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Roxanne (1987)
In director Fred Schepisi's modern romantic comedy
- a revisionist updating of Edmond Rostand's late 19th century play Cyrano
de Bergerac about a 17th century soldier-duellist and dramatist
with a giant nose - with humorist Steve Martin's hopelessly-romantic,
Pinocchio-faced character involved in a romantic triangle:
- the introductory early morning sequence
of small-town (Nelson), eccentric, and fearless Washington State
fire chief Charlie C. D. Bales (Steve Martin) being ridiculed and
insulted by "two coked-up hopheads" for his abnormally
large nose as he walked down
a town sidewalk ("Quite a hood ornament you got there, pal");
when the two drunks: Drunk # 1 and # 2 (Kevin Nealon and Ritch
Shydner) began to cause trouble and called out: "3D comin'
at ya," he cleverly
warned them: "I really admire your shoes....I love your shoes....And
I was just thinking that as much as I really admire your shoes,
and as much as I'd love to have a pair just like them, I really
wouldn't want to be IN your shoes at this particular time and place";
when they came at him with ski poles, he fearlessly retaliated
and vanquished the pair with martial-arts swipes and flourishes
from his tennis racket while keeping tennis score: "Fifteen
love, thirty love, forty love, are we having fun yet? Service,
Game, let's play again sometime" -
and then proceeded on
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Two Bullying Drunks in Film's Opening
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Vanquishing Them with a Tennis Racquet
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- he walked into town and returned
the tennis racket to its owner - his best friend and god-sister
Dixie (Shelley Duvall) who owned the town's cafe/diner; when she
asked: "What's this stuff on it? Vitalis?", he non-chalantly replied:
"Oh no, it's blood"
- as he left the cafe, he put a coin in a newspaper
box on the sidewalk and pulled out the morning paper - after an
immediate double-take and scream, he turned back to the box, put
in another coin, and returned the paper to the stack
- at the local firehouse where he was the police chief,
CD put out a minor fire in a barrel on the ground floor after exclaiming:
"God dammit, we're supposed to put them out"; then he spoke to
his negligent fire-fighting team on the upper floor: "I have a
dream. It's not a big dream, it's just a little dream. My dream
- and I hope you don't find this too crazy, is that I would like
the people of this community to feel that if, God forbid there
were a fire, calling the fire department would actually be a wise
thing to do. You can't have people as their houses are burning
down, say: 'Whatever you do, don't call the fire department.' That
would be bad"
- at an outside side entrance to the fire station,
CD came to the aid of a distressed blonde female who had just locked
herself out of her rented house for the summer, when she went to
retrieve her cat Grover; she revealed she was nude while hiding
behind a bush: ("I
don't have any clothes on");
when he asked if she wanted a coat, the female responded with an "ironic"
comment that she didn't need a coat: "No, I really like to stand naked
in this bush in the freezing cold"; she became exasperated by his non-response
and asked a second time for a coat as they walked to her nearby house;
he replied: "I thought you said you didn't want a coat" - he added
that he didn't understand her irony: "Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no.
We don't get that here. See, people ski topless here while smoking
dope so irony is not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony
here since about '83 when I was the only practitioner of it. And I
stopped, because I was tired of being stared at"; he also quipped:
("I noticed you don't have any tattoos. I think that's a wise choice.
I don't think Jackie Onassis would have gone as far if she'd had an
anchor on her arm")
- at the house, he opened his toolbox for the "perfect
tool" - a single MasterCard credit card that he
unsuccessfully used to pick the door lock ("This lock does not
accept Master Charge"); he was forced to effortlessly and acrobatically
clamber up to the roof (with a balancing act along a porch railing)
to gain entry through an open loft window; afterwards, he invited
himself inside and without asking permission began to prepare a
shared meal for them in the kitchen of "some cheese
and some vegetables au
naturel"; she embarrassingly asked: "Maybe you'd
like some wine with your nose? -- Cheese!?"; when offered
a glass of wine, he struggled to drink from the narrow-mouthed
glass, and eventually sucked it up through his nose ("Cheers!
