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Title Screen
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Movie Title/Year and Scene
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Screenshots
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Dames (1934)
In Ray Enright's extravagant musical romance:
- in the story, aspiring actor and musical producer
Jimmy Higgens (Dick Powell) was trying to promote his new Broadway
show titled Sweet and Hot, starring Barbara Hemingway (Ruby
Keeler), his distant 13th cousin; her mother was fragile,
odd-ball mother Matilda Ounce Hemingway (Zasu Pitts), the cousin
of eccentric multimillionaire
Ezra Ounce (Hugh Herbert) who was in the midst of a campaign against
indecent and "filthy" Broadway shows, including "black
sheep of the family" Jimmy's proposed show
- Barbara and her mother Matilda were to inherit
$10 million from Matilda's cousin Ezra if they maintained strict
and clean morality, according to Ounce's Foundation for the Elevation
of American Morals
- Ounce's portly partner
Horace P. Hemingway (Guy Kibbee) was Barbara's father (Matilda's
husband) and also the "sugar
daddy" of
Jimmy's sex-pot friend and show-girl co-worker Mabel Anderson (Joan
Blondell); Mabel was able to blackmail Horace (for an alleged indiscretion
on a train) and finance Jimmy's show
- the astonishing Busby Berkeley production numbers,
including the clever "I Only Have Eyes For You,"
in which Barbara and her producer Jimmy
fell asleep aboard a subway train as he dreamt
of repeated, subdividing images of her face (chorus girls holding
large Keeler-face masks); he also saw images of dozens of white-gowned
chorus girls standing on a rotating white ferris wheel and on multiple
sets of stairs; the
set ended with the chorus girls (with puzzle pieces strapped on
their backs) coming together and reuniting to form a huge jigsaw
puzzle of Barbara's face
"I Only Have Eyes For You"
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- the title number "Dames"
began with producer Jimmy singing to a group of : "Who writes the
words and music to all the girly shows? No one cares, and no one
knows....What do you go for, go see a show for? Tell the truth,
you go see those beautiful dames. You spend your dough for, bouquets
that grow for all those cute and cunning, young and beautiful dames";
this transitioned to the morning routine of showgirl beauties, with
close-ups of the faces of various 'dames' preparing for and responding
to an 11 o'clock casting call; it led to the camera voyeuristically
following the chorus girls through a single day (including their
sleeping, waking, stretching, bathing, powdering, primping, applying
makeup in front of mirrors, etc.); the aspiring dames entered the
stage door, and then segued into scores of chorus girls in black
tights tap-dancing in geometric patterns; a trick reverse-action
camera made it appear that the tap-dancing chorines
who flung open their legs (with the camera whirring through) were
also seen flying straight up from the floor straight into the camera; the
musical number ended with an overhead kaleidoscope star-formation,
and the camera zooming through a surreal view of a tunnel (a spinning
square with a black hole in the middle, with the girls on the four
sides)
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Jimmy Higgens
(Dick Powell)

End of "Dames" musical number - Jimmy's Face
Crashing Through the Backdrop of Dancing Dames
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The Damned (1962, UK) (aka These
Are the Damned)
In director Joseph Losey's bleak, post-war hybrid of
drama, sci-fi, and horror, based on H.L. Lawrence's novel The
Children of Light, and with the tagline: "Children of Ice
And Darkness! They Are the Lurking Unseen Evil You Dare Not Face Alone!"
[Note: It was similar to the previous film Village of the Damned
(1960, UK), but not related to Luchino Visconti's The Damned
(1969, It.) (La caduta degli dei)]:
- the stunning title credits sequence: an aerial
bird's eye view of waves far below crashing on a remote shore near
a rocky cliff (on the south coast of England), where grotesque bronze
sculptures were set along its edge - one of the disfigured, fragmented
figures (looking like charred remains of humans) was a bust of an
equine face on a wooden platform positioned looking away from the
sea, and another of a prone or fallen human
- in the dramatic opening sequence - there was a montage,
beginning with a distant view of the coastal Southern England resort
of Weymouth, accompanied by an un-named rock band singing Black
Leather Rock:
"Black leather, black leather, rock-rock-rock. Black leather,
black leather, ta-ta-ta. Black leather, black leather, hip-hip-hip.
I got that feeling - black
leather rock!..."; the camera panned downward from the town's
clock tower to reveal a set-up -
Simon Wells (MacDonald Carey), a recently-divorced,
middle-aged American tourist (and insurance executive drop-out)
was on vacation in his Dolce Vita yacht moored in Weymouth;
he was lured to follow sexy 20 year-old local Joan (Shirley Anne
Field), who was being used as bait for a mugging, to steal his wallet
and watch; she was associated with a menacing, leather-clad motorcycle
gang known as the Teddy Boys, led by thuggish King (Oliver Reed)
wearing a checkered-plaid jacket and wielding a knife-tipped umbrella;
King was soon identified as Joan's over-possessive, semi-incestuous,
unstable brother
- both on the run from King and after having sex together,
the defiant Joan and Simon made a cliff-side discovery of a top-secret
military compound attached to an underground bunker with a network
of caves; the property was owned by the sultry, cynical bohemian
sculptress Freya Neilson (Viveca Lindfors) who had an art studio
(or 'birdhouse') on the cliff-side
- Freya's boyfriend Bernard (Alexander Knox), a government
bureaucrat and scientist, was in charge of nine imprisoned children
(all eleven years old) with ice-cold body temperatures and skin;
isolated from the world, the children were the subjects of
experiments; they were being educated by closed-circuit TV,
and monitored by a bank of video cameras
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The Nine Mutant, Radioactive Children in a
Secret Military Compound on a Cliffside
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- the nine parentless, mutant children were named after
the Queen and Kings of England: Victoria, Elizabeth, Anne, Mary,
Richard, Henry, William, George, and Charles; the isolated and
lonely children soon regarded Joan and Simon as their parents
- the sequence of the liberation of the children,
who were dangerously radioactive; they were led
out of the caves by Joan and Simon to discover a small flower -
and to briefly enjoy the sunlight during an aborted escape attempt
- the children's sad round-up by soldiers (in
radiation suits), under Bernard's supervision, who were dragged
back to the bunker; confronting Bernard who stood above him, Simon
yelled out: "I've
seen you before. You're the man that knows all about violence, aren't
ya? You're the man who knows all the answers, aren't ya? Why are
you doing this? What's it all for? What are you trying to make out
of these children? What do you want with us? Answer me. Will you
answer me?"
- the gradual reveal - later explained by Bernard to
Freya, was that the British government was preparing the "nine
precious"
school-children to inherit a post-apocalyptic world (they were all
born as the result of a nuclear accident with their mothers and
exposed to radiation - and therefore resistant to a future and inevitable
nuclear horror and its fallout): "To survive the destruction
that is inevitably coming, we need a new kind of man. An accident
gave us these nine precious children - the only human beings who
have a chance to live in the conditions which must inevitably exist
when the time comes. Every civilized nation is searching, searching
for the key to survival that we have found...My children are the
buried seeds of life. When that time comes, the thing itself will
open up the door, and my children will go out to inherit the Earth"
- Freya was aghast at the imprisonment of the children
and Bernard's ghastly plan: "After
all that man has made and still has to make, is this the extent
of your dream? To set nine ice-cold children free in the ashes of
the universe. I have no choice, I have no choice at all!" -
and she firmly refused to endorse his plan, and returned to her
sculpting
- meanwhile, one boy Henry had begged and received
a ride in King's stolen car to get away, although King knew it would
be fatal to him - he drove the boy away, then ordered him from the
car when overcome by radiation sickness: ("Get out now. I can't
take you anywhere. Go back, Henry...Get out of the car. Look after
yourself...You're poison. Don't you know you're poison? You're killing
me"); however,
two helicopters intercepted them and descended, surrounded the car,
and kidnapped Henry, while King drove off and deliberately (and suicidally)
crashed his car off a bridge
- the chilling conclusion: after exposure to radiation
and lethal contamination from being in contact with the children,
Simon and Joan departed on his yacht (to try to escape to
France) with a mechanical helicopter (like a vulture) trailing them
and hovering above, readied to destroy them after their inevitable
deaths from radiation poisoning; they spoke their final words to each
other before kissing: (Simon: "We can start again, Joan. We
can go back again to the beginning"
Joan: "We can't, Simon. We can't leave the children")
- after Bernard shot and assassinated his mistress
Freya at her cliff-side studio as she sculpted one last time, there
was one final image -- the camera panned along the coastline, overhearing
the distressed screaming and cries of the children ("Help!
