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 46

T (continued)
True Grit (1969)	The image of fat, US Marshal "Rooster" Cogburn (Oscar-winning John Wayne) with a patch over one eye, and the memorable scene of his encounter with 'Lucky' Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) - challenging him with his reins in his teeth: "Fill your hand, you son of a bitch" after being called a "one-eyed fat man", in Henry Hathaway's classic modern-day western
True Romance (1993)	The sexy couple: comic shop assistant and Elvis-worshipping Clarence Worley (Christian Slater) and his call girl newlywed wife Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) - and their flight to Los Angeles to sell cocaine stolen from Alabama's pimp and former boyfriend Drexl Spivey (Gary Oldman) after killing him; also the harrowing scene of Virgil (James Gandolfini) beating up Alabama at the Safari Inn and her retaliation with a shotgun; the confrontational face-off 'Sicilian scene' of verbal sparring in which alcoholic ex-security cop Clifford Worley (Dennis Hopper), Clarence's father - after being punched and having his hand slashed open - Clifford insults debonair mobster Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken) about his Sicilian heritage ("Sicilians were spawned by niggers...your ancestors were niggers...you're part eggplant") and Vincenzo's retort ("You're a cantaloupe") and other non-PC epithets - causing laughter and the unloading of a gun into his head; and the final slow-motion shoot-out scene in the Beverly Ambassador Hotel with flying pillow feathers, white powder and bodies, in director Tony Scott's action 'lovers-on-the-run' crime film (with a script by Quentin Tarantino - his first)
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1990, UK)	The scene of cellist Jamie (Alan Rickman) - the ghost of pianist Nina's (Juliet Stevenson) lover, returning to the London apartment of the bereaved - and revealing himself and resuming their relationship, in director Anthony Minghella's romantic fantasy
The Truman Show (1998)	The premise of a person - an insurance adjuster named Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) - adopted by a TV network to film his entire life 24 hours a day without his knowledge ("...an entire human life recorded on an intricate network of hidden cameras...") in a massive town-film set called Seahaven Island (the 2nd man-made object visible from space); the manipulation of the title star Burbank's life ("Cue the sun") by the megalomaniac network owner Christof (Oscar-nominated Ed Harris) (e.g., rain falls only on Truman) - who delivers an opening speech about the world being bored by "fake human emotions" while expounding the virtues of Truman TV; the fake opening credits (Truman Burbank as Himself, Hannah Gill as Meryl, etc.); Truman's catchphrase: "Good morning, and in case I don't see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night!"; the magical moment when Truman realizes the "world" revolves around his actions - stopping traffic with a wave of his hand as Philip Glass' The Anthem from Powaqqatsi plays; Truman's attempt to escape via sailboat and Christof summoning a storm to try to prevent it (nearly drowning Truman); the moment that Truman reaches the edge of the set; and the allegorical scene in which Christof speaks to Truman with the "voice of God" speech ("I am the Creator... of a television show that gives hope and joy to millions of people..."); and the famous exit by Truman from the massive set, rejecting Christof's plea to remain by smiling beatifically to the camera, and sarcastically telling Christof (and the television audience) his catch-phrase, then bowing and exiting the stage door to freedom to Glass' stirring Opening From Mishima; and the final shot of two fat security guards after Truman TV ceases transmission ("Let's see what else is on? Where's the TV Guide?"), in director Peter Weir's existentialist, biting social satire about reality TV
12 Angry Men (1957)	The dramatic debate scenes within a swelteringly-hot New York City jury room among twelve jurors - the sequence of their preliminary vote on the fate of a Puerto Rican boy charged with first degree murder - when rational Juror # 8 (Henry Fonda) is the only one to vote not guilty and Juror # 10 (Ed Begley) mutters: "Boy oh boy, there's always one", the discussion about the switchblades when Juror # 8 plunges a switchblade knife (identical to the murder weapon) into the juror's long table to destroy the basis of the prosecution's case and cast doubt in the jurors' minds, and the angry outbursts toward the film's end by Juror # 3 (Lee J. Cobb) and Juror # 8's questioning of his personal attitudes: "Are you his executioner?", in director Sidney Lumet's excellent courtroom drama
12 Monkeys (1995) (aka Twelve Monkeys)	The key scene in the film - the recurring obsessive nightmarish dream that haunts tortured and delusional Maryland asylum inmate James 'Jim' Cole (Bruce Willis) of himself as a young boy (Joseph Melito) seeing a man in an airport gunned down by police, and then raising his bloody hand up to a grieving blonde woman - a childhood memory whose meaning cannot be understood even though it replays itself endlessly; also the dystopic 1997 snow-covered, plague-ridden New York City, overrun with wild animals (bears, lions, etc.), and Brad Pitt's memorable Oscar-nominated role as insane environmental activist Jeffrey Goines whose radical group "The Army of the 12 Monkeys" may or may not have launched a worldwide plague that killed five billion people and made Earth unlivable; and the scene in which psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) realized Cole was telling the truth, even seeing him in an old World War I photograph - and then fell in love with him; the transcendent scene when "the 12 Monkeys" released all the animals out of the zoo, and the ending in which it was revealed that young Cole's dream-memory was actually him witnessing his own death (with the woman being his future lover Kathryn); also the film's brilliant use of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" during the end credits, in director Terry Gilliam's sci-fi fantasy about time travel and a devastating plague (a remake of Chris Marker's short film La Jetée/The Pier (1962, Fr.))