Party trick!"); she introduced
herself as Roxanne
Kowalski (Daryl Hannah), a beautiful and extremely smart astronomy
graduate student who was secretly studying comets
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Preparing a Meal in Roxanne's House
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Struggling to Drink From a Narrow Wine Glass
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Roxanne Marveling at His Nose
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- at the town's local bar 279, Roxanne was noticed
by many males, including newly-arrived handsome and hunky "pro" firefighter
Chris McConnell (Rick Rossovich); Roxanne showed some interest
in the painfully-shy fireman with limited intelligence from
afar; when
approached by a second fireman named Chuck (John Kapelos) and invited to go hot-tubbing, she cleverly responded
to the "maestro's" come-on: "Well,
if I do change my mind, you'll know because my breasts will
be heaving and moist with perspiration"; she told Sandy
(Shandra Bari), the bartender: "I just want to meet someone
with half a brain"
- another night at the bar brought the film's
classic scene of "20 Nose
Insults" - a marvelous verbal retort/monologue comeback
scene in a crowded bar-room in which long-nosed, witty, modern-day
love-lorn Cyrano de Bergerac, CD Bales challenged a boorish,
obnoxious, and husky drunk bully named Jim (Thom Curley) who
had called him "Big-Nose";
as he was cheered on, CD suggested twenty (actually 25!) better,
more imaginative nasal insults for his own oversized nose:
("Obvious:
Excuse me, is that your nose, or did a bus park on your face;
Meteorological: Everybody take cover, she's going to blow!;
Fashionable: You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if
you wore something larger, like Wyoming; Personal: Well, here
we are, just the three of us; Punctual: All right, Dellman,
your nose was on time, but you were fifteen minutes late; Envious:
Ooh, I wish I were you. Gosh, to be able to smell your own
ear; Naughty: Pardon me, sir, some of the ladies have asked
if you wouldn't mind putting that thing away; Philosophical:
You know, it's not the size of a nose that's important, it's
what's in it that matters; Humorous: laugh and the world laughs
with you; Sneeze, and it's goodbye, Seattle! Commercial: Hi,
I'm Earl Scheib, and I can paint that nose for $39.95! Polite:
uh, would you mind not bobbing your head? The, uh, orchestra
keeps changing tempo; Melodic: Everybody. He's got... (everyone
singing) the whole world in his nose; Sympathetic:
Ooh, what happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God?;
Complimentary: You must love the little birdies to
give them this to perch on; Scientific: Say, does that thing
there influence the tides?; Obscure: Whoa, I'd hate to see
the grindstone!... Inquiry: When you stop and smell the flowers,
are they afraid?; French: Zee pigs have refused to find any
more truffles until you leave! Pornographic: Finally, a man
who can satisfy two women at once!... Religious: the Lord giveth
- and He just kept on giving, didn't He?; Disgusting: Say,
who mows your nose hair?; Paranoid: keep that guy away from
my cocaine!; Aromatic: it must wonderful to wake up in the
morning and smell the coffee - in Brazil; Appreciative: Oooh,
how original! Most people just have their teeth capped");
he ended with an insult for the bully himself: "Dirty:
your name wouldn't be Dick, would it?"; and then
added: "You flat-faced, flat-nosed, flat-head!";
he deflected a punch, then knocked him out (with a delayed
response) to the floor and asked: "Has he fallen yet?"
"25 Nose Insults" for Bully in Bar
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Jim - the Bully
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In the Audience: Roxanne with Dixie (Shelley Duvall)
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CD's Retorts
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- during lunch at the diner,
CD admitted to Dixie that he was homely, and didn’t
expect anybody to ever fall in love with him because of his nose: "Sometimes
I take a walk at night and I see couples walking, holding hands
and I look at them and I think: 'Why not me?'