Help! Help! Help! Please help us! Someone help us! Someone help
us! Please help us! Help! Help! Please, help us, please. Someone
help us! Please help. Help! Help! Please help us. Someone help
us. Help! Help! Help us!") - a distant view of vacationing beach-goers
at Weymouth meant that the children were unable to be heard
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Title Credits
The Set-Up: Joan (Shirley Anne Field) Followed by American
Tourist Simon Wells (MacDonald Carey)
The Menacing Gang of Teddy Boys Led by King (Oliver Reed)
Simon with Joan
Simon and Joan in a Confrontation With Bernard
Forbidden Car Ride: Mutant Henry with King
Yacht Escape by Lethally-Poisoned Simon and Joan, Trailed
by a Helicopter
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Dances With Wolves (1990)
In star/director Kevin Costner's western Best Picture
winner, his directorial debut film:
- the opening Civil War battle scene in which leg-injured
Union Army Lieut. John Dunbar (Kevin Costner) made an attempted
suicidal charge on horseback with his arms outstretched between
opposing lines of Union and Confederate forces, and helped to
defeat the Rebels - Dunbar lived triumphantly and unintentionally
became a hero for the Union side
- the scene of Dunbar's appearance at his own request
at Fort Hays before mentally-ill and suicidal Major Fambrough
(Maury Chaykin) to seek a transfer, and his
wish to be transferred: ("I've aIways wanted to see the frontier...Before
it's gone");
and the granting of the wish with written permission by the Major:
("Sir
Knight. I am sending you on a knight's errand. You wiII report
to Captain CargiII at the furthermost outpost of the reaIm, Fort
Sedgewick. My personaI seaI wiII assure your safety through many
miIes of wiId and hostiIe country"); after granting Dunbar's
transfer, the Major shot himself in the head (off-screen)
- the scene of Dunbar's first encounter with white
Sioux female Stands With A Fist (Mary McDonnell), the white adopted
daughter of the tribe's medicine man Kicking Bird, who was bloodied
while attempting suicide with a knife because she was in mourning
for her husband: (Dunbar: "You need heIp. You're hurt. Let
me heIp you. You're hurt"); she reacted in panic at his offer
of help
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"Stands With a Fist"
(Mary McDonnell)
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Buffalo Hunt
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Two Socks
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- the buffalo hunting scene
- the scene of Dunbar chasing and frolicking with
a wolf named Two Socks on the open prairie (the wolf had white forepaws);
he received the name 'Dances With Wolves' - the source of the film's
title - for his interactions with the wolf
- the
tearful, downbeat farewell scene of his departure from his adoptive
Sioux tribe with Stands With a Fist during the winter, because of
the threat and danger he posed living with them; from a clifftop,
Wind in His Hair (Rodney A. Grant) shouted out a friendly goodbye:
("Dances With Wolves. l am
Wind ln His Hair. Do you see that l am your friend? Can you see
that you will always be my friend?")
- in the film's conclusion, a lone wolf howled from
a cliff-side before a title scrolled onto the screen: "Thirteen
years later, their homes destroyed, their buffalo gone, the last
band for free Sioux submitted to white authority at Fort Robinson,
Nebraska. The great horse culture of the plains was gone and the
American frontier was soon to pass into history."
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Lt. Dunbar's Heroic Suicidal Charge on Horseback
Lieut. John Dunbar
(Kevin Costner)
The Suicide of Major Fambrough
(Maury Chaykin)
Farewell Scene
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Dangerous Liaisons (1988)
In director Stephen Frears' sexy period costume drama
of 18th century one-upmanship, game-playing, seduction and romantic
intrigue - adapted from the 1782 novel by Choderlos de Laclos, and
remade as Milos Forman's Valmont (1989) and as Roger Kumble's Cruel
Intentions (1999):
- the tea scene between devilish,
rakish, ex-lover Vicomte Sebastien de Valmont (John Malkovich)
and the equally wicked, aristocratic wealthy widow Marquise
Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close) gave a "virtuoso
of deceit" speech
about her ability to maintain a deceptive facade about herself,
when asked the question: "I often wonder how you manage
to invent yourself"; she answered in summary: "...And in the
end, I distilled everything to one wonderfully simple principle: win
or die...If I want a man, I have him. If he wants to tell, he finds
that he can't. That's the whole story"
- the scene of Merteuil requesting revenge against
her ex-lover the Comte de Bastide, by having
the unprincipled Valmont seduce and 'deflower' Bastide's teenaged
bride-to-be virgin Cecile De Volanges (Uma Thurman), a convent
girl, by providing her with sexual lessons every night
- also the bargaining wager by De Merteuil
to corrupt the religiously-virtuous, married Madame De Tourvel
(Michelle Pfeiffer): "Come
back when you've succeeded with Madame de Tourvel....And I
will offer you a reward....But I shall require proof....Written
proof. Not negotiable!" - in exchange, she offered her bed for
a night as a prize
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Cecile De Volanges
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Dumping Madame De Tourvel
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- the deceitful Valmont apathetically, cruelly and
coldly dumped Tourvel after winning her love, with a shocking excuse
repeated numerous times: "At
this moment, for example, I'm quite convinced I'm never going
to see you again... I'm so bored, you see. It's beyond my control....Well,
after all, it's been four months. So, what I said: It's beyond
my control....My
love had great difficulty outlasting your virtue. It's beyond my
control...You are quite right. I have been deceiving you with Emilie,
among others. It's beyond my control...There's a woman. Not Emilie,
another woman. A woman I adore. And I'm afraid she's insisting
that I give you up. It's beyond my control...You are
quite right, I am a liar. And it's like your fidelity, a fact of life.
No more nor less irritating. Certainly beyond my control...Sorry. Beyond
my control. Why don't you take another lover? Whatever you like.
It's beyond my control....Listen, listen to me, you have given me
great pleasure. But I simply cannot bring myself to regret leaving
you. It's the way of the world. Quite beyond my control."
- Valmont's cruel accomplishment of both challenges
in order to win at all costs
(the guilt-ridden Cecile miscarried Valmont's child, and
Tourvel retired in poor and deteriorating health to a convent)
- Valmont's demands of Merteuil after winning the
wager: "But of course, the best thing about it is, I am now
in a position to be able to claim my reward" - but she denied
his claims, calling their arrangement "null
and void" because
Valmont didn't have written proof
- the next scene of the discussion of their
previous love, when she asked Valmont: ("Have you forgotten
what it's like to make a woman happy? And to be made happy yourself?...We
loved each other once, didn't we? I think it was love And you
made me very happy"); Valmont replied: ("And I could
again. We just untied the knot. It was never broken"); she
responded: ("Illusions,
of course, are by their nature sweet") - although he retorted
that he wanted to be with her: ("I have no illusions. I lost
them on my travels. Now, I want to come home. As for this present
infatuation, it won't last but for the moment, it is beyond my
control")
- the outdoor sword duel in the snow between Cecile's
music teacher Le Chevalier Raphael Danceny (Keanu Reeves) and Valmont,
ending with the latter's death; his final words of advice doomed
Merteuil: "Be careful of the Marquise de Merteuil.....in this affair,
we are both her creatures, as I believe her letters to me will
prove. When you have read them, you may decide to circulate them";
and then regretful over his treatment of Madame de Tourvel, Valmont
asked for Danceny to relay his love to her on her death bed: "I
want you to tell her that I cannot explain why I broke with her
as I did. But that since then, my life has been worth nothing...Tell
her, her love was the only real happiness that I have ever known"
- the final images of the disgraced Merteuil at the
opera house - humiliated after her deceptions were revealed in letters
following Valmont's death
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Merteuil's "Virtuoso of Deceit" Speech
Merteuil Requesting Revenge by Having Valmont Seduce Cecile
The Wager Regarding Madame De Tourvel
Duel - Valmont's Death
Merteuil Disgraced
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The
Dark Knight (2008)
In director Christopher Nolan's violence and action-packed
superhero, comic-book film:
- the exciting opening sequence of the mob-owned,
Gotham City bank robbery by clown-faced criminals - with the Joker
(Oscar-winning Heath Ledger) revealing himself with a painted
clown face (with a grinning red scar-smile) when he removed his
mask in front of a bank employee on the floor after killing off
all of his accomplices: ("What do you believe in? Huh, what
do you believe in? I believe whatever doesn't kill you simply
makes you... stranger")
- the Joker's meeting with underworld mob bosses
(Salvatore Maroni (Eric Roberts), The Chechan (Ritchie Coster),
and Gambol (Michael Jai White) an African-American
gang leader), and his demonstration of
a lethal pencil trick, when he slammed a thug's head into the
upright writing utensil: ("How
about a magic trick? I'm gonna make this pencil disappear. Ta-daaaa!
It's gone!")
- the Joker's negotiation with the mob bosses, who
had been emasculated by Batman, that he would offer to "Kill
the Batman" for them, in exchange for half of the bank robbery
money: ("Let's wind the clocks back a year. These cops and
lawyers wouldn't dare cross any of you. I mean, what happened?
Did your balls drop off? Hmm? You see a guy like me....A guy like
me. Look, listen. I know why you choose to have your little group
therapy sessions in broad daylight. I know why you're afraid to
go out at night. The Batman. You see, Batman has shown Gotham
your true colors, unfortunately...It's simple. We, uh, kill the
Batman")
- the scene of Batman (Christian Bale) landing on
the Scarecrow's (Dr. Jonathan Crane, Cillian Murphy) van and flattening
it
- the sight of a semi-trailer doing a somersault
on a NY city street (and the Bat-pod doing its own wall flip) during
a frenetic chase scene
- every scene in which the Joker threatened victims
with his knife and told them how he acquired his own facial scars
from his abusive father -- including his intimidation of
Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) at Bruce Wayne's penthouse during
a fundraiser: ("Well, hello beautiful! You must be Harvey's squeeze!
