GREAT MOMENTS and SCENES FROM THE GREATEST FILMS An extensive collection of the most famous, distinguished, unforgettable or memorable images, scenes, sequences or performances, many from the greatest films of all time Part 32

P (continued)
Patton (1970)	The unforgettable opening shot of fierce American General 'Old Blood and Guts' Patton (George C. Scott) in front of an enormous red and white-striped US flag, addressing the troops in a memorable 6-minute pep-talk monologue ("Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country..."), and the scenes of Patton standing in a street and firing his pistol at German planes during an air raid; Patton's battlefield confession: "I love it. God help me, I do love it so. I love it more than my life"); his threat toward Hitler ("And when we get to Berlin I am personally going to shoot that paper hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler"), and the scene of Patton's slapping of a 'cowardly' combat-fatigued soldier, in Franklin J. Schaffner's Best Picture-winning biopic war film
The Pawnbroker (1965)	Quick-cutting flashbacks representing Nazi concentration camp survivor and Harlem pawnbroker Sol Nazerman's (Rod Steiger) memory flashes (including his memory of outstretched hands next to barbed wire having jewelry removed from fingers by the Nazis), Sol's skewering of his hand, and the controversial scene in which a prostitute (Thelma Oliver) bares her breasts for him in exchange for money ("You've got to get me some money - Look!") - it was the first US film to show a woman nude from the waist up with bare breasts that was granted a Production Code seal because the nakedness was integral to the story, in director Sidney Lumet's psychological drama
Pearl Harbor (2001)	The revolutionary, famous (or infamous) special effects shot, dubbed the "bomb-cam", in which a bomb dropped on a ship is followed from its point of view as it is released, falls and explodes on the USS Arizona, in Michael Bay's recreation of the Dec 7, 1941 Japanese attack
Peeping Tom (1960, UK)	The 'voyeuristic' story of shy, reclusive and disturbed young cameraman (and psychopath) Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) who murdered women with his 16mm camera at the time of their deaths with an ingenious mirror device attached so that his screaming, red-headed female victims could watch themselves die; he captures their distorted, fearful faces in a mirror as the knife of the sharpened leg of his camera tripod was plunged into their throats; in the opening credits sequence, Mark watches the filming of the murder of a prostitute; also the scene of the viewing of b/w home movies by female friend Helen Stephens (Anna Massey) of Mark's abused childhood when he was tormented by his professor-father (director Michael Powell himself) and experiments were conducted on him (e.g., his reaction to the lizard dropped on his bed); and Lewis' own suicidal death in the same horrific manner that he often used - as police arrive, in director Michael Powell's highly-disturbing, British psychological horror film about voyeurism - a variation on Psycho (1960)
Pee Wee's Big Adventure (1985)	The quirky Pee Wee Herman (Paul Reubens) character's look (tight gray suit, white shoes, red bow tie, with lipstick, etc.), the cartoon-like toy/contraption-filled environment of Pee Wee's home and the Rube-Goldberg method in which he makes breakfast; the scene of Pee Wee's argument with his neighbor ("I know you are but what am I?"); Pee-Wee's worship of his ridiculously over-gadgeted bicycle (complete with plastic lion's head on the handle-bar); and his famous remark after tumbling when he attempts to perform tricks with it: "I meant to do that!"; his Rebel Without a Cause (1955)-inspired warning to love interest Dottie (Elizabeth Daily): "There's things about me you don't know, Dottie. Things you wouldn't understand. Things you couldn't understand. Things you shouldn't understand...You don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel"; his delighted perusal of Mario's Magic Shop (at one point putting on an oversized ear and yelling, "WHAT? WHAT?"); his anguished realization that his overly-chained red bike has been stolen (and his feverish inquisition of his friends); Pee Wee's search for his bicycle during a tour of America after a sham fortune-telling