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Part 2 |
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Introduction: One of the
most striking elements in any film is the sudden or memorable appearance
of one of the main characters or stars. Often, film entrances are not
very extraordinary, but now and again, there are some that are very
spectacular and skillfully executed. Although it would be impossible
to compile a list of every single memorable movie entrance ever screened,
this collection moves toward that goal. The following illustrated list in the next few web pages,
in unranked chronological order, presents a solid collection of the
most classic movie entrances or bows of film characters in cinematic
history. These include film scenes from the silent era, the classic
film period, and modern-day. (chronological, by film title) - Part 2 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |
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Part 2 |
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(chronological, by film title) - Part 2 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 |
| Movie Title and Film Character | Brief Scene Description | Example |
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Laura Hunt |
This film presented the startling entrance scene of the "murdered" title character Laura Hunt (Gene Tierney) - her appearance for the first time - in person. In the scene, New York detective Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) was uncomfortably shocked when Laura was 'reincarnated' and walked in to her own apartment, awakening him from dozing. She turned on the light and found him half-sleeping in her armchair next to her portrait. He did a double-take and wiped his eyes, wondering if he was dreaming. She threatened to call the police: "What are you doing here?" She was unaware of the news of her own slaying - she didn't read the newspapers and radio broadcasts were unavailable to her; Laura was horrified to realize that she was caught in the middle of a murder case |   
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Gilda |
Crippled Buenos Aires casino owner Ballin Mundson (George Macready) entered his inner bedroom suite with gambler and right-hand man Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford), where a woman was singing along to a phonograph recording of "Put the Blame on Mame." He introduced his new exuberantly healthy American wife, the film's femme fatale, to Johnny, in one of filmdom's best-known film entrances: (Mundson: "Gilda, are you decent?" Gilda: "Me?") She gave a long, sensual look at Johnny, and pulled up one side of her strapless dress. "Sure, I'm decent." She was the hedonistic, flirtatious, auburn-haired Gilda (Rita Hayworth) back from their honeymoon. In her first screen appearance as she threw back her head and tossed her hair, she responded sexily. Her thick mane of hair was sent flying |
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Great Expectations (1946) Magwitch |
A truly scary and nightmarish scene in the film's almost-silent, sweeping opening was one in which young Pip (Anthony Wager) was suddenly confronted, with a brilliant whip-pan camera movement, by bulbous-nosed convict Abel Magwitch (Finlay Currie) in a shadowy church graveyard while visiting his parents' grave; the monstrous man threatened to cut the boy's throat and then demanded "a file and vittles" |
 
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The Swede |
This acclaimed film noir featured the screen debut of Burt Lancaster, with his first appearance/entrance onto the screen as washed-up, fatalistic ex-boxer the Swede, Ole Anderson/Pete Lunn, the complacent target of assassins who find him indifferent, resigned and ready to meet his fate ("I did something wrong... once") - reclined on his bed in his dimly-lit boarding house room, even though warned ahead of time to flee by co-worker Nick Adams (Phil Brown) | 
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The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) Cora Smith |
Drifter handyman and mechanic Frank Chambers (John Garfield) took his first look at hot-blooded, voluptuous Cora (Lana Turner) -- not knowing she was the boss' wife -- her entrance was prefaced by her lipstick case noisily rolling across the floor of the cafe toward him. The camera tracked back to her nude slim legs in the doorway. Frank looked at all of her - she was provocatively sexy and scantily clad in white shorts, white halter top, and white turban. He set his eyes on the whitish platinum-blonde woman, bent down and picked up her lipstick, and asked: "You dropped this?" She stood with her hand outstretched, waiting for him to bring it over to her. But he held onto her possession in the palm of his own hand and then leaned back on the counter - she strutted over and took the case out of his hand |
  
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Dead Reckoning (1947) Mrs. Coral 'Dusty' Chandler |
Returning WWII military paratrooper veteran Capt. Warren 'Rip' Murdock (Humphrey Bogart) found his army buddy Sgt. Johnny Drake's (William Prince) blonde and treacherous ex-lover Mrs. Coral 'Dusty' Chandler (Lizabeth Scott) - a cabaret lounge singer ("Cinderella with a husky voice") at the Sanctuary Club in a sultry Gulf City southern town; the camera panned up as she prepared to smoke a cigarette - and Rip held out a match to the alluring femme fatale; in voice-over, Rip reflected: "I hated every part of her. I couldn't figure her out yet. I wanted to see her the way Johnny had. I wanted to hear that song of hers with Johnny's ears. Maybe she was alright. And maybe Christmas comes in July, but I didn't believe it" |  
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Kathie Moffett |
Jeff Markham's (Robert Mitchum) first sight of Whit Sterling's (Kirk Douglas) girlfriend/mistress Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer) confirmed Whit's earlier observation: "When you see her, you'll understand better." He memorably described how he first met the seductive femme fatale (when she first appeared in the film and walked into his life) dressed in white - but casting a sultry silhouette as she entered from the bright white, hazy outdoors into the dark Mexican cantina: "And then I saw her, coming out of the sun, and I knew why Whit didn't care about that forty grand." Immediately, Jeff was mesmerized and infatuated by the dark-haired beauty (seemingly so innocent) with a broad-brimmed, white hat - unaware of her lethal charms at the beginning of their ill-fated affair |
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Key Largo (1948) Johnny Rocco |
In his last major appearance as a gangster, Edward G. Robinson starred in this John Huston crime-drama as Prohibition-era mobster Johnny Rocco (known mysteriously at first as "Mr. Brown") -- modeled on real-life gangster Lucky Luciano; Rocco had just been deported to Cuba, but awaited a counterfeit deal with a Miami mobster while establishing temporary headquarters at a small Florida hotel in the Keys during the off-season where he had taken everyone hostage; the snarling racketeer's dramatic entrance, purposely delayed, found him partially obscured as he reclined in a bathtub, while smoking a cigar, drinking, and being air-conditioned by the revolving blades of an electric fan nearby |
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The Red Shoes (1948, UK) Boris Lermontov |
Ballet impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) was introduced with a mysterious entrance -- he was seated in the darkness behind the curtain of his opera box, with only his hand showing -- typical of the kind of entrances reserved for horror film characters |
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Annie Laurie Starr |
The entertaining star trick markswoman [a typical femme fatale seductress in film noir], filmed from below to make her appear more imposing, appeared on stage dressed as a Western cowgirl (with cowboy hat and shirt, gun holster, and hip-hugging black pants) and fired into the air; a broad-smiling Bart (John Dall) in the front row leaned forward intently for a closer look at his dream-girl/soul-mate come true, captivated and fixated on her domineering, gun-toting abilities that made her as good as any man; she lowered one of her guns and fired directly at her admiring, glaze-eyed customer; he reacted by flinching slightly - bewitchingly, she flashed a radiant, smiling grin back at him, revealing to everyone that she was using blanks in the potentially-potent gun-- the audience applauded wildly for her attention-getting poses and presence |
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Harry Lime |
A scene dissolved to the street outside Anna's (Alida Valli) apartment, where Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) walked away. He became aware of a figure in a doorway on the opposite side of the street when he heard Anna's cat meow loudly at the feet of the silent, motionless figure. The figure's big shoes were illuminated - was it one of Calloway's men, Popescu, Kurtz, another thug or Intelligence agent? Holly abusively, drunkenly, and defiantly shouted out to the figure. A light from an irritated neighbor's upstairs window briefly illuminated the figure's face - shining straight across the street. Holly momentarily and suddenly saw Harry Lime (Orson Welles) - the 'third man' himself, an amoral blackmarketer. Amazed to see Harry still alive, Holly was startled by the flirtatious, mocking sight of the smiling, smug face of his friend staring back at him, with a raised eyebrow. The light was quickly extinguished, and before Holly could reach his friend, a car approached and blocked his path by coming between them. The figure made off and vanished to the sound of retreating footsteps in the dark |
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D.O.A. (1950) Frank Bigelow
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In the striking opening sequence during the credits, one of the greatest of all time, an individual was followed by the camera - face unseen - as he determinedly proceeded down the long hallway into the homicide division office of a police station to seek the "man in charge" and to report a murder ("I want to report a murder") to the homicide chief. He was asked the location of the murder and when asked: "Who was murdered?", the camera finally revealed the protagonist: small-town accountant Frank Bigelow (Edmund O'Brien), his face sweaty, his tie loosened and collar disheveled, and his suit caked with dirt. Frank paused for a long minute, and answered shakily: "I was." He then related, in flashback, how he had awakened and discovered that he'd been poisoned and had a week to live - only a short time to try to untangle the events behind his imminent demise |
  
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Rashomon (1950, Jp.) The 'raped' wife
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In Akira Kurosawa's landmark film in cinematic history, set in 12th century feudal Japan, a 'raped' wife (Machiko Kyō), one of the four main characters who all told incompatible, contradictory tales of the same 'rape' and murder, was first (chronologically) seen concealed under a large hat and veil; the rapist/bandit Tajōmaru (Toshirō Mifune) watched from the dense forest as she was being led on a horse by her samurai husband (Masayuki Mori); when he glimpsed her bare feet and the camera panned up to partially reveal her face through the open veil, he was awestruck by the sight ("I caught a glimpse and then she was gone," he recalled, "Maybe that's why I thought I saw a goddess. At that moment, I decided to capture her, even if I had to kill her man, but if I could have her without killing, all the better"); he began to chase after them to confront them; after the bandit lied to the husband and led him into the woods where he attacked him (and tied him to a pine tree), he returned to the wife, where he watched as she fully opened her veil to him, and then told her that her husband had taken sick; when she looked at him with "frozen eyes," he changed his feelings about her husband: "I envied the man and I suddenly hated him" |
   