And you are beautiful. Well, you look nervous. Is it the scars?
You want to know how I got 'em?"); he 'let her go' from the side
of the skyscraper, forcing Batman to swoop down and rescue her
- the scene of the Joker (dressed as a nurse in a
white uniform) blowing up Gotham General Hospital by setting off
various explosions - remotely
- the Joker's two confrontation scenes with Batman:
- in the police interrogation room when he said laughingly: ("I
don't want to kill you. What would I do without you?...You complete
me")
- and while hanging upside down, he also stated his feelings about
the battle for Gotham's soul: ("You truly are incorruptible,
aren't you? Huh? You won't kill me out of some misplaced sense of
self-righteousness. And I won't kill you because you're just too much
fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever...")
- the scene of crazed district attorney Harvey Dent
(aka Two-Face, with a disfigured face) (Aaron Eckhart), now corrupted
and vengeful (and lured to the dark side by the Joker), terrorizing
with a coin toss about everyone's fate - and Batman's rescue by
hurling himself at Dent and tackling him off the side of the building,
where he fell to his death
- Lt. James Gordon's (Gary Oldman) and Batman's realization
about how Batman would purposely take the blame and
Dent would be lauded as a hero, because the citizenry of Gotham
would lose hope if they knew how Dent's heroic goodness had been
brought down by the Joker: ("They must
never know what he did...the Joker cannot win"); Batman explained
how he must sacrifice himself: ("Gotham needs its true hero....You
either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become
the villain. I can do those things because I'm not a hero, not like
Dent. I killed those people. That's what I can be....I'm whatever
Gotham needs me to be")
- the final scenes of Lt. Gordon's eulogy for Harvey
Dent
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Harvey Dent (Two-Face) and His Coin Toss
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Lt. Gordon's Eulogy for Harvey Dent
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- the concluding sequence of Batman's
escape as a hunted fugitive as his Bat-Signal was destroyed by an
axe wielded by Lt. Gordon: (Batman's voice-over: "You'll
hunt me. You'll condemn me. Set the dogs on me. Because that's what
needs to happen. Because sometimes the truth isn't good enough.
Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have
their faith rewarded")
- Lt. Gordon's delivery
of a final voice-over regarding Batman's fate, when he watched Batman
flee and disappear into the darkness, to escape
from a massive police sweep with dogs, on his Bat-pod: ("Because
we have to chase him"), but to rise another day although "he
didn't do anything wrong": ("Because
he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.
So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero.
He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight")
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"What do you believe in?"
The Joker with Mob Bosses Before Pencil Trick
Flattened Car
Chase Scene
Intimidation of Rachel
Bombing of Hospital
Batman's Confrontations with Joker
Batman's Concluding Flight as "A Dark Knight"
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Dark Passage (1947)
In Delmer Daves' dreamy, expressionist noir-thriller,
one of four films made by Bogart with Bacall:
- during the film's first hour of restricted perspective,
the many subjective POV camera angles - from
the viewpoint of wrongly-accused
escaped San Quentin fugitive Vincent Parry (Humphrey Bogart)
- the newspaper photo of Humphrey Bogart's character
Vince Parry (Frank Wilcox) before the surgery - in many headlines,
one of which read: "ESCAPED KILLER IN S.F. - Police Dragnet Spread
Throughout Bay Area For Fugitive Murderer"
- a lonely San Francisco taxi-driver's story to Parry
about taking goldfish for a ride to the Pacific: "You should
see the character I had for a fare yesterday. Picked him up at the
Ferry Building. Standin' on the curb with a big goldfish bowl in
his arm, full of water. Two goldfish. Climbs in the back of the
cab, sits down and puts the goldfish bowl in his lap. Where do you
think he wants to go? To the ocean. Clean from the Ferry Building
to the Pacific Ocean. But he doesn't know that there's seven hills.
Seven steep hills in between. So we start off. Up the first hill,
slippity slop, down the hill, slippity slop. Water all over the
back seat, the goldfish on the floor. He picks 'em up, puts them
back in the bowl. Up we go again, slippity slop, water all over
the -- You never saw such a wet guy in your life when we got to
that ocean. And two tired goldfish. But I like goldfish. I'm gonna
get a couple for the room. Dress it up a little bit, it adds class
to the joint. Makes it a little homey"
- the kaleidoscopic, surreal sequence of Parry's facial
plastic surgery by a clandestine "SPECIALIST" Coley
(Houseley Stevenson)
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Creepy Plastic Surgeon
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With Bandages after Plastic Surgery
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- the scene in an apartment when Parry - with his
face obscured by shadows or bandages after facial
plastic surgery - was hiding out with the supportive assistance of
sympathetic and attractive artist Irene Jansen (Lauren Bacall),
and being fed out of a glass tube (a symbolic umbilical cord)
- the confrontational sequence of evil Madge Rapf
(Agnes Moorehead) with Parry, who tried to force
her to sign a confession (he told her: "I've got to make you
confess it" - for committing two murders for which he had been
framed); as she backed away from him and yelled out: "They'll
believe me, they'll believe me!", she ducked behind a window
curtain - where she crashed through a window and fell to her death
many stories below onto the street, and he looked down at her demise
Demise of Madge Rapf (Agnes Moorehead)
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- the sequence of rebirth 62 minutes into the film
when Irene unwrapped Parry's facial bandages and his face was revealed
in a mirror - and he uttered his first reaction: ("Same eyes.
Same nose. Same hair. Huh! Everything else seems to be in a different
place. I sure look older. That's all right. I'm not. If it's all
right with me, it ought to be all right with you") - and he
was renamed Allan Linnell
- the happy ending phone call between Parry and Irene,
who made plans to separately flee to Paita, Peru - and then after
a time-dissolve (and an end to dialogue), the pair were seen meeting
up and dancing in an oceanside cafe to the song Too
Marvelous for Words, and the film's fade to black
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Fugitive Headlines
Taxi-Driver's Goldfish Story
Irene Jansen
(Lauren Bacall)
Removing Facial Bandages
Phone Call - Plan of Escape to Peru
Happy Ending: Oceanside Cafe Rendezvous
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Dark
Victory (1939)
In director Edmund Goulding's ultimate tearjerker:
- the scene of socialite Judith Traherne's (Bette
Davis) secret discovery in the doctor's office that her prognosis
was negative
- the final tearjerking sequences when dwindling
eyesight informed her that death was near and she sent her husband
Dr. Steele (George Brent) off to a medical conference - and truly
accepted her coming death: ("You know I used to be afraid.
I died a thousand times. When death really comes, it will come
as an old friend, gently and quietly")
- the ending scene in which she planted hyacinth
flowers in the garden with best friend Ann King (Geraldine Fitzgerald)
and comforted her: ("Don't, Ann. I'm happy, really I am.
Now let me see, is there anything else? Oh yes, one more thing.
When Michael runs Challenger in the National, oh, and he'll win
- I'm sure he'll win - have a party and invite all our friends.
Now let me see, silly old Alec, if he's back from Europe, Colonel
Mantle and old Carrie and, oh yes, and don't forget dear old Dr.
Parsons. Give them champagne and be gay. Be very very gay. I must
go in now. Ann, please understand, no one must be here, no one
- I must show him I can do it alone. Perhaps it will help him
over some bad moments to remember it. Ann, be my best friend.
Go now. Please")
Famous Death Scene
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- Judith's greeting of her dogs in the house, before
going up the stairs toward her bedroom for the last time after telling
her maid to let her die in peace: ("Is that you, Martha? I
don't want to be disturbed") - reaching total blindness and
death
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Judith's Prognosis Negative Diagnosis
Judith's Final Goodbyes
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Darling Lili (1970)
In Blake Edwards' musical romantic drama set during wartime
with a WWI "Mata Hari" spy tale - an over-budget, major box-office
flop - signaling with Star! (1968) and Paint Your Wagon (1969) the
end of a boom in musicals in the 1960s, although it was the first attempt
to dispel star Julie Andrews' reputation as squeaky clean; Edwards spoofed
this film's failure with S.O.B. (1981) years later:
- the opening pre-title sequence set - an uninterrupted
lengthy take of the spell-binding performance of the Oscar-nominated
song "Whistling in the Dark" (by Henry Mancini and Johnny
Mercer) by patriotic British musical hall singer/dancer Lili Smith/Schmidt
(Julie Andrews), later revealed as a femme fatale and undercover
German espionage spy - the lyrics: "Often I think this
sad old world is whistling in the dark Just like a child who, late
from school walks bravely home through the park To keep their spirits
soaring and keep the night at bay Neither quite knowing which way
they are going they sing the shadows away. Often I think my poor old
heart has given up for good And then I see a brand new face I glimpse
some new neighborhood So walk me back home my darling tell me dreams
really come true Whistling, Whistling, here in the dark with you..."