gypsy named Madam Ruby (Erica Yohn) tells him it's in the Alamo's basement (non-existent, of course); Pee-Wee's helping an escaped con Mickey (Judd Omen) escape the law by pretending to be his wife, and his crashing the car and strolling around in total darkness (cartoonishly, only his eyes are seen); Pee-Wee's startling and hysterical encounter with the ghost of trucker Large Marge (Alice Nunn); Pee-Wee's nightmares about the fate of his bike (eaten by a T-Rex, destroyed by clown surgeons); Pee-Wee proving over the phone that he's in Texas (he shouts "The stars at night are big and bright...", and a crowd sings back: "...deep in the heart of Texas!"); spoiled child actor Kevin Morton (Jason Hervey) growling at his director: "Doesn't it look like I'm ready? I am always ready! I have been ready since first call! I am ready! ROLL!"; the cameo appearance of heavy metal rock group Twisted Sister, Pee-Wee's escape from the Warner Bros. studio lot where his bike was eventually located as a prop for a film - ensnaring Santa Claus, Godzilla, and swinging across a ravine on a bike and yodeling like Tarzan; Pee-Wee's hilariously deep-voiced cameo in a Hollywood movie about his own story ("Paging Mr. Herman, Mr. Herman, you have a telephone call"); and the evocative closing shot as the silhouettes of Pee-Wee and Dottie bicycle sedately in front of the kissing Hollywood versions of themselves, in director Tim Burton's first major feature film
Penny Serenade (1941)	The scene of childless parents Roger Adams (Cary Grant) and his wife Julie (Irene Dunne) bringing home an adopted baby girl - their nervousness about keeping quiet and their exhaustion after getting up all night with it, and later the scene of the aftermath following the death of their six-year-old child Trina (Eva Lee Kuney), in director George Stevens' classic heartbreaker melodrama
Performance (1970, UK)	The shared menage-a-trois bath scene between reclusive ex-rock star Turner (Mick Jagger), Pherber (Anita Pallenberg), and Lucy (Michelle Breton), and the dramatic bullet's-eye zoom shot as gangster Chas Devlin (James Fox) shoots rock star Turner and the fatal bullet tunnels into his brain, in directors Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's avante-garde psychological drama
The Perils of Pauline (1914)	The character of playful heiress Pauline Marvin (Pearl White) always in perilous situations as a 'damsel in distress' - i.e., tied to the railroad tracks on top of a trestle while a speeding train is rapidly approaching, abducted, or caught in a runaway hot-air balloon, in the most famous suspense serial in film history (presented in 20 episodes)
Personal Best (1982)	The physicality of the athletic, well-toned women, their frank dialogue in the locker room and steam room scenes, and the honestly-depicted lesbian relationship between Chris Cahill (Mariel Hemingway) and Tory Skinner (Patrice Donnelly), in director/screenwriter Robert Towne's debut film about two female athletes training for the 1980 Olympics
The Petrified Forest (1936)	The death scene at the finale when idealistic and disillusioned writer/world traveler Alan Squier (Leslie Howard) dies in culturally-starved waitress Gabrielle (Gabby) Maple's (Bette Davis) arms after being shot by ruthless fugitive gangster Duke Mantee (Humphrey Bogart) in a run-down Arizona desert cafe (she recites "...this is the end for which we twain are met"), in director Archie Mayo's romantic crime drama
Peyton Place (1957)	The opening credits and sequence with picture-postcard views of a New England town; the scene of aspiring writer Allison MacKenzie (Diane Varsi) - the teenaged, coming-of-age daughter of blonde and prudish single mother Constance MacKenzie (Oscar-nominated Lana Turner) - delivering her first kiss (in her 'secret place') to nerdy, shy and virginal Norman Page (Russ Tamblyn) on a large boulder on the hillside overlooking town; the scene of tormented, wrong-side-of-the-tracks Selena (Hope Lange) fighting off the advances of her drunken stepfather Lucas Cross (Arthur Kennedy) in their tarpaper shack and views of her straining hands holding onto the bedframe during a rape; the big Labor Day picnic sequence; the scene of Constance's revelation to her shocked daughter Allison that she was born out of wedlock; and the climactic murder courtroom trial of Selena including Dr. Matthew Swain's (Lloyd Nolan) harsh and unapologetic confession-testimony as a witness for the defense ("I assisted her (Selena) in a miscarriage - a miscarriage of Lucas Cross' baby"), in director Mark Robson's soap-operish and sanitized adaptation of Grace Metalious' best-selling scandalous novel about small-town repression, incest, suicide, rape, homosexuality, adultery, abortion, and murder