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Joe Gillis |
The film opened with a voice-over
narration read cynically and crisply in a film-noirish style, by
a dead man, hack screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden). Motorcycle
officers, followed by police cars with sirens blaring, rushed to a mansion
in Beverly Hills where they found a dead body floating face down in a
swimming pool. "...You see, the body of a young man was found floating
in the pool of her mansion - with two shots in his back and one in his
stomach. Nobody important, really. Just a movie writer with a couple of
'B' pictures to his credit. The poor dope! He always wanted a pool. Well,
in the end, he got himself a pool - only the price turned out to be a
little high" Shortly afterwards, in a flashbacked scene six months earlier, Joe met has-been, reclusive silent film idol Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) in her decaying mansion, wearing black house pajamas with a leopard-patterned scarf wrapped like a turban around her head. He mocked her: "You used to be big." She replied: "I am big. It's the pictures that got small" |
 
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The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) Gort |
After a huge flying saucer landed on the mall in Washington, DC in 1951, a humanoid alien visitor Klaatu (Michael Rennie) emerged down a ramp, followed to everyone's amazement by his 10 foot tall menacing robot protector named Gort - who had the ability to zap (melt) weapons or tanks with the disintegration laser beam-ray behind his visor. [The film was remade in 2008 by director Scott Derrickson, starring Keanu Reeves as Klaatu.] |  
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Strangers on a Train (1951) Bruno Anthony |
The opening sequence introducing the duality of the two 'strangers on a train' and a plan to "swap murders" - the two characters: the villainous psychotic playboy character Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker) and professional tennis ace Guy Haines (Farley Granger); they have a 'chance' meeting on a train enroute from Washington DC (a cleverly-choreographed sequence in which the two sets of the strangers' shoes are highlighted before they meet) |   
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Dancer
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In an extraordinary scene while Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) was singing and dancing to a fantasy number - a 'show within a show' titled "Broadway Rhythm," a woman's long shapely leg appeared abruptly on the screen, dangling and balancing the straw hat from his head on her upturned foot. His eyes and the camera followed the leg up to the figure of a seductive Dancer (Cyd Charisse), a gangster's moll with a Cleopatra haircut. Wisps of cigarette smoke emanated from her mouth - while her striking leg raised almost 90 degrees, tantalizingly. He had met the girl of his dreams, a beautiful, bewitching exotic nightclub performer and city vamp, looking like vixenous silent star Louise Brooks. She was wearing a short, gloriously sexy green dress with matching green high-heels, and had a long cigarette holder in her hand. She left the table where her silver dollar-flipping, scar-faced gangster boyfriend (resembling actor George Raft in Scarface: The Shame of the Nation (1932)) sat with two mugs. She danced provocatively around him, shaking her hips and blowing cigarette smoke in his face. She removed his glasses and hat, steamed up the glasses with her breath and wiped them on her thigh, and then kicked away both his hat and glasses. She placed her long cigarette holder in his mouth. They continued dancing sensuously close together, and she began to kiss him. But she was lured away by the sight of a thick, sparkling diamond bracelet, held out by her gangster boyfriend's hand. |    
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) Lorelei Lee |
Marilyn Monroe (as Lorelei Lee) and Jane Russell (as Dorothy Shaw) burst onto the screen in sparkly red and white costumes (against a blue backdrop) singing the opening number: (We're Just) Two Little Girls From Little Rock |
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Lisa Carol Fremont |
Photographer L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies (James Stewart) was dozing off in his apartment, immobilized with a cast on his broken leg; earlier in the film, he had talked to his sharp-tongued, visiting nurse-therapist Stella (Thelma Ritter) about his girlfriend/fashion model-designer Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly), and how she was too much of a "Park Avenue" woman - too rich, "too perfect," spoiled, sophisticated and incompatible for his lifestyle as a globe-trotting, high-risk, ultra-masculine photographer; in her famed film entrance, her shadow was first visible as it slowly rose up on Jeff's face as she approached (seen in close-up from his POV), bent over, and then lovingly kissed him; she roused and awakened him from his sleep - very stylish, elegant (with bright red lipstick and pearls), lovely, and blonde |
 
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The Night of the Hunter (1955) Rev. Harry Powell |
This mid-50s noir had one of the creepiest introductions in film history; the camera tracked a Model T driven down a country road by a sinister, crazed, malevolent, black-cloaked, wide-brimmed and hatted 'Preacher' Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), one of the 'false prophets.' In a chilling, perversely evil and memorable monologue to the Lord, the killer-evangelist with borderline sanity, glanced heavenward and delivered an insane prayer: "Well now, what's it to be Lord? Another widow? How many has it been? Six? Twelve? I disremember. You say the word, Lord, I'm on my way...You always send me money to go forth and preach your Word. The widow with a little wad of bills hid away in a sugar bowl. Lord, I am tired. Sometimes I wonder if you really understand. Not that You mind the killin's. Yore Book is full of killin's. But there are things you do hate Lord: perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair" |
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Sweet Smell of Success (1957) |
Beetle-browed, thick-spectacled, pallor-faced, power-mongering columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster) was first viewed at the famed "21" restaurant - he sat at a table revealing a steely, menacing and hulking presence with a skull-like, masked look to his crew-cut face (due to his deepened eye sockets caused by shadows from his magnified lenses) |
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