- the title credits played over the theatre crowd's rousing,
patriotic rendition of "Pack
Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile" led
by Lili
"Whistling in the Dark" and "Pack Up Your
Troubles..."
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- Lili's assignment from German spymaster Colonel Kurt
von Ruger (Jeremy Kemp) who was posing as Lili's Swiss uncle - to
spy on American pilot/officer Maj. William Larrabee (Rock Hudson)
of the Eagle Squadron (the British Royal Flying Corps), and learn the
Allied side's air defense plans
- the extended champagne/fireplace seduction and awkward
bedroom sequence between Lili and Maj. Larrabee (when she tried to coax
him to reveal military secrets); after a period of prolonged kissing
before the fireplace, Lili made her exhausted lover Larrabee carry
her to bed ("Carry
me!")
- after trying to get into the right position on the bed for love-making,
she flatly told him: "I'm sorry, darling. Really, I am. I just
can't help it. Are you all right?...Oh, come now, you've got to admit
seduction can really be very funny if you stop to think about it";
he objected:
"But you're not supposed to stop to think about it"; she
answered:
"Oh, Bill, that's a terribly naive point of view for a man of
your sophistication and experience"; when they went at it again,
she began laughing and frustrated him, and then apologized: "Sorry.
I really can't help it. If you really wanted me, it shouldn't matter
anyway";
when they kissed again, she stopped him and in an accusatory tone
asked: "You called me darling, you called me your love, and you
called me something else... You called me something else, a name...Suzette!";
he denied it: "The hell I did!" - he claimed that he had
called her "My
pet!"
and that she had misunderstood; she again apologized: "I've been
behaving like an idiot schoolgirl and I'm sorry" but then kept
pressing: "What
about Suzette?... Operation Crepe Suzette" - he snapped back: "That's
not a woman...Operation Crepe Suzette is a military secret...And that's
what it is. It's so important, I can't even tell you. It isn't that
I don't trust you. It's just a matter of national security. I wouldn't
even tell my own mother"; but then exasperated ("The hell
with security!"), he explained: "I want to get this straight
once and for all. You want honesty, you're going to get honesty and
I could get shot for it. I'm gonna give you every little detail of
the biggest military operation since Battle of the Marne..";
he described how an aerial counter-attack against the Germans was
secretly planned and he was ordered "to lead
the attack" - "It was the most concentrated bombing effort
of the war to this day. And the code name for the whole operation
was Crepe Suzette" - unexpectedly, she stormed from the bedroom,
dressed, and as she rushed off into the hallway, he grabbed her to stop
her, when she sarcastically shouted back at him: "I
fly at dawn!"; in the rainstorm outdoors as she stomped off, she
asserted: "I am going back to Paris" - and the two rode off together
in his car
- the subsequent sequence, when Larrabee confronted
Lili in a shower and explained why he had just lied to her: "So
I'm a liar. What would you rather I be, a traitor?...The lives of
hundreds, thousands of men depend upon Operation Crepe Suzette being
kept a secret. So what in the name of hellish vanity makes you think
I'd compromise that in the name of your adolescent, narcissistic ego?...Sure,
I lied to you. I had to. And you know what? I think you're glad you
caught me lying... I think maybe you have to come up with excuses
just to avoid the moment of truth...In a word,
Miss Smith, I think it's just possible you're a virgin!" - she
slapped him, but he grabbed her for a passionate kiss and they made
up; she unexpectedly fell in love with him, urging: "Turn on the
warm water"
- the subsequent confusion over divulged military secrets
known as Operation Crêpe Suzette, after Lili found out that
Crepe Suzette (Gloria Paul) was a real person - Larrabee's stripper
mistress - a rival entertainer; the jealous Lili pointed fingers and
blamed Suzette for being a German agent when she thought she was being
two-timed by Larrabee, and the pilot was arrested in London for espionage
as a spy
- after watching Crepe Suzette on stage doing a bump
and grind strip-tease, Lili's attempt to one-up her, with her own
humorous semi-striptease number at the end of her performance of the
song: "I'll Give You Three Guesses"; afterwards, she told off Colonel
Ruger: "You can take my word for it that Operation Crepe Suzette
has never existed, except in bed"
Lili's (Julie Andrews) Semi-Striptease
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- the action sequence of Major Larrabee's aerial
dogfight battle with the Red Baron ace Baron von Richtofen (Ingo
Mogendorf) to save Lili onboard a train (assailed by German war planes)
as she fled to Switzerland
- the final tacked-on, happy-ending reunion scene in
London (after the armistice) when Major Larrabee reunited with Lili
after one of her on-stage performances; as they kissed, the audience
witnessed their love and sang: "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary" after
the curtain closed in front of them
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The Fireplace/Bedroom Seduction Scene Between Lili and
Larrabee
Colonel von Ruger
(Jeremy Kemp)
Shower Intrusion
Crepe Suzette (Gloria Paul) = the Major's Mistress and
Accused German agent
The Major and Lili Reunited - on Stage
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Das Boot (1981, W. Ger.)
(aka The Boat)
In Wolfgang Petersen's harrowing and nerve-wracking,
claustrophobic thriller, conveyed by a Steadicam moving camera
through the narrow passageways and by tightly-composed shots:
- the tense scene when the alarm on the World War
II German U-boat U-96, commanded by conscience-stricken, embittered,
stoic Captain Henrich Lehmann-Willenbrock (Jurgen Prochnow) was
sounded; orders were shouted ("Get into diving positions!"),
and the sub was forced to dive to a depth of almost 200 meters
- although it was only a practice dive
Sinking, Burning Oil Tanker - With
Survivors
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- the memorable sequence when U-96 torpedoed
a British convoy oil tanker; shortly later after surfacing, the
German sub crew watched the enemy tanker still afloat, as helpless
survivors scrambled over the fiery wreckage, burned, screamed
for help, and drowned - and some of the sailors swam toward them,
while the Captain ordered: "We can't take prisoners. You know that"
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Worried Faces
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Pressure Gauge
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Ecstatic Jubilation When U-Boat Began to Rise
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- the realistic scene of a deep emergency free-fall
dive when the malfunctioning, aging sub was surrounded by British
ships and the crew raced through the narrow tube to their stations
as the sub dove deep - and there were the first indications that
the submerged aging structure was no longer functioning properly
- it was feared that it would start leaking due to the powerful
underwater pressure, signaled by excruciating groans and moans and
rivets popping and blasting like gunshots
- the crew was
able to get the sub's engines running in order to rise from a dangerous
depth of 280 metres just before their oxygen ran out - and the crew's
jubilation that they would live - they surfaced onto the top of the
water and opened the hatch: ("They're
going. I've never heard such sweet music in all my life...They're
running! They won't catch us this time. Not this time!...They haven't
spotted us. They're snoring in their bunks. They're drinking in the
bar. Celebrating our sinking! Not yet, my friends!")
- in the concluding scene back at the German-commanded
port at La Rochelle (on the Atlantic coast of France), the Allied
air raid that killed or wounded most of the U-boat's crew members;
Werner crouched over the dead Captain on the dock, who lived just
long enough to watch as his U-boat sink in the waters near him
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Captain
(Jurgen Prochnow)
Deep-Diving U-Boat
Concluding Allied Air Assault at La Rochelle (France)
dock
The Death of the U-Boat's Captain After
Seeing U-Boat's Sinking, With Lt. Werner (Herbert Grönemeyer) Leaning
Over Him
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David Copperfield (1935,
UK)
In director George Cukor's literary film of Charles
Dickens' novel:
- the introduction of young David Copperfield (Freddie
Bartholomew as a young boy), an orphaned son; he visited his father's
tombstone that was viewed enduring harsh weather conditions
through the seasons; he mused: "Poor father. How Ionely and
dark it must be for him at night, shile we're at home by the fire"
- the scene of David's harsh and cold treatment by
Mr. Edward Murdstone (Basil Rathbone), David's new severe and
brutal stepfather, who punished him for not immediately calculating
a school lesson problem on his slate: ("If I go to a cheesemonger's
shop and buy one hundred double-Gloucester cheeses at four pence-halfpenny
each. And if I sell half of them at six pence-halfpenny, twenty
at five pence, and use the rest myself, do I make a profit or
loss?"); Murdstone stood over him and wielded a whip, as David
cried out: "I can't think! I can't do it!"; Murdstone took David
upstairs and whipped the trembling young boy; when David bit Murstone's
hand in retaliation, he received an even more vicious beating
and was locked in the room afterwards
Corporal Punishment by Murdstone
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- the scene of David's dismissal from
the household of Mr. Murdstone after the death
of his mother Clara (Elizabeth Allen) (the late Mrs. Murdstone) during
childbirth, to venture to London to work ("...You'll earn your own
food and pocket money....Now
remember, you're going to London to work, to work!")