Twentieth Century (1934)	The blustery, self-parodying performance of John Barrymore as theatre director Oscar Jaffe ("OJ") and his Pygmalion-like transformation of showgirl Mildred Plotka (Carole Lombard) into an accomplished serious actress and stage leading lady newly named Lily Garland by alternating humiliation (at one point, pointedly chalking lines on the set to stress where her marks are) and relentlessly engaging in long rehearsals with encouragement and devotion; their stormy relationship that leads to their breakup and her moving to Hollywood to become a star; Jaffe's repeated line: "I close the iron door on you!"; and the many attempts by Jaffe to get Lily to sign a theatre contract with him while both are riding the Twentieth Century cross-country passenger train, finally succeeding by pretending to be dying of a heart attack, in Howard Hawks' first screwball comedy
25th Hour (2002)	Brooklyn drug dealer Monty Brogan's (Edward Norton) profanity-rich restroom bathroom mirror monologue - a rant against everybody and everything in his environment: ("F--k me? F--k you! F--k you and this whole city and everyone in it. F--k the panhandlers, grubbing for money, and smiling at me behind my back. F--k squeegee men dirtying up the clean windshield of my car. Get a f--king job. F--k the Sikhs and the Pakistanis bombing down the avenues in decrepit cabs, curry steaming out their pores and stinking up my day..."), in director Spike Lee's emotional drama
28 Days Later (2002)	The opening scene in which bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes from a coma and wanders out to find London completely deserted and evacuated, with haunting views of a virus-ravaged landscape; also the many attack scenes: in a church by an infected zombie priest (when a cross doesn't repel the living dead), in a tunnel after getting a flat tire, and by a soldier zombie in the house, in director Danny Boyle's zombie film
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)	The character of Captain Nemo (James Mason) - the war-hating commander of the atomic submarine Nautilus (with its large windows looking out underwater), and the memorable battle with the giant squid, in Disney's and director Richard Fleischer's live-action interpretation of the 1868 Jules Verne fantasy-adventure and sci-fi novel, with Academy Award-winning production design
Twister (1996)	The sight of a cow being hurled through the air in the spectacular computer-generated special-effects within the film about thrill-seeking storm chasers, in director Jan de Bont's blockbuster action disaster film
The Two Jakes (1990)	The scene in which post-war LA private detective J.J. "Jake" Gittes (Jack Nicholson) (specializing in infidelity cases) is startled (he is awakened from sleep when a power blackout ends) when he hears the name of Katherine Mulwray (from a case in his past from the original film Chinatown (1974)) on a tape recording made during a motel tryst in Redondo Beach between unfaithful Kitty Berman (Meg Tilly) and Mark Bodine (John Hackett), in a conversation between the two just before Bodine is killed by Jake's client - and Kitty's jealous husband - the second "Jake" Berman (Harvey Keitel) and the dead man's real estate development business partner at B&B Homes!; also Jake's encounter with emotional, crude and widowed femme fatale Lillian Bodine (Madeleine Stowe) in a pink angora sweater, who frantically protests at first: "Don't make me do it, don't make me do it..." then allows herself to be seduced in order to hear the tape recording: "Oh, you're gonna make me do it, aren't ya? You're gonna make me!", and Jake's tired, bitter response before having sex with her: "Honestly, I'm tryin' to be a gentleman about this. Now just, get down on your knees, stick your ass up in the air, and don't move 'til I tell ya"; also Jake's violent responses to taunting Detective Lt. Loach (Brian Keith) (the son of the man that had tragically killed Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), the mother of Katherine Mulwray and Jake's former lover in the original film) when Jake forces him to perform fellatio on his cocked gun ("Suck it!"), causing Loach to urinate in his pants; also the revelations that Bodine was blackmailing Kitty about her real identity (she was Katherine Mulwray) by forcing her to sign over mineral rights to the land where B&B Homes was building tract homes in a San Fernando Valley subdivision, and the terminal illness (of syphilis and cancer) that Jake Berman was suffering - causing him to blow himself up by lighting a cigarette in the volatile, natural gas-filled environment of the subdivision after a shaky earthquake; and the closing dialogue between Kitty and Gittes as she left his office: "Katherine!... It [the past] never goes away." (Jake's belated answer to her earlier question: "Does it ever go away, the past?")
Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)	The scene in a small Flagstaff, Arizona diner when two road freaks: the Driver (James Taylor, the singer) and the Mechanic (Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys), sit in the foreground and an unidentified teenaged hippie Girl (Laurie Bird) leaves her psychedelic van and gets into the back of their parked '55 Chevy outside in the background - to tag-along with them with no questions asked, and the playing of Kris Kristoffersons' Me and Bobby McGee, and the final image of the film (a drive down another two-lane blacktop) freeze-framing and then burning within the projector - producing a white light, in Monte Hellman's road movie
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)	The introductory imagery of a heavenly alignment (of the sun and moon) to the thrilling bold chords of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra, the opening "Dawn of Man" episode with the man-apes' tableaux scenes and their first confrontation with the mysterious black monolith; the marvelous, seamless transition/edit of a deflected, flying skeleton bone-weapon from an ape-man - in slow-motion - turning into a futuristic, earth-orbiting space satellite; the black, immense quiet and visual, weightless spendor of outer space and the slow docking scene of the Pan-Am space shuttle with the space station to the accompaniment of Johann Strauss' waltz Blue Danube (while the passenger on the shuttle sleeps), the sequence of the viewing (and touching) of the brightly-lit, humming monolith in an excavation pit on the Moon, the presence of the omniscient but faulty HAL 9000 computer (voice of Douglas Rain), the set of the circular habitat of the crew in the spaceship; the great scene of the HAL 9000 computer malevolently eavesdropping by reading the lips of the astronauts as they privately speak to each other in a space pod, astronaut David Bowman's (Keir Dullea) frantic attempts to re-enter the spaceship ("Open the pod bay doors, HAL"), HAL's methodical murder of the hibernating crew members, the slow de-braining and disconnecting of the computer as Bowman removes memory modules while HAL calmly responds ("I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it"), HAL's child-like singing of "Daisy" as his 'mind' deteriorates, the ultimate light-show trip through space ("the Stargate") toward Jupiter and into another dimension, the final enigmatic scene of Bowman aging in a Victorian bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, and the final image of the birth of the ambiguous Star Child, in Stanley Kubrick's influential and awesome, genre-defying sci-fi masterpiece
2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)	Dave Bowman's (Keir Dullea) last words: "My God, it's full of stars!", the rough slingshot around Jupiter, HAL 9000's (voice of Douglas Rain) reactivation, Dr. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) and Dr. Walter Kurnow's (John Lithgow) discussion of ball park hot dogs: ("...Yankee Stadium. September. The hot dogs have been broiling since opening day in April. Now that's a hot dog"), Bowman's ethereal appearances, and his conversation with Floyd about "Something wonderful," Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban) telling HAL 9000 that it must be sacrificed to save the crew (and HAL's quiet, dignified acceptance of his fate and thanks: "I understand now, Dr. Chandra...Thank you for telling me the truth" - and Chandra's response and farewell: "You deserve it...Thank you, HAL") ; and HAL 9000's final conversation with Bowman before Jupiter implodes and the Discovery is destroyed (HAL: "I'm afraid" - Dave: "Don't be. We'll be together"); HAL's final transmission ("ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE"), Floyd's final speech about the second star in the sky and his dreams of interplanetary friendship ("Someday, the children of the new sun will meet the children of the old. I think they will be our friends"), and the final evocative shot of the Monolith in a primordial jungle on Europa as Richard Strauss' Thus Spake Zarasthustra plays, in Peter Hyam's sequel to Kubrick's classic