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)	The image of the phantom (Lon Chaney) - "the man of a thousand faces," with a mask covering his acid-scarred face, his spooky haunting of the Paris Opera House, the scene of the dropping of a giant chandelier on the opera's audience, the Phantom's sudden Red Death appearance among the guests at the two-color Technicolor Bal Masque, and the shocking scene of his unmasking by abducted opera singer Christine Dace (Mary Philbin) who sneaks up behind him and reveals the Phantom's skull-like, disfigured monster face, in director Rupert Julian's gothic costumed horror film
Philadelphia (1993)	The characters of likeable, kind, forgiving, and non-threatening lawyer Andrew Beckett (Best Actor-winning Tom Hanks) who was afflicted with AIDS and became increasingly emaciated as the disease progressed, and his homophobic and judgmental ambulance-chasing lawyer Joe Miller (Denzel Washington) who at first rejects him, and then decides to represent him in a wrongful termination lawsuit against his prestigious ex-law firm (senior partner Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards) yells out: "He brought AIDS into our offices - into our men's room!") after seeing how he was shunned in the New York Public Library (nervous librarian (Tracey Walter): "Sir, wouldn't you be more comfortable in a study room?" "No. Would it make you more comfortable?"); the scene of dying AIDS patient Andrew's powerfully transcendental, impassioned interpretation/translation of a Maria Callas opera aria "La Momma Morta" to Joe while speaking over the music and pulling his IV with him and ending with the words: "I am Love! I am Love!"; also the scene in the beginning of the courtroom case when Joe presents an opening speech: ("Forget everything you've seen on television. There's not going to be any surprise, last minute witnesses..."), his forceful questioning of one of the law firm partners when he asks whether he is homosexual: "Are you a homo? Are you a queer? Are you a faggot? Are you a fruit? Are you gay, sir?", and later when the law firm's defense lawyer Belinda Conine (Mary Steenburgen) after resorting to low-blow tactics -- mutters under her breath her distaste for the fraudulent case: "I hate this case" to her black partner; the hospital scene of Beckett with his long-term male lover Miguel Alvarez (Antonio Banderas) after first bidding farewell to family and friends (Andrew's supportive mother Sarah (Joanne Woodward) whispers: "Goodbye, my angel"), then alone when he turns down the lights, tells Miguel: "Miguel, I'm ready," and then removes his own oxygen mask; and the final scene during the reception held in the Beckett home following the funeral, mourners watched home movies of Andrew's younger days, to the tune of Neil Young's Philadelphia; also the effective use of Bruce Springsteen's tear-jerking Oscar-winning song Streets of Philadelphia, in Hollywood's first major, big-budget feature film about AIDS - a landmark film by Jonathan Demme
The Philadelphia Story (1940)	The opening argument prologue scene (without dialogue) in which ex-husband C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) palms heiress and high society girl Tracy Lord's (Katharine Hepburn) face and pushes her backwards into the doorway of a grand estate and to the floor (out of the frame), after she has broken one of his golf clubs into two pieces; the film's witty dialogue ("The prettiest sight in this fine pretty world is the privileged class enjoying its privileges"); the champagne drinking and moonlight poolside swimming scene between Tracy and tabloid journalist Macaulay "Mike" Connor (Oscar-winning James Stewart); Mike's drunk scene with Dexter; Mike's marriage proposal to Tracy; and the surprise wedding finale and the freeze-framed last image, in director George Cukor's sophisticated romantic comedy based on Philip Barry's Broadway play - a true classic!
The Piano (1993)	The exotic image of mute, stubborn, pale-skinned 19th century Scottish woman Ada McGrath (Oscar-winning Holly Hunter) playing her beloved piano on a New Zealand beach (brought there for an arranged marriage with farmer Alisdair Stewart (Sam Neill)) as her daughter Fiona (Anna Paquin) dances and tattooed estate-manager George Baines (Harvey Keitel) watches; and later erotic, intimate scenes of piano lessons (and bargained love-making) in Baines' house after he has bought the piano; and the climactic scene in which the piano plunges into the sea and the drowning Ada - her leg ensnared by the piano's rope, decides against suicide (while envisioning her own death) and chooses to live, in Jane Campion's haunting drama
Pickup on South Street (1953)	The remarkable characterization of ex-con pick-pocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) - and the opening scene on a crowded subway when the flirtatious McCoy steals/fingers (symbolically filmed like a violating rape) from the contents of the purse of prostitute Candy (Jean Peters) - inadvertently obtaining stolen US microfilm to be smuggled out of the country by Communist spies; and the sweaty, rough and tumble love relationship that ultimately develops between the two at his waterfront shack; McCoy's retort to cops when questioned: "Are you wavin' the flag at me?"; the thrillingly violent subway chase scene; the character of elderly pickpocket and informant Moe (Oscar-nominated Thelma Ritter) who wants to avoid being buried in Potter's Field; and the remarkable scene in which Candy (wearing a white robe with a hood) is brutally knocked around her apartment by her shady boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley) - breaking lamps, picture frames and tables before being shot and wounded, in Sam Fuller's great hard-boiled crime-noir
Picnic (1955)	The Kansas town's Labor Day picnic sequence, with incredible circling camera work (by James Wong Howe) during the sensual slow "mating" dance of sexy drifter Hal Carter (William Holden) and Madge Owens (Kim Novak) to "Moonglow" under colorful Japanese lanterns on a boat dock landing at night; the scene of aging schoolteacher Rosemary (Rosalind Russell) on the porch pathetically on her knees begging an overwhelmed Howard (Oscar-nominated Arthur O'Connell): "Please marry me, Howard"; and the final scene of Carter kissing Madge goodbye as he professed his love ("Listen, baby. You're the only real thing I ever wanted. Ever! You're mine. I've gotta claim what's mine or I'll be nothin' as long as I live...You love me, you know it, you love me, you love me") and then jumped onto a passing freight train - and the amazing helicopter shot of Madge's bus following Hal's freight train, both going in the same direction at the same speed, in Joshua Logan's widescreen version of William Inge's Pulitzer Prize-winning play
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)	The image of young schoolgirls in their prim and constrictive white dresses and stockings - on Valentine's Day in the year 1900 during the Victorian-Edwardian-era in Australia - preparing for an ill-fated journey with strict headmistress Mrs. Appleyard (Rachel Roberts) to Hanging Rock for a picnic, and the exploration of four girls (including pretty and popular blonde Miranda (Anne Lambert)) among the outcroppings and phallic-shaped forbidden rock crevices as they strip away their layers of clothing before mysteriously disappearing; and the scream of lagging-behind Edith (Christine Schuler) when she witnesses something at the moment of the three other girls' disappearance; and after the final concluding narration - the slow-motion return to the picnic scene with Miranda waving goodbye and the freeze-frame of her turning her head away from the camera - and the film's final fade-0ut, in Peter Weir's mystical, intriguing, and bewildering film about sexual repression
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)	The sudden and shocking final view of the hideously-aged painted portrait of Dorian Gray (Hurd Hatfield) (occasionally shown in Technicolor) showing the ravages of sin and withered aging (while he remained young, vain and handsome); in the last scene when Dorian stabs the heart of his own image in the picture to release his awful visage, he collapses to the floor and takes on the hideous and deformed characteristics of the painting as the painting reverts back to its original (while a swinging lamp cast ominous shadows), in writer-director Albert Lewin's black and white occult-horror fantasy drama based upon Oscar Wilde's story about a man's soul and its evil destiny
Pillow Talk (1959)	The many shared party-line phone scenes, filmed with vertical and other split-screens, between bachelor playboyish neighbor Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) (who pretends to be drawling Texan Rex Stetson to hide his real identity) and virginal interior designer Jan Morrow (Oscar-nominated Doris Day) - especially the famed bathtub scene implying that they were playing footsie with each other, in this fluffy 50's 'clean' sex comedy from director Michael Gordon (the first of three successful Day-Hudson romantic comedies)
Pink Flamingos (1972)	The scatological, disgusting gross-out scene of overweight transvestite Divine/Babs Johnson (Divine or Harris Glenn Milstead) eating real fresh dog feces in a competition to become the 'World's Filthiest Person' at the film's conclusion; and the other characters in Babs' trailer including her delinquent son Crackers (Danny Mills), her traveling companion Cotton (Mary Vivian Pearce), and her half-dressed, mentally-ill corpulent mother Edie (Edith Massey) who sits in a playpen and eats hard-boiled eggs; the shocking scene of the killing of a chicken during copulation, the over-the-top birthday party scene featuring bizarre sex acts (including a singing anal sphincter) and the killing and cannibalistic eating of a quartet of policemen (reminiscient of Night of the Living Dead (1968)); also, Babs' stunning "filth politics" speech to TV reporters: "Blood does more than turn me on, Mr. Vader. It makes me come. And more than the sight of it, I love the taste of it. The taste of hot, freshly killed blood...Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat s--t! Filth is my politics! Filth is my life!" before executing Raymond (David Lochary) and Connie (Mink Stole) Marble in front of the press, in director John Waters' ultimate trashy/cult film ("An Exercise in Poor Taste") and homage to the Manson family
Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982)	This musical masterpiece - is a remarkable descent into madness through a series of rambling music video segments by a burned-out rock singer named Pink (Bob Geldorf) in a Los Angeles hotel room; memorable scenes included "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2" with children being turned into faceless, conforming zombies on an assembly line and being fed into an approaching meat-grinder, and the animated and nightmarish "Goodbye Blue Sky" in which a dove morphed into a monstrous bird of prey -- a fighter plane bomber over London; it also contained memorable adult-themed animated sequences by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe (including symbolic, sexually-explicit, botanical Freudian animation that presented a misogynistic woman-as-destroyer/devourer motif) - in the passionate "flowers" scene before the rock song "Empty Spaces", two flowers, one shaped like a male organ and the other like a female organ -- morphed into a couple having intercourse and then engaged in a bloody fight when the female flower revealed sharp teeth and devoured the male; there was also a giant creature named Judge Arse that appeared to be talking out of its anus, in Alan Parker's re-imagining of the Pink Floyd album
The Pink Panther (1964)	The introductory Pink Panther feline cartoon (debuting the famous animated cat with his funny antics) accompanied by Henry Mancini's classic jazzy-bluesy music; the opening scene in which a flaw in a large pink diamond is dubbed "The Pink Panther" by a Sultan; the character of bumbling, heavy French-accented Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Peter Sellers) and the film's twisting plot regarding The Phantom jewel thief Sir Charles Lytton (David Niven) and Clouseau's unfaithful wife Simone (Capucine) conspiring behind Clouseau's back to steal the Pink Panther from its owner - the adult Princess Dala (Claudia Cardinale); the many hysterical slapstick scenes, including the first one in which Clouseau spins a globe, looks out the window, and confidently states: "We must find that woman," places his hand back on the globe - and it immediately throws him to the floor; also the scene of his playing an expensive violin in bed after numerous attempts to bed Simone -- and afterwards stepping on it after getting sleeping pills for her: he sighs: "It's no matter. When you've seen one Stradivarius, you've seen them all"; the classic hide-and-seek scene in which Simone has to divert Clouseau's attention from the hidden Lytton and his nephew George (Robert Wagner); also the scene in which the bumbling detective wears a suit of armor at a fantasy-dress costume party and chastises the sergeant dressed in the zebra costume: "How dare you drink on duty! One more outburst like that and I'll have your stripes!", and his attempting to play pool with an upturned cue; also the scene in which Clouseau becomes a national hero when he's believed to be The Phantom -- and he delightfully takes credit!, in Blake Edwards' caper comedy - the first film that introduced the long-running comedy series

---

---

Created in 1996-2008 © by Tim Dirks. All rights reserved.

---