- the sequence of David's introduction
to genial Mr. Wilkins Micawber (W.C. Fields) in London (where he
was to be lodged), who immediately admitted his ever-present problem
with debt: "Now that you are about to share with us the privileges
of our domain, I will make no stranger of you. As man to man,
I will confide in you. That for years, I have been hounded, most
unjustly by my creditors. Short sighted fools, they are"; he described
how he had failed in many professions but was still hopeful: "I
grant you that I have already tried the coal trade, the Haberdashery
trade, And Her Majesty's Marines, and found none of these entirely
suited to my somewhat special talents. But now... I am confidently
expecting something to turn up!"
- the scene of Micawber's denouncement of the power-seeking
Uriah Heep (Roland Young), the clerk of alcoholic, wealthy, white-haired
Mr. Wickfield (Lewis Stone)
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Tombstone

Mr. Murdstone
(Basil Rathbone)

Young David Copperfield (Freddie Bartholomew)

Mr. Micawber (W. C. Fields) with David
Uriah Heep (Roland Young)
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Dawn
of the Dead (1978, It./US)
In George Romero's horror sequel to his Night
of the Living Dead (1968):
- the memorable scenes in which marauding, staggering,
flesh-eating zombies in a deserted suburban Pittsburgh shopping
mall relentlessly engaged in attacks upon the living survivors:
pregnant TV anchorwoman Francine (Gaylen Ross), her boyfriend,
helicopter pilot/TV news-traffic reporter Stephen (David Emge),
and two SWAT cops Roger and Peter (Scott Reiniger and Ken Foree)
- the biting social satire that equated zombies
with consumers (as perky, goofy mall music played, zombies stumbled
around on escalators, etc.)
- the climactic band of about a few dozen bikers in
a motorcycle gang that attacked the mall and the zombies inside,
and when outnumbered by the hungry creatures, their eviscerated
bloody flesh was fought over
Stephen's Death and Re-Animation as a Zombie
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- the chilling zombie attack and death of Stephen:
he was first shot in the arm by fleeing bikers; then he was assaulted
inside a mall elevator and bitten in the leg and neck by the undead,
and began to bleed profusely - hours later when the doors opened,
his reanimated zombie corpse joined the army of undead who now had
infiltrated into every mall store
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Mall Zombies
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A Day
at the Races (1937)
In this Marx Brothers' madcap comedy, in which Groucho
(as vet doctor) posed as a sanitarium doctor - to save the financially-failing
institution (and its pretty owner Judy Standish (Maureen O'Sullivan)):
- the classic "Tootsie-Frootsie"
ice cream scene in which vendor Tony (Chico Marx) sold racing tips
(breeder's guides) to horse doctor Dr. Hugo Hackenbush (Groucho
Marx)
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"Tootsie-Frootsie" Ice Cream Vendor Scene
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Phone-Prank of Whitmore
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- the split-screen phone prank scene in which Hackenbush
played lots of tricks to infuriate Judy's scheming business manager
Whitmore (Leonard Ceeley), including impersonating half-deaf "Colonel
Hawkins" of the Florida Medical Board, in order to prevent
Whitmore from acquiring Dr. Hackenbush's qualifications for the
job at the Standish Sanitarium from the records department
- the famous one-liner during Stuffy's (Harpo Marx)
exam: "Either
he's dead or my watch has stopped!"
- the sequence of mute jockey Stuffy repeatedly
pickpocketing the Sheriff (Robert Middlemass), each time that Tony
bribed the threatening officer with a $5 bill - to keep the scam
going
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"If I hold ya any closer, I'll be in back of
ya"
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Wallpapering Miss "Flo" to the Wall
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- the film's highlight in which blonde floozie Cokey "Flo" (Esther
Muir), hired to cause a scandal with Hackenbush, was romancing him
in his suite during a late night dinner; she engaged in a close
embrace with Hackenbush: Flo: "I
want to be near you. I want you to hold me. Hold me closer! Closer!
Closer", Hackenbush: "If I hold ya any closer, I'll
be in back of ya"; to prevent their romantic affair from going
any further, Stuffy and Tony - posing as wall decorators, wall-papered her to the wall
and hid her under a pile of sofa cushions
- the
two absurd medical examination scenes:- first with Stuffy ("Just put the gown on, not the nurse"),
and then with Mrs. Emily Upjohn (Margaret Dumont), including the
introduction of "Dr. Steinberg" (Sig Rumann) scene who
was there to expose Hackenbush as a quack - with lots of bowing
in the examination room
- during the exam of Mrs. Upjohn, Judy's
fiancee Gil Stewart's (Allan Jones) misfit race horse Hi Hat burst
into a sprinkler-soaked sanitarium and rescued the "Hackenbush
team" of doctors; the trio escaped on Hi-Hat

"Who Dat Man?"
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All God's Chillun Got Rhythm
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- the two musical sequences: (1) Pied-Piper-like Stuffy
led a cavalcade of children through a barn in Gabriel:
("Who
Dat Man?"), and (2) the exuberant song
and jitterbug-dance number through Negro shanty towns, All
God's Chillun Got Rhythm, with the gravity-defying, jitter-bugging
danced by Herbert "Whitey" White's Lindy Hoppers
- the steeplechase Big Race slapstick sequence in
the conclusion
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'Groucho's' Frequent Double-Takes
Dr. Hackenbush (Groucho Marx) with Judy (Maureen O'Sullivan)
"Either he's dead or my watch has stopped!"
"Just put that gown on, not the Nurse"
Bribing and Pickpocketing the Sheriff
Bowing to Dr. Steinberg (Sig Rumann)
Examining Mrs. Upjohn (Margaret Dumont)
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A Day in the Country (1936, Fr.)
(aka Partie de Campagne) (short)
In writer/director Jean Renoir's compelling, short (uncompleted)
romantic comedy-drama based upon a Guy de Maupassant short story,
about a summer-afternoon love affair in 1860 along the banks of the
Seine:
- the sequence of a summer trip to escape the city
with a countryside picnic, taken by the family of middle-class Parisian
shop-owner Monsieur Dufour (André Gabriello),
including his wife Madame Dufour (Jane Marken) and their engaged
daughter, young Henriette Dufour (Sylvia Bataille) - who was happiest
when standing on a swing in motion
- the seduction sequence when persistent and amorous
local worker Henri (Georges Saint-Saens) separated Henriette away
from her family and convinced her to take a boat-ride with him:
("I did so want to go boating...We're just gliding along. It's so quiet
here. I feel it would be a sin to make a noise and break the silence" -
she told him)
- as he rowed along, he urged her to stop along
the banks of the Seine ("Wouldn't you like to get out - to
stretch our legs?"), and at first she was resistant - but then
he convinced her to stop to listen to the birds; as they walked
along, he mentioned that the spot was familiar to him: ("I
often come here; I call it my study") - and then he forced
himself upon her during an extreme close-up of her face kissing
him; he sexually took her (off-screen) followed by a dissolve back
to a view of them lying together
Henriette and Henri Regretful Years Later
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- in the film's epilogue and flash-forward years later,
it was established that Henriette had lovelessly married dim-witted
and boring Anatole (Paul Temps); she met up again with love-sick
Henri at the exact same spot where they had spent a single afternoon
together; filmed with intense emotion via direct and reverse shots
of their two faces, they happily remembered their brief idyllic time together,
their lost love, and regretting what might have been between them
(as tears welled up in Henriette's left eye)
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Young Henriette on Swing
Boat Ride with Henri and Love-Making
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Day of Wrath (1943, Denmark) (aka Vredens
Dag)
In director Carl Dreyer's somber and dark drama about
a religious witch hunt in 17th century Denmark (in the year 1623)
when women were persecuted - a parallel to the political situation
in Nazi-occupied Denmark in 1943 when Jews were targeted, deported
or captured, and executed:
- the main plot: young and sexy Anne Pedersdotter (Lisbeth
Movin) was forced into marriage to much-older, widower-pastor Master
Absalon Pedersson (Thorkild Roose); (Anne's own mother was threatened
with burning at the stake as a witch, and Anne suspected that she
was a witch herself, although her mother was spared by the Master's
intervention: "You knew she was a witch, but kept quiet...You kept
quiet for Anne's sake")
Questioning of Suspected Old Witch Marte
- Anne Listening
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- the ordeal of elderly wife Herlofs
Marte (Anna Svierkier), an herb woman, who was accused of being
a witch by her husband, including Marte's capture, interrogation in
a torture chamber, confession, and eventual execution by burning
at the stake; Anne tried to save Marte,
at her own peril; Marte threatened to reveal that the hypocritical
Absalon had earlier saved Anne's mother, who was also a witch ("She
could call the living and the dead"), because he had an interest in
the young Anne
- the harsh scene of Marte's questioning: "How did
you enter the devil's service?...Where did you first meet the devil?...Was
it beneath the gallows?...You had to trample on the Cross?...He
forbade you to attend Communion?...You had to renounce God and Christ?...You
signed an eternal contract with the devil?" - she admitted to everything,
under duress
- the scene in the rectory hallway near where the interrogation
of accused-witch Marte was taking place, and the complex, dual-purpose
camera movement when Anne was walking forward among the pillars
- the camera both panned away from her and tracked after her (reflecting
her ambivalent feelings of both fear and curiosity)
- before her death, Marte pleaded not to be burned;
she also cursed out at Master Absalon and threatened to denounce Anne as a witch,
as she was hoisted above the fire: "I'll denounce Anne, do you hear?
I'll get even with you. You will regret this. You yourself are going
to the Devil. You hypocrite, you liar! You liar! You liar!"
- Anne was conducting an incestuous affair with
the pastor's handsome young son Martin (Preben Lerdorff Rye); she
told Martin that she never loved her Reverend/Master husband Absalon:
("...I
have never loved him. And he has never loved me...I often think
if he was dead...I only said 'if'"), and she dreamed of the
two of them living together and having a child: "We'll live
by the sea in a little house. I'll awaken with my head on your
shoulder, and wake you with a kiss. We'll lie like that for a long
time. Then, a little Martin will cry from his cradle. I'll take
him up. And as I found life on your breast, he shall find life at
my breast. I shall pass to him all the tenderness you gave me. I'll
sing to him about you and me. Isn't it lovely to think about?"
- the Reverend/Master admitted he took Anne without
her permission, stole her youth and married her: "I have done you
a great wrong. I never asked if you wanted to be mine. I just took
you. I took your best years. A wrong that can never be put right";
boldly, she all but confessed her adultery to him: "I have burned
for somebody I could love. I have dreamt of a child to hold in my
arms. You haven't even given me that. Have I ever wished you dead?
I have wished it hundreds of times. I have wished you dead when
you were with me and when you were away from me. But never as intensely
as since Martin and I...Yes, Martin and I. Now you know. That's
why at this very moment, I wish you dead. Dead!"; as he dramatically
rose up and called out for Martin, he collapsed and died of heart
failure
- during the funeral,
the pastor's strict, mean and domineering mother Merete (Sigrid Neiiendam),
who stood by the casket, denounced Anne as willing her son's death:
"My son lies murdered. And his murderer is sitting there. Life for
life. Blood for blood"; she also accused Anne of being a witch herself,
with power over Martin: "You yourself are in her power. She lured
you with the help of the evil one. She murdered her husband with
the help of the evil one. I denounce her as a witch. Let her deny
it, if she dare"; Martin chose to stand by his grandmother's claims
and not defend Anne
- in the final scene, the resigned Anne did not deny
the charges; sitting next to her husband's open coffin, she confessed
her trust in the devil to ensnare Martin and to murder her husband:
"Absalon. I have..I give witness, I give witness. I - So you got
your revenge after all. Yes, I murdered you with the help of the
evil one. And I have lured your son into my power with the help
of the evil one. Now you know. Now you know. I'm seeing you through
tears, but nobody is coming to wipe them away"
- the film's prologue
(with the shadowy imprint of a cross above a hymnal, and scrolling
down the page of ornate calligraphy): "Day of Wrath. O Day of Mourning.
See fulfill'd the Prophet's Warning. Heav'n and Earth in ashes burning.
Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth, when from Heav'n the Judge descendeth,
on whose sentence all dependeth. Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth,
through earth's sepulchres it ringeth, all before the throne it
bringeth. Death is struck and nature quaking, all creation is awaking,
to its Judge an answer making. Lo! the book exactly worded, wherein
all hath been recorded, thence shall judgement be awarded. While
the wicked are confounded, doom'd to flames of woe unbounded, call
me with thy Saints surrounded. Low, I kneel, with heart submission
see, like ashes, my contrition, help me in my last condition....
(a boys' choir sang the epilogue) Day of Wrath. O, Day of Mourning.
From the Dust of Earth Returning, Man for Judgement Must Prepare
Him. Lord All Pitying, Jesu Blest. Grant Them Thine Eternal Rest!"
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Marte's Burning at Stake
Married Anne in Incestuous Affair with Her Husband's Younger
Son Martin
Anne's Husband - Reverend/Master Before Deadly Heart Attack
Anne Condemned as a Witch by Martin's Grandmother
(Supported
by Martin)
Anne's Confession of Wrong-doing With Ties to the Devil
("The
Evil One")
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The Day The Earth Stood Still
(1951)
In Robert Wise's seminal, big budget science-fiction
film:
- the film's intriguing title sequence of an extra-terrestrial
vessel's approach into the Earth's atmosphere, emphasized by the
electronic sounds of theremin theme music
- the initial flying saucer-spaceship landing on
the Mall in Washington DC in 1951 - causing a panic and troop deployment
- the sequence of the emergence of a humanoid, benevolent,
pacifist, interplanetary alien emissary-visitor named Klaatu (Michael
Rennie), who was seeking peace - he walked
down a ramp, held out his hand, and announced: "We have come to
visit you in peace and with good will" - but when he pulled out
a device or object from inside his spacesuit (later described as
a gift to the US President), an edgy soldier fired his weapon,
and the device was shattered in pieces and seen lying on the ground
next to the wounded Klaatu
- suddenly, through the hatch of the vessel-ship emerged
a silent, killer bodyguard - a giant robot named
(Gort); he descended the ramp from the ship and confronted the military
force; he had the ability, when threatened, to zap (vaporize
or melt) the soldiers' weapons, tanks and giant guns with a lethal,
disintegration, death-ray laser beam heat-ray behind his sliding
visor; the robot, an interstellar guardian - a member of a police force, also
had the power to destroy worlds such as Earth, whose inhabitants
were intent on destruction, aggression, and hostility; however,
his main objective was to warn Earth to establish peace
- the sequence of Klaatu's (now using the name Mr.
Carpenter) tour of Washington DC, led by the son Bobby (Billy Gray)
of young WWII war widow Helen Benson (Patricia Neal), including
their visit to Arlington Cemetery (and the grave of Bobby's father,
who was killed at Anzio) - Klaatu was amazed ("Did all those people
die in wars?"); Klaatu was impressed with the Lincoln Memorial (and
its inscribed Gettysburg Address)
- Klaatu's meeting with Bobby's recommendation for
"the
smartest man in the world" --
the Einstein-like scientist character Dr. Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe),
who conferred with Klaatu, and was told that other alien peoples
threatened to completely eliminate Earth (after its development
of atomic power) if they didn't seek peace and heed his message
- later in the film, Gort demonstrated his power one
day at noon, by shutting down the world's power supply for 30 minutes
(hence, the film's title "The Day the Earth Stood Still")
Gort Menacing Helen Benson Before She Commanded:
"Klaatu barada nikto"
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- the scene of young WWII war widow Helen
Benson (Patricia Neal) menaced outside the spaceship by the shadowy
approach of Gort; to save herself, she delivered a command of three
words - "Klaatu
barada nikto" given to her by Klaatu -
to prevent the menacing Gort looming above her from killing her and
destroying the planet after Klaatu had been shot (and killed)
by troops; afterwards, the robot carried Helen in his arms into the
spaceship
Klaatu's Farewell Address
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- the film's soft-spoken final scene, with revived
extra-terrestrial Klaatu's pro-disarmament address to scientists
and other top leaders - he lectured and warned world
leaders with a final challenge, as robot Gort stood
behind him near the entrance to their spaceship - before they
departed: ("...but
if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will
be reduced to a burned-out cinder. Your choice is simple. Join us
and live in peace or pursue your present course and face obliteration.
We shall be waiting for your answer. The decision rests with you")
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Spaceship Landing in DC - With Troops Surrounding It
Klaatu (Michael Rennie) with Device
Shattered Object
Robot Gort
Gort's Laser Beam Disintegrated Weapons
Dr. Barnhardt
(Sam Jaffe)
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Days
of Heaven (1978)
In director/writer Terrence Malick's moving and beautiful
love-triangle drama set in the WWI-era:
- the breath-taking visual images and cinematography
of Oscar-winning Nestor Almendros
- to the tune of Leo Kottke's
acoustical guitar "Enderlin,"
a steam locomotive carrying migrant workers crossed a high suspension/trestle
scaffold bridge, silhouetted against the partly cloudy blue sky - with the
view of the original threesome of the film sitting atop the train as it journeyed
through Midwest farmlands and America's heartland with dozens of other would-be
harvest hands, including: ex-apple juggler Bill (Richard Gere), Bill's
girlfriend Abby (Brooke Adams) posing as Bill's sister, and Bill's
young sister Linda (Linda Manz) - all traveling from Chicago;
Linda narrated (in voice-over): ("Me and my brother, it just used
to be me and my brother, we used to do things together. We used to have fun.
We used to roam the streets. There was people suffering of pain and hunger.
Some people their tongues were hangin' out of their mouth...In
fact, all three of us been goin' places, lookin' for things, searchin'
for things, goin' on adventures. They told everybody they were
brother and sister. My brother didn't want nobody to know. You
know how people are. You tell 'em somethin' - they start talkin'")
- Linda's voice-over reflections about a fiery apocalypse
that would consume
everything in its path, unless one was judged to be good and saved by God's
mercy in heaven: ("...the whole Earth is goin' up in flame. Flames will
come out of here and there and they'll just rise up. The mountains
are gonna go up in big flames, the water's gonna rise in flames.
There's gonna be creatures runnin' every which way, some of them
burnt, half of their wings burnin'. People are gonna be screamin'
and hollerin' for help. See, the people that have been good -
they're gonna go to heaven and escape all that fire. But if you've
been bad, God don't even hear you. He don't even hear ya talkin'")
- the arrival of horse-pulled wagons across the golden
plains at sunset, bound for a wheat farm on the flat landscape
of the Texas Panhandle - and the sight of an entrance archway amidst
immense fields of golden wheat, and an imposing farm house standing
three stories tall in the distance as a lone fixture - the abode
of
"Farmer" (Sam Shepard)
- the beautiful wheat field sequence at dawn's
light as the priest blessed the harvest ("For a thousand
years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as
a watch in the night. As soon as thou scatters them"), before
tractors and threshers moved in from a hilltop and migrant workers
began to gather the wheat
The Start of the Wheat Harvest
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"Farmer"
(Sam Shepard)
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Priest Blessing Harvest
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Beginning of the Work
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- the devastating scene of the arrival of locusts,
signaling workers into the fields with shovels, branches, noisemakers
and other swatters to scare off the invaders - to kill them, smoke
them out, collect them by the bushel-full, and burn them in a
bonfire, although their deafening sounds and implacable, gnawing
and devouring mandibles had already done damage
- Linda's final voice-over as the film concluded,
when she escaped from a boarding school's dance academy and met up
with a farm friend, to proceed away toward an uncertain future:
"This girl, she didn't know where she was goin' or what she was
gonna do. She didn't have no money on her. Maybe she'd meet up with
a character. I was hopin' things would work out for her. She was
a good friend of mine"
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Migrant Workers' Train
Voice-Over Narrator: Linda (Linda Manz)
Archway Entry to Wheat Farm in the Panhandle

The "Farmer's" Imposing Three-Story House

Two Migrant Workers: Bill (Richard Gere) and his girlfriend Abby (Brooke
Adams) Posing as his Sister
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Days
of Wine and Roses (1962)
In Blake Edwards' devastating cautionary tragedy about
a self-destructive couple due to alcohol:
- the elevator scene of alcoholic, San Francisco
advertising PR executive Joe Clay (Oscar-nominated Jack Lemmon)
making a face behind pretty, Encyclopedia-reading secretary Kirsten
Arnesen (Lee Remick), after she had slapped him in the face, when
he insulted her about her 'special qualifications' for her job:
("What
special qualifications do you feel that you have for a job that
allows you to sit around all day and chat with the boss? I heard
about your job. Maybe answer a few personal letters for him and
accompany him to parties? Hmm? You spend half your working day
reading a book while two typists who get less money than you do
all the work? Hmm? ...I'll tell you what special qualifications
you have. You're pretty. That's what 'special qualifications'
you have. And that old lech loves to have you around to look at
and lean on when he gets drunk, like he did last night. And who
knows what else. That's what 'special qualifications' you have")
- Joe's enticement: ("It's special, for you.
It's chocolate. Go on, try it") of tee-totaling, chocolate-addicted
Kirsten with a chocolate-flavored (with crème de cacao)
Brandy Alexander cocktail at dinner: ("Oh, it's good, it
is")
- when invited to Kirsten's second-floor apartment
("the roach kingdom") for a "home-cooked meal",
Joe's toast to her: ("To
men of principle, wherever they may be")
while spraying roach killer and
threatening the pests: ("Cockroaches. Come out, wherever you
are...You're gonna go to cockroach heaven")
- the abrupt visit of neighbor Dottie (Maxine Stuart)
who complained about the cockroach spraying: ("Oh, well,
now, you ought not to do that. I mean, you get 'em all stirred
up, and what's the good? Now you made a mess. You gotta think
about other people, you know. Well, I mean, look, look, I don't
like to complain, but, I mean, this is ridiculous. They don't
bother anybody. They don't destroy anything. You know they're
there. You leave 'em alone, they leave you alone. You lock up
what you don't want crawled over, and that's that. But all of
a sudden, you start spraying that stuff on the walls, and look
at the mess");
when they ducked away, Kirsten laughed and joked with Joe - with
a warning: "You've
undermined the whole base of metabolism of the building" and
that the cockroaches would track him down: "You'll be a goner!"
- while drinking one night together by the SF Bay,
Kirsten told boozing Joe about a dream she had of being murdered,
and the fact that her father Ellis Arnesen (Charles Bickford)
was very private and uncommunicative during her upbringing; then,
she recited poetic words to him: "They
are not long the days of wine and roses: Out of a misty dream,
our path emerges for a while, then closes within a dream"
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Boozing by SF Bay
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Confession: Marriage Had Become a "Threesome" With
Booze
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"Look at us!...A couple of bums"
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- the scene of Joe's honest assessment to his mutually-boozing
wife Kirsten of how alcoholism had made their marriage relationship
a "threesome" -
after he had looked at his reflection in the Union Square Bar
window: ("And I thought, 'I wonder who that bum is.' And
then I saw it was me. Now, look at me, I'm a bum. Now, look at
me, look at you. You're a bum! Look at you. And look at us. Look
at us, come on! Look at us. (He dragged her to a mirror) See?
A couple of bums. Now, look! You've gotta listen to me. It came
to me all of a sudden. I saw the whole thing. You know why I've
been fired from five jobs in four years, and it's not politics,
like we always say. It's not office politics or jealousy or any
of that stuff. It's booze! It's booze!...We have more than a couple
of drinks, we get drunk! And we stay drunk most of the time")
- the 'bender' scene of a desperate Joe madly tearing
apart his father-in-law's greenhouse-nursery to search for a hidden
bottle of liquor
- the sequence of Joe's experience
of detoxifying and suffering delirium
tremens in a hospital ward, while confined in a strait-jacket
- the film's ending in Joe's apartment when Kirsten
(sober for only two days) attempted a reconciliation (but admitted
she was uncertain that she could conquer her alcoholism, or admit
that she was an alcoholic); and Joe (now sober for a year after
becoming a member of AA) told her in very clear terms that they
could reestablish their marriage ONLY if she stopped drinking: ("I'm
afraid of you. I'm an alcoholic, I can't take a drink. And I'm afraid
of what we'd do to each other....You and I were a couple of drunks
on the sea of booze, and the boat sank. I got ahold of something that
kept me from going under. And I'm not gonna let go of it. Not for
you, not for anyone. If you want to grab on, grab on. But there's
just room for you and me, no threesome")
- in the ambiguous ending, Kirsten
wandered off after their failure to come together, and Joe told their
young daughter Debbie (Debbie Megowan) that she might not return:
("Honey, Mommy's sick. And she has to get
well before she can come home"); however, a huge flashing neon "BAR" sign
reflection from outside also beckoned Joe
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Elevator Scene: Slap
Joe Making a Face Behind Kirsten's Back
Teetotaler Kirsten Enticed by Joe with Brandy Alexanders
Joe's Toast to Kirsten
Neighbor Dottie: Cockroach Spraying
Joe's Bender in the Arnesen Greenhouse-Nursery in San
Mateo

Joe Confined in a Strait-Jacket and Recovering in a
Hospital Sanitarium
"BAR" Sign Beckoning Joe Again
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Dead End (1937)
In William Wyler's urban drama - an adaptation of
Lillian Hellman's classic play:
- the memorable sequences of wealthy, sinister, gang-war
gangster "Baby Face" Martin's (Humphrey Bogart) return to his
old New York City (East River) slum neighborhood on the East Side
- the memorable debut of the gang of Dead End Kids
(including Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey)
- Baby Face's 'tricks of the trade' advice to the
gang about a fight at 4 o'clock: ("Get there early, earlier
than you said, see? Then they won't be ready for ya...And get
yourself some old electric bulbs and throw 'em. Then you throw
a couple of milk bottles, see? When some of the other kids get
hurt, then you charge 'em, but not before, see?...Listen, kid,
when you fight, the idea is to win. It don't matter how. And in
gang fightin', you take out the tough guys first. And a stocking
full of sand and rocks is good for that. And if that don't work,
a knife will")
- Martin's devastating, tearjerking encounter
with his mother (Marjorie Main) on the stairway of her slum
building, when she called him a "no-good tramp" and
a "dirty yellow dog"; when he asked: "Mom, ain't
you glad to see me?", she repudiated him with a harsh slap
across the face ("That's how glad I am"); she told him: "Don't
call me Mom. You ain't no son of mine. What do you want from me
now?", and urged him to go: "...then get out of here
before I crack your face again! Get out of here...Yeah, you're a
killer all right. You're a murderer. You're a butcher, sure. Why
don't you leave me forget you? Ain't I got troubles enough with
the cops and newspapers botherin' me?...Just leave us alone. You
never brought nothin' but trouble. Just stay away and leave us alone
and die. But leave us alone")
Troubling Visit with Ex-Girlfriend Francey -
Now
a Syphilitic Hooker
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- Martin's meeting with his
old girlfriend Francey (Claire Trevor) - he had come back for her,
and his horrified reaction when he realized that she had become
a ravaged, syphilitic prostitute - she told
him: "I
wouldn't be good for ya...It's a dream. I'm having a dream. What
I wanted for so long. I'm tired. I'm sick. Can't you see it? Look
at me good. You've been lookin' at me like I used to be....Well,
what did ya expect?"; when he felt pity for her, he
reached for a wad of bills: "Here. It's hot. Be careful where
you spend it. And keep your lips buttoned up"; then, as she
left, but turned back, she asked for a kiss on the cheek: "For
old times' sake, will you do me a favor? Please. Will you kiss me
here? Just for old times' sake? Thanks"
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"Baby Face" Martin
(Humphrey Bogart)
The Dead End Kids
"Tricks of the Trade" Advice to Gang
"Baby Face" With His Mother - Who Called Him a "No-Good
Tramp"
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Dead Man Walking (1995)
In Tim Robbins' anti-death penalty drama:
- the flashback scene of the murders of a teen couple
by death row inmate and convicted criminal Matthew Poncelet (Sean
Penn)
- comforting nun Sister Helen Prejean's (Oscar-winning
Susan Sarandon) poignant words to Matthew before he took a walk
to the execution room: ("Look,
I want the last thing you see in this world to be a face of love,
so you look at me when they do this thing. You look at me. I'll
be the face of love for you")
- the tearjerking ending and chilling death scene,
including Matthew's last words before he died from lethal injection
while strapped on a cross-shaped gurney, as victims' families and
the comforting nun witnessed the capital punishment behind a glass
window: ("Mr. Delacroix, l don't want to leave this world with
any hate in my heart. l ask your forgiveness for what l done. lt
was a terrible thing l done in taking your son away from you...Mr.