Two Women (1960, It.) (aka La Ciociara)	Sophia Loren won her only Oscar in the role of Cesira - the widowed and tormented shopkeeper mother of her 13-year-old teeenaged daughter Rosetta (Eleanora Brown) who she vainly tries to protect in war-torn Italy during World War II in the dark war year 1943; in the Italian countryside during the taking of Rome, they decide to take the long trek back on foot, and are almost run over by a column of allied Moroccans in jeeps amid ogling and catcalls; in the film's most horrifying and memorable scene, they are both traumatized and forced to survive during an overnight beating and brutal gang rape by a platoon of retreating Moroccans in a bombed-out church, in writer/director Vittorio De Sica's sub-titled Italian film
U
Umberto D. (1952, It.)	The melodramatic plight of elderly retired pensioner Umberto Domenico Ferrari (Carlo Battisti), whose slashed monthly pension causes his heartless and tyrannical landlady (Lina Gennari) to evict him to rent out his room to prostitutes and their johns; the close-knit, dependent relationship between him and his faithful dog Flike; Umberto's touching relationship with caring young pregnant house-maid Maria (Maria-Pia Casilio) - with the transcendent scene of her morning routine in the kitchen making coffee; and the tearjerking, ambiguous ending in which Umberto, unable to give away his dog, contemplates suicide by stepping in front of a speeding train near a park while holding Flike -- the dog yelps and squirms away before Umberto can step in front of the train, and for the first time runs away in abject fear from his beloved master - Umberto finally coaxes the forgiving Flike back to him by having the dog perform tricks with a pine cone, and plays with the dog in a long shot as the film ends, despite having no place to stay and no income, in Vittorio De Sica's classic Italian New Wave tearjerker
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)	The love triangle between libertine Czech doctor Tomas (Daniel Day-Lewis) (known for his ultra-suave seduction line: "Take off your clothes") and his naive wife Tereza (Juliette Binoche) and bowler-hat wearing free-spirited mistress/painter Sabina (Lena Olin), and the choreographed scene of an uninhibited nude photographic romp between Tereza and Sabina, in Philip Kaufman's erotic adaptation of Czech novelist Milan Kundera's novel
Unfaithfully Yours (1948)	All three fantasy scenarios (to the music of Rossini, Wagner, and Tchaikovsky) of the proposed murder of American wife Daphne (Linda Darnell) while self-assured but jealous orchestra conductor/husband Sir Alfred De Carter (Rex Harrison) conducts a symphony; and the slapstick scene of the disastrous, real murder preparations using his first fantasy plan, especially with a home recording machine; and the final scene of the couple's reconciliation when Alfred at last realizes how deliriously silly he's been - he embraces and kisses his loving wife, who's never been unfaithful, and has no idea that he has been plotting against her - as he tells her: "A thousand poets dreamed a thousand years. Then you were born, my love", in writer/director Preston Sturges' dark and cynical domestic comedy
Unforgiven (1992)	The shooting in the outhouse, followed by the stark scene under a lone tree when widower and retired-reformed bounty hunter William Munny (Clint Eastwood) tells the young Schofield Kid (Jaimz Woolvett): "It's a hell of a thing, killin' a man. You take away all he's got an' all he's ever gonna have....We all have it comin', kid"; and the final scene of retributive justice when Munny finds his tortured and murdered friend Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and seeks unglamorous revenge in the saloon of the frontier town of Big Whiskey against corrupt Sheriff 'Little Bill' Daggett (Oscar-winning Gene Hackman) ("I've killed women and children. I've killed just about everything that walks or crawled at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you Little Bill, for what you did to Ned"), in actor/director Clint Eastwood's Best Picture-winning revisionistic western
The Uninvited (1944)	The scenes of the sudden opening of French windows in a haunted house on the Cornish seacoast, the appearance of the ghostly phantom at the top of the stairs, and the seance, in director Lewis Allen's mysterious and atmospheric 'old dark house' ghost story
Union Pacific (1939)	The scenes of the spectacular train wreck/crash (into a toppling water tower downed by the Indians) during a milestone raid/attack on the moving train - and the exciting follow-up scene of a second train with troops coming to the rescue; and the celebratory scene as the golden spike of the first trans-continental railroad was driven into the last rail in 1869, in director Cecil B. DeMille's action-packed epic western
An Unmarried Woman (1978)	The portrayal of the character of mid-30s wife/mother Erica (Oscar-nominated Jill Clayburgh) who was suddenly dumped by husband Martin (Michael Murphy) for a much younger woman - and her throwing up reaction afterwards into a trash can - accompanied by her obvious confusion, humiliation, and anger towards all men; the scene in which Erica "erased" Martin's memory by removing all of his belongings and piling them into the living room; the scene of her one-night stand with smooth, gold necklace-wearing co-worker and swinger Charlie (Cliff Gorman), and her more reciprocal relationship with handsome artist Saul (Alan Bates) who presented her with a painting - and her final realization that she was in control of her own life as an unmarried and independent woman, in director/writer Paul Mazursky's serious and groundbreaking (but dated) feminist film
The Untouchables (1987)	Treasury agent law enforcer Eliot Ness' (Kevin Costner) vow - to veteran Irish street cop James Malone (Oscar-winning Sean Connery) - to "get" notorious prohibition criminal Al Capone (Robert DeNiro) (who threatened: "I want this guy dead! I want his family dead! I want his house burned to the ground! I want to go there in the middle of the night and piss on his ashes!") and Malone's wizened and repeated question and advice ("What are you prepared to do?" - "You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way, and that's how you get Capone!"); the violent board meeting featuring a raging Capone with a baseball bat; and the climactic shoot-out scene in Chicago's Union Station - an homage or tribute to the Odessa steps sequence in The Battleship Potemkin (1925), in which a baby carriage (with a baby inside) rolls down a long flight of stairs, in director Brian De Palma's epic crime/gangster drama of the Prohibition era
Urban Cowboy (1980)	The authentic western music (by the Charlie Daniels Band, Bob Seger, Boz Scaggs, Bonnie Raitt, Kenny Rogers, and Linda Ronstadt) performed throughout the film; the character of cocky two-step dancer and studly Bud (John Travolta) in Houston's honky-tonk bar/dance hall Gilley's and his first meeting up with cute cowgirl Sissy (Debra Winger) ("You a real cowboy?") - and their first dance together (with a Lone Star beer bottle in his back pocket); the scene in which bull-riding ex-convict Wes (Scott Glenn) swallows and chews up a worm while drinking a bottle of tequila, and the scene of Sissy's sexy, gyrating ride on the mechanical bull to inspire Bud's jealousy, in James Bridges' western romance
The Usual Suspects (1995)	The scene of the police lineup of five tough and savvy criminals (the ones on all the film's posters, in an NYPD line-up hauled in after a Queens, NY truck hijacking), and the film's lengthy scene of limping, weaselly con man Roger "Verbal" Kint's (Oscar-winning Kevin Spacey) questioning by federal customs agent/officer Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri) with Kint's wily tale of the notorious, mysterious, devilish crime lord Keyser Soze's early life and his description of the first time he ever heard of Soze ("The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist...and like that, he's gone. Underground") and the criminal mastermind's coldbloodness with Hungarian rivals followed by his disappearance ("Nobody's ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night"); and the resolution of the identity of the mythic Keyser Soze (Kevin Spacey himself) at the surprising conclusion - when Kint slowly loses his limp while walking away and when Kujan scans the interrogation office's bulletin board, drops his coffee mug (with the logo for Kobayashi Porcelain), and is stunned to realize that most of the names in Kint's fabricated, swindler story (about Kobayashi–Keyser Soze–Dean Keaton) appear on the bulletin board, in director Bryan Singer's twisting, puzzling and complicated film-noirish thriller

---

---

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

---