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Entrances of All-Time Part 5 |
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Mary Poppins (1964) Mary Poppins During the opening credits, nanny Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews) floated into 1910 London on a cloud with her umbrella, as she applied makeup. However, she wouldn't make her real entrance into the film until about 20 minutes later. The Banks household had experienced six nannies in the last four months for their two disobediently playful children (Jane and Michael). The head of the household, stern and fastidious banker Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson), placed a new advertisement in The Times for a nanny that was "firm, respectable, no-nonsense." The two children wrote their own letter/advertisement with their recommendations for "The Perfect Nanny":
Mr. Banks tore up their version, but the pieces of paper floated up the chimney into the air. Soon after, a strong wind blew away all of the nanny candidates queued up at their front door to answer the ad - and Mary Poppins mysteriously floated down with upturned umbrella to replace them. The children witnessed her entrance from the window:
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Maria In the much-heralded, breathtaking opening sequence of this film, after sweeping aerial views of the snow-covered mountains and valleys, the camera moved over the European landscape and village until it discovered an open, green area nestled between the peaks. It moved closer and zoomed into the green field, where it suddenly found a happy and joyous Maria (Julie Andrews), a novice Salzburg Austrian nun, walking across the wide expanse of land. With open-armed appreciation of the beauty of the surrounding majestic peaks and vistas of the Austrian Alps, she twirled and sang the title song: "The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Music." |
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1967) All three characters The film's opening title sequence included a 20 minute introduction to:
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Mrs. Robinson Young and alienated recent college grad Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) stared into his fish tank's glass in his upstairs bedroom - away from celebratory party-goers for his own graduation party. A black-clad Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), the wife of his father's business partner, opened his bedroom door in the frame. They both appeared behind the pane of glass - she had followed him there (first viewed in the living room eyeing him), explaining that she was looking for the bathroom, but her interest in him belied her excuse. Looking upset, Ben admitted he was "disturbed about things" in general and would rather be alone. She insisted that he drive her home because her husband had already left with their car - this was the start of her memorable seduction of him. |
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Ernst Stavro Blofeld In two previous James Bond films, the master-mind head of SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion), a world-wide terrorist organization, was always portrayed with menace, but with face unseen while petting his white Persian cat in his lap. The character was previously played by uncredited Anthony Dawson in From Russia With Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965), but now was portrayed by British character actor Donald Pleasence. Once he had captured James Bond, a British 007 agent who was attempting to impersonate a SPECTRE astronaut about to launch from a rocket site hidden in a hollowed-out volcano on a remote island in Japan, Blofeld peered from behind one of his men and introduced himself:
He revealed himself as a bald, scar-faced (through his right eye), Mao tunic-wearing megalomaniac. Bond mentioned how he had lived through a fake assassination attempt in Hong Kong: "This is my second life." Blofeld threatened: "You only live twice, Mr. Bond." |
 
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Barbarella (1968) Barbarella In the opening credits sequence of this erotic science-fiction fantasy, an inflight and weightless, 41st century Barbarella (Jane Fonda), wearing a protective dark spacesuit, began a slow striptease while floating in mid-air. She first removed her gloves (to reveal beautifully-manicured fingers and hands) and then her leggings. Her face appeared after a tinted shield over her helmet slowly lowered. When her helmet was removed and she shook her full head of hair, white letters were let loose to spell her name. Further letters for the credits were released as more coverings were freed from her body. By the end of the credits when the screen read: "DIRECTED BY ROGER VADIM," she was completely naked with the letters often strategically dancing around or coalescing to try and mask her private parts. |
  
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Barbarella (1968) The Black Queen The evil and cold lesbian Black Queen (Anita Pallenberg) also made a memorable entrance, disguised as a one-eyed wench (with twirling knives for each hand and an eyepatch). She saved Barbarella (Jane Fonda) from two rapists by stabbing them in the back. She then greeted Barbarella as Pretty-Pretty:
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Night of the Living Dead (1968) The First Zombie In this zombie film's opening, Johnny (Russell Streiner) had just taken his slightly neurotic and edgy sister Barbra (Judith O'Dea) to visit their mother's grave in a remote cemetery. When Barbra nervously continued to admit a phobia of cemeteries and the dead, and they placed flowers on the grave, Johnny playfully taunted her in a creepy voice:
He then pointed to what looked like a drunk vagrant shambling among the headstones, and gleefully teased: "Look, there comes one of them now!" Suddenly, without warning, the "vagrant" who had appeared out of nowhere attacked the pair, trying to eat them. Johnny was killed when he tripped and hit his head hard against the headstone, and Barbra fled to the car with the reanimated, slow-moving living corpse shambling after her. |
 
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Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, It.) Harmonica Frank This Italian western had one of the most memorable opening sequences of all time. At an isolated and deserted train station (with a pesky fly, dripping ceiling, creaky windmill, and noisy telegraph machine) in Flagstone, Arizona, three unnamed gunman appeared:
The trio were sent by cold-blooded, blue-eyed killer Frank (Henry Fonda in a cast-against-type role) to await the late arrival of a train. Finally, a mysterious stoic man with no name playing a harmonica (Charles Bronson) was let off the late-arriving train. Snaky casually mentioned that they only had three horses: "Looks like we're shy one horse." Harmonica shook his head in disagreement: "You brought two too many." After a brief shootout, all three gunmen were killed. Afterwards, power-hungry and ruthless Frank made a second grand entrance with an icy closeup (after a long build-up), after his posse of men wearing yellow duster topcoats casually slaughtered in cold-blood landowner Brett McBain (Frank Wolff) and his entire family at their remote "Sweetwater" farm. It was on the day of a welcoming feast for McBain's arriving wife Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale) from New Orleans. The dead were the patriarch and his three children, including the innocent youngest son, because one of the gunmen happened to call Frank "by name." |
    
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) James Bond In the first Bond film following the Sean Connery era (of five films from 1962-1967), George Lazenby had to make a striking appearance as the new James Bond. The pre-title credits sequence opened in Portugal, where the unseen Bond was driving along the coast in his 1969 Aston Martin DBS. He stopped to rescue an unidentified woman (fully clothed) from drowning herself in the surf. After carrying her back to the sand and reviving her, he introduced himself:
But then, after her rescue, two men assaulted Bond by gun and knife-point, and while he fought them off, she escaped. He was left holding the woman's shoes. He joked with the audience (breaking the "fourth wall") when he said to the camera:
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Alex de Large The opening memorable image was an intimate closeup (known as the Kubrick stare) of the blue staring eyes and smirking face of ebullient young punker Alex de Large (Malcolm McDowell), wearing a bowler hat and with one false eyelash (upper and lower) adorning his right eye. As the camera zoom pulled back, accompanied by Walter Carlos' synthesized rendition of Purcell's Elegy on the Death of Queen Mary, the anti-hero character with the malevolent, cold stare was shown sitting amidst his kingly court of teenaged gang of "droogs." Alex narrated in voice-over:
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Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) Willy Wonka Chocolate maker Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder) made his entrance when he exited his gated factory, limping and heavily relying on his cane, as if he were a decrepit old man. As he approached the outer gate, he stopped unsteadily, teetered and then suddenly collapsed, eliciting a gasp from the gathered crowd. But then he performed a neat somersault with a spry flair - eliciting the crowd's applause -- foreshadowing his own mischievous, cunning and secretive nature. |
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Cabaret (1972) The Emcee The film opened on a twisted, mirrored surface as a drum-roll began. When the cymbals crashed, the Emcee (Joel Grey) popped into the frame from below -- a deathly-pale, pasty-white angular face, with ruby-red lipsticked lips, and a demonic, dangerously-mischievous grin formed on his face. He greeted the patrons of the Kit Kat Club (and the movie audience) with the song Wilkommen - in German, English and French: "Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!" The Emcee introduced himself as the host, and told them that while life was dreary and troublesome, there were no problems in the Cabaret as he revealed the all-girl band:
He then introduced the audience to the Cabaret Girls by name (one of whom was a man in drag), cracking a dirty joke:
He then warned that every hot night, they had to battle to keep the Girls from taking all of their clothes off, before gleefully confiding:
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Greatest Movie Entrances of All-Time
(chronological, by film title)
Introduction | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10