and Mrs. Percy. l hope my death gives you some relief. l just wanna
say l think killin' is wrong no matter who does it. Whether it's
me or y'all or your government...")
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Execution Room Death Scene
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Dead Poets Society (1989)
In Peter Weir's dramatic film about educational inspiration:
- eccentric, unorthodox 1959 Vermont prep school
English teacher John Keating's (Robin Williams) lesson on the
motto: "Carpe Diem" to his staid Welton Academy boarding
school students ("Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear
it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives
extraordinary") as they stood in front of old pictures of
the school's athletic teams (and the camera panned across the
faces of the now-deceased lads)
- the scene in which the dedicated but dismissed
teacher was paid tribute by his former pupils (including tongue-tied
betrayer Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke)) as they stood on their desks,
defied authority and emotionally chanted: "O Captain! My
Captain!" (taken
from Walt Whitman's poem about Abraham Lincoln), as Keating thanked
the students from the doorway: "Thank you boys, thank you"
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John Keating:
"Carpe Diem"
Close-Up of School Athletic Team

Students on Desks:
"O Captain! My Captain!"
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Dead Ringer (1964)
In Paul Henreid's dramatic and suspenseful thriller about
identity theft, considered a classic of 'Grand-Dame Guignol':
- the opening funeral scene at LA's Rosedale Cemetery
commemorating the death of wealthy 'Frank' DeLorca (from an alleged
heart attack); the ceremony brought together estranged identical
twin sisters (both 55 year-old Bette Davis) after 18 years:
-
Margaret (or Maggie) (covered in a thick black veil) - the widowed
wife - rich, callous, stylish, selfish, and materialistic
-
Edith Phillips - frumpy,
dowdy, and lower-class
- Edith's visit to the DeLorca mansion after the funeral
- and the few amazing split-screen trick scenes of both Maggie
and Edith in the frame together (plus some uses of body doubles);
and the contrast between the two of them: Maggie's life of shopping,
luxury, maids & servants, and Edith's working-class life running a
seedy bar in downtown Los Angeles (at Figueroa and Temple), living
in a one-room decrepit apartment above the cocktail lounge, and three
months behind in rent and facing eviction
- determined non-smoker Maggie's comment about smoking
to Edith:
"You shouldn't smoke. It's bad for the skin. I gave it up years
ago"
- the backstory causing conflict between the two sisters:
both females loved DeLorca, but Maggie had tricked him into marriage
by claiming she was pregnant; the secret fact that there was no child
was revealed by the family chauffeur George (George Chandler) (seen
in the rear-view mirror) to a shocked and then vengeful Edith during
her drive away from the mansion
- the scene of Maggie being lured to visit Edith's apartment,
and Edith's question to Maggie as she looked around: "A dump?" -
followed by Edith's cross examination of Maggie about the faked pregnancy,
and Maggie's subsequent confession: "There never was a baby.
That's what you want to hear, isn't it?..."; Edith was still
angry: "You
never loved him. You never made him happy. You ruined both our lives" -
Edith plotted to steal back the life that had been taken from her
- the actual murder scene of Maggie in Edith's apartment,
an off-screen death made to look like Edith's suicide - Edith pulled
the trigger on a gun next to Maggie's right temple (with a brief cutaway
to a musician loudly playing drums in the bar), then left a suicide
note, modified her hair style to bangs, changed clothes with her sister,
and returned to the mansion to impersonate her sister
- the many complexities and complications of assuming
another person's identity and 'playing' the role of "Maggie":
she didn't know the combination to the wall safe containing valuables
and jewelry, she confused her maid Janet (Monika Henreid), Edith had
a chain-smoking habit (but Maggie had given up smoking many years
earlier), there was a changed relationship with Maggie's now-friendly
Great Dane named Duke, and more; to avoid having to sign Maggie's
papers for the family lawyer Paul Harrison (George MacReady), Edith/"Maggie" resorted
to burning her hand with a hot fireplace poker
- in a few instances, "Maggie" realized
that her former life as Edith was possibly happier and more worry-free:
(1) her off-handed discovery that in Mr. DeLorca's will, he had left
her $50,000 - enough to have covered her debts, and (2) her close
relationship with cop/friend Sgt. Jim Hobbson (Karl Malden)
- the confrontative sequence with Maggie's secret
lover - playboyish, gold-digging golf pro Tony Collins (Peter Lawford)
who easily saw through Edith's charade when he saw clear differences
in "Maggie" from
the real Maggie; as he tried to force himself on her, the despicable
Tony tricked her by claiming they had vacationed together in places
they had never been: ("You don't want me to make love to you?
I don't understand. After all the fun we had, Honolulu, Nassau, Miami.
It was fun, wasn't it?"); when she answered: "Well, of course," he
knew she was lying: ("You're not Margaret, you're Edith! Maggie
and I never went to any of those places! Never! You killed her. The
smoking, the dog"); he slapped her but was restrained
by Sgt. Hobbson
- Collins blackmailed "Maggie" for her jewelry to buy
himself a Maserati ("I'm
gonna take you for everything you got"); soon after, a search
of his high-rise apartment after he failed to pawn off some of the
jewels led to the discovery of a sackful of arsenic powder: ("Arsenic
poisoning is often mistaken for a heart attack"); he was suspiciously
linked with Maggie in plotting the death of her husband
- the scene of the mauling death of Tony by the attacking
Great Dane, when "Maggie" was quarreling with Tony and ordered him
out - and the dog thought that he was going to hurt
her
- knowing that she would be tried for her husband Frank's
death,
"Maggie" - in a long monologue, appealed to suspicious
Sgt. Hobbson by claiming to be Edith (and inferring that she didn't
commit the crimes that Maggie had): "Did you, did you ever wake
up in the dark, feeling, feeling all alone? Oh, I mean terribly alone.
No one, no one else on Earth, just the dark all around you. And that,
that awful, scary emptiness? Don't you know me? Don't you know me,
Jim? I'm not Margaret. I didn't kill Frank DeLorca. I'm Edith, Jim";
but he asserted that he didn't believe her: "Mrs. DeLorca, I
don't know where you think this'll get you, but you couldn't be Edie
in a thousand years. Why, Edie was the kind of person a guy is lucky
to meet once in his lifetime. She was an honest-to-God, good person.
Sweet, gentle, kind. And you - you don't know the meaning of those
words. Edie would never murder her sister. She wouldn't even hurt
a fly"; "Maggie" walked back her attempt for sympathy: "Forget
it, Sergeant. It was just a, a lousy joke. Edie and I used to try
and fool people all the time when we were kids"
- the montage of "Maggie's" trial consisted
of the super-imposition of her face onto the proceedings with quotes
from witnesses and lawyers from both sides of the case: "Silence
in the court, silence!...She told me Collins was her lover...Mr. Collins
didn't pay the rent, Mrs. DeLorca did...A very cozy set-up, ladies
and gentlemen... Look at her, an admitted adulteress... Margaret DeLorca
is guilty of loving the wrong man, nothing else...She never waited
on Mr. DeLