scheduled to work alternate days.
1987 THE WHALES OF AUGUST
On the anniversary of her wedding, Sarah holds an imaginary conversation with the husband she lost in the Second World War.
SARAH
Forty-six years, Phillip. Forty-six red roses; forty-six white. White for truth, red for passion. That’s what you always said: ‘Passion and truth; that’s all we need’. . . Oh, if only you were here, Phillip. Oh, Phillip, my corset has so many stays and so many ties. You said, ‘Too many, my love. The moon will set before I have you completely undone.’ But I said, ‘Never, my love. I won’t be entirely undone — even by you. For what mystery would keep you with me if you unwrap them all?’
Dir: Lindsay Anderson • Scr: David Berry, based on his play • Cast: Lillian Gish (Sarah Webber)
1989 STEEL MAGNOLIAS
Truvy chats with friends in her beauty salon.
TRUVY
Honey, time marches on and eventually you realize it’s marching across your face.
Dir: Herbert Ross • Scr: Robert Harling, based on his play • Cast: Dolly Parton (Truvy Jones)
Disappointed by a poor take, director Herbert Ross unchivalrously asked singer Dolly Parton if she could actually act. Undeterred, she replied: ‘No, but it’s your job to make me look like I can.’
1996 SECRETS & LIES
Maurice does his best to support and placate his fractious family.
MAURICE
Secrets and lies! We’re all in pain! Why can’t we share our pain? I’ve spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the three people I love the most in the world hate each other’s guts and I’m in the middle! I can’t take it any more!
Dir: Mike Leigh • Scr: Mike Leigh • Cast: Timothy Spall (Maurice Purley)
As with all Mike Leigh films, the script was improvised around a simple outline devised by the director. Leigh told each actor only as much as they would need to know at the beginning of the story and let them develop their own character from there; that way, the secrets revealed along the way would come as a genuine surprise as each scene was shot.
1999 NOTTING HILL
Among friends, a film star laments the pressures of her career.
ANNA
I’ve been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I’ve been hungry for a decade. I’ve had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me, and every time I get my heart broken the newspapers splash it about as though it’s entertainment. And it’s taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this. . . Really. And, one day not long from now, my looks will go, they’ll discover I can’t act and I’ll become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.
Dir: Roger Michell • Scr: Richard Curtis • Cast: Julia Roberts (Anna Scott)
1999 THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
Cecilia is taken to hospital after cutting her wrists.
DOCTOR
What are you doing here, honey? You’re not even old enough to know how bad life gets.
CECILIA
Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl.
Dir: Sofia Coppola • Scr: Sofia Coppola • Based on a novel by Jeffrey Eugenides • Cast: François Klanfer (Doctor), Hanna R. Hall (Cecilia Lisbon)
2003 LOST IN TRANSLATION
A lonely wife and a famous actor fall to talking in a Tokyo bar.
CHARLOTTE
So, what are you doing here?
BOB
Uh, a couple of things. Taking a break from my wife, forgetting my son’s birthday. And getting paid $2 million to endorse a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere.
CHARLOTTE
Oh.
BOB
But the good news is, the whiskey works.
Dir: Sofia Coppola • Scr: Sofia Coppola • Cast: Scarlett Johansson (Charlotte), Bill Murray (Bob Harris)
2004 MILLION DOLLAR BABY
A local priest wonders what is troubling one of his regular parishioners.
FATHER HORVAK
Frankie, I’ve seen you at Mass almost every day for twenty-three years. The only person comes to church that much is the kind who can’t forgive himself for something.
Dir: Clint Eastwood • Scr: Paul Haggis • Based on short stories by F. X. Toole • Cast: Brian F. O’Byrne (Father Horvak)
2004 THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOVE (LE CONSEGUENZE DELL’AMORE)
A middle-aged mafia courier refuses to believe in fate.
TITTA
Bad luck doesn’t exist. It is just an invention of losers and poor people.
Dir: Paolo Sorrentino • Scr: Paolo Sorrentino • Cast: Toni Servillo (Titta di Girolamo)
2005 BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Two cowboys have been forced to hide their homosexual relationship from their families and community for too long.
JACK
Tell you what, we coulda had a good life together! Fuckin’ real good life! Had us a place of our own. But you didn’t want it, Ennis! So what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything’s built on that! That’s all we got, boy, fuckin’ all. So I hope you know that, even if you don’t never know the rest! You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years and you measure the short fucking leash you keep me on — and then you ask me about Mexico and tell me you’ll kill me for needing somethin’ I don’t hardly never get. You have no idea how bad it gets! I’m not you. . . I can’t make it on a coupla high-altitude fucks once or twice a year! You are too much for me
Ennis, you sonofawhoreson bitch! I wish I knew how to quit you.
Ennis is crying now.
ENNIS
Well, why don’t you? Why don’t you just let me be? It’s because of you Jack, that I’m like this! I’m nothin’. . . I’m nowhere. . . Get the fuck off me! I can’t stand being like this no more, Jack.
Dir: Ang Lee • Scr: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana • Based on a novel by Annie Proulx • Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal (Jack), Heath Ledger (Ennis)
2006 LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Unhappy teenager Dwayne receives some unlikely encouragement from his uncle.
DWAYNE
I wish I could just sleep until I was eighteen and skip all this crap — high school and everything — just skip it.
FRANK
Do you know who Marcel Proust is?
DWAYNE
He’s the guy you teach.
FRANK
Yeah. French writer. Total loser. Never had a real job. Unrequited love affairs. Gay. Spent twenty years writing a book almost no one reads. But he’s also probably the greatest writer since Shakespeare. Anyway, he uh. . . he gets down to the end of his life, and he looks back and decides that all those years he suffered, those were the best years of his life ’cause they made him who he was. All those years he was happy? You know, total waste. Didn’t learn a thing. So, if you sleep until you’re eighteen. . . Ah, think of the suffering you’re gonna miss. I mean high school? High school — those are your prime suffering years. You don’t get better suffering than that.
Dir: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris • Scr: Michael Arndt • Cast: Paul Dano (Dwayne), Steve Carell (Frank Ginsberg)
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