Then I catch my shadow on the wall"; Sandy came over to their table
- and told CD that Roxanne was in love with
him - but didn't know it herself: ("And I think she's fallen in
love, but she doesn't know it yet")
- although told not to stare at or mention the
Fire Chief's nose multiple times, when Chris met him for the
first time in the pool room area of the fire station, he was
amazed by the sight of his gigantic nose; CD used it to hypnotize
Chris: "It's hypnotic, isn't not?" - Chris responded: "It's
huge! It's enormous, it's gigantic. And they said it was big,
but I didn't expect it to be BIG"; the onlooking firemen
fled the scene, fearing CD's reprisal
- to the tune of Strauss' waltz, the clownish volunteer
fire brigade was humorously drilled and practiced with high-velocity
fire hoses by beefy "pro" Chris and CD; the men were instructed
to move in concert to the music as they maneuvered the hose together
("The secret to moving a hose is in the rhythm")
- during a scene of double-talk, CD interpreted Roxanne's
feelings of love (for a man she should "get to know better,"
someone who liked her too who was "interesting, different, intelligent,
handsome") as referring to himself, when she was really speaking
about Chris; he was taken aback and realized his error when she
revealed: "I've only seen him a few times. We've never even spoken.
We just exchanged a couple of goofy looks....He works for you.
His name's Chris McConnell"
- the scene of CD's visit to his cosmetic surgeon
(Brian George) where he demanded an excisement of his nose ("rhinoplasty"):
"This time I want you to do it, Dave. I want you to cut the thing
off! I am tired of having a magnificent, fabulous, interesting
nose. I want a cute, little pert, little petite, little button
nose. Give me the American beauty, Dave....Get the knife, cut me
Dave, cut it!"; but the medical physical refused: "I can't. Allergies
to anesthetics are very, very dangerous; you know that; you've
had problems before"; CD added: "I want to look like Diana Ross";
the surgeon tried to convince CD of the reason for his nose's existence:
"Have you ever thought that you were born with this nose for a
reason?"; CD responded: "Oh yeah, like opening Coke bottles"; in
the end, CD settled for looking through nose cards one more time,
to fantasize in a mirror what it would be like to have a smaller
nose; he pretended he was suavely speaking to a female: "Hey there,
darling, I haven't seen you in a while"
- while speaking to Chris about his fear of Roxanne's
intelligence, Chris became emboldened: "What am
I afraid of her for? She's no rocket scientist", but CD informed
him: "Well,
actually, she is a rocket scientist"; Chris decided to compose a letter
to her
- CD's visit to a cosmetics store where he deceptively
told the clerk (Maureen Murphy) about a third-person female who
needed help about an extra-large feature: "She has this feature
that she would like to de-emphasize" - he was instructed on how
to apply eye shadow: "She would just shade the area of the feature
to make it look - it would appear to be more shadows and less actual
acreage - I mean area"
- Chris'
first letter to Roxanne was elementary and unromantic, but took
him all afternoon to compose: "Dear
Roxanne, how's it going? Want to have a drink sometime? If you
do, check this box"; Chris requested that CD ghost-write a
letter for him to request a date - while imagining what he felt
about her
- during Chris' arranged date with Roxanne, as CD
hid in a van and watched through binoculars,
CD vicariously wooed Roxanne on an outdoor porch by communicating
with his normally tongue-tied, vacuous romantic rival Chris through
an ear-piece (conspicuously hidden by a hunter's cap) to help him
know exactly what to say; Chris began with flowery words: "Oh
yes, it is an exquisite evening. Filled with mysterious portents.
Magic and romance," but
then became nervous when Roxanne asked: "Why are you wearing
that hat?"; CD fed him an excuse: "Because tonight, I
am a hunter. Hunting for words"; Chris called her not "defenseless" prey
like a rabbit, but a "lioness"; he continued: "Alert
and sensitive to every mis-step....Therefore, I must move silently,
moving in toward you....My hand out reaching to..." - but
then the ploy failed when the radio transmission picked up a police
band, and he blurted out: "Car 3! Car 3! Proceed to the 279...";
he recovered slightly, adding: "Confirm my feelings...because
there is a heart here that wants yours to know that there's a possible
502 on Main. Proceed to Main, confirm..."; she complimented him
on his letter that earlier she had said was: "Strange and intelligent
.and sexual": ("Where'd you learn to write like that?")
- but he only stammered: "The usual places"; when forced
to use his own words instead of Barry Manilow song lyrics ("Why
do birds suddenly appear every time you're near?"), he blurted
out: "You-you
have a great body. Your knockers, your - no, not your knockers,
your breasts, your breasts are like, uh, melons, not melons,
like, uh pillows. Can I- can I fluff your pillows? Uh, maybe?...June
'85?...Weren't you Playmate of the Month - June '85?" -
she fled into her house
- to recover from the embarrassing incident, CD proposed
that Chris romanticize Roxanne from outside her house (similar
to the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet), while he hid
in the bushes to suggest in whispers (and charade-like gestures)
what to say; Chris apologized for his rude behavior: "I was an
idiot, Roxanne...I was a stupid, bumbling...stupid-ass"; when cued
to say he was afraid of "words," he mistakenly told her: "Because
I was afraid of worms!"; exasperated with Chris, CD took over,
wore Chris' jacket, and impersonated him; using flowery words,
he impressed Roxanne but she was suspicious ("Your voice sounds
different") and wanted to see him, but CD declined: "Only my voice,
you don't need to see me, just, just listen to me" - he capped
off his words with: "I am in orbit around you, I am suspended weightless
over you like, like the blue man in the Chagall, just hovering,
hanging over you in a delirious kiss"; he hinted at his identity:
"I am and I will always be the
one who loved you without limits...This is my whole life right
now. Standing here talking to you like this. Saying things I've
wanted to say, but couldn't...because I was afraid of having you
laugh at me"; Chris encouraged CD to seduce her by having her admit
she had fantasized about him in bed: "Lying back into your bed
with me...You and I would be connected by a tunnel of light" -
and she agreed to have sex with a simple one-word assent: "Yes!";
Chris rushed into the house
- on his way home in a very creepy sequence, CD
fell out of a tree in front of a group of four elderly ladies to
describe his recent alien abduction:
"They brought me home!...I was walking along, a spacecraft landed
right in front of me...You never saw so many lights! It was like
Broadway! Then this door opened. A creature came out, had big suckers
on his palms! He walked like this. (he demonstrated) Then he took
his palms, put 'em right on my face. Took me over to Roxanne's house.
He said they wanted to observe me....That's where they are right
now!...You think I'm nuts, don't you? They wanted to ask me about
older women....Because they wanted to have sex with them....Here!
Right here in Nelson. They wanted to start a colony of supermen who
would have sex with older women because they said, and I quote: 'They
really know what they're doing'"; the ladies forgot about a
Friday night TV episode of Dallas, as Dottie (Jane Campbell)
expressed the group's views: "Oh, girls, girls! Do you actually
believe that there are creatures from outer space who want to have
sex with older women? Let's go and check it out!"
- during a one-week absence by Roxanne, Chris had
hooked up with Sandy, the bartender, who was more compatible with
him, while CD continued to write many love letters to Roxanne
without Chris' knowledge (3 each day for six days to
her hotel); during Roxanne's trip, Dixie bluntly advised CD to
tell Roxanne of his love for her ("Tell Roxanne that you love her");
CD admitted he had metaphorically made love to her already - through
his words - "it was sort of me...It just wasn't the actual me who
did, uh, the, uh honors"
- when
Roxanne returned, in her bedroom,
she told Chris that she wanted to know his "real" self after so many
wonderful love letters: "The one I spoke to at the window," but he
couldn't meet her expectations; he turned nauseous and fled from
her; she was not aware that Chris was on the verge
of leaving town with Sandy, who had taken a new more lucrative job
as a cocktail waitress in Tahoe, and was too cowardly to tell her
in person; before leaving town, he wrote her a 'Dear John' letter
- in a confrontational sequence with CD, Roxanne
now knew (through Dixie) that the love letters from Chris had been
deceptively written by him - in different handwriting; and he had
been Chris' voice the whole time: "It was your voice that night under
the balcony. Chris did not write those letters, you did. All this
time, right there in front of me, and I couldn't even see you.
You bastard! How could you trick me like that?" - she
expressed her fierce anger at CD by punching him in the nose
- when he claimed she should have realized the trick
sooner, she responded: ("When you're
getting love letters, you don't go around trying to compare the
signature to the handwriting"); he accused her of wanting
to be duped and believe the romantic fantasy of Chris' physical
attractiveness: "You wanna know why? Cause you wanted to believe
it. You wanted it all. All the romance and all the emotion, all
wrapped up in a cute little nose and a cute little ass!";
he was angry that she had so quickly hopped into bed with Chris
- due to his own effective seduction: "You
went to bed with him on your first date....You still went to bed
with him awfully fast! A few frilly words and you're counting ceilling
tiles"; she retaliated by felling that CD was too
dishonest and duplicitous in telling her of his love: ("You
sure have a lousy way of telling someone") - and threw
him off her porch; however, she came out momentarily to ask what
he yelled at her, thinking he had said: "Earn more sessions by
sleeving" - instead of "Ten more seconds and I'm leaving"
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Roxanne Realizing She Had Been Tricked
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CD Angrily Punched in the Face
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CD Had Been Impersonating Chris' Love All Along
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- CD left the porch - and
back in front of the fire-house, he sniffed: "There's a fire somewhere"
- he employed his unique nose to "follow" and discover an unreported
hidden fire in a barn in town ("We got a burner, boys!"); after
the successful fire-fight, the town celebrated ("We beat this fire
by a nose!") and Mayor Deebs (Fred Willard) toasted: "I would rather
be with the people of this town than with the finest people in
the world"
- in the film's happy conclusion, as
CD sat on his rooftop later that night, Roxanne
finally expressed her real love for CD and an appreciation of his
true gifts with a heartfelt, romantic speech: ("When I close
my eyes, I see you again and again. Your
eyes, your face, the way you walk. Your style, your wit and your
nose, Charlie"); she
said she wasn't in love with Chris, but with the person who was the
author of many love letters to her: ("I went inside and I thought
what it was about Chris that attracted me. It wasn't the
way he looked. Well, that's not true, at first it was the way he
looked. But it was how he made me feel. He made me feel romantic,
intelligent, feminine. But it wasn't him doing that to me,
it was you. All these other men, Charlie, they've got flat,
featureless faces. No character, no fire, no nose. Charlie, you have
a big nose. You have a beautiful, great, big, flesh and bone nose.
I love your nose. I love your nose, Charlie.
I love you, Charlie (pause) Well?"); disbelieving at first,
he responded: "Are
you kidding?" and
then slid down his roof and performed a full-body forward flip
to the ground to be next to her
- after a few awkward moments of finding
the right angle and having him tilt his head to the right, she kissed
him; he spoke the film's
last line of dialogue outside his locked front door: "Oh,
it's locked! It's locked! Oh! Oh. Thank God, I have a key";
they entered and kissed again
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Tilted Kiss
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- during
the credits in voice-over, she revealed that she had named the comet
that she was studying "Charlie" (CD's
first name) - but it was after her father: ("By the way, I named
the comet....Comet Charlie...It's my dad's name")
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Introductory Profile and Straight-On View of C.D. Bales
(Steve Martin)
Dixie (Shelley Duvall) in The Cafe Examining Her Bloody Tennis Racket
Putting Out A Blaze in the Fire Station With a "I Have a Dream" Speech
Roxanne (Daryl Hannah) - Nude and Locked Out of Her House - She Summoned
CD for Help at the Fire Station
CD Climbing Onto Roxanne's Roof - With a Balancing Act
Becoming Acquainted
With Dixie and Sandy (the Bartender)
Chris McConnell (Rick Rossovich) - His First Meeting with CD and His
Hypnotic Nose
Montage: Brigade Training to the Tune of Strauss' Waltz
At the Plastic Surgeon's Office - Demanding His Nose Be Removed
Viewing Nose Cards
Speaking to Cosmetologist
Chris' Arranged Date with Roxanne - "Hunting For Words" With Coaching
From CD
"Your breasts are like melons...Can I fluff your pillows?"
Balcony Scene - Roxanne's First Words: "Go away!"
Chris: "I was afraid of worms!"
CD's Impersonation of Chris to Roxanne
CD's Description of His Alien Abduction to Old Ladies
Chris' Flirtations with Bartender Sandy
The Image of CD Letting a Bird Perch on His Nose
Chris Leaving Town with Sandy for Tahoe
Reconciled With Roxanne on His Rooftop: "I love your nose, Charlie! I
love you, Charlie!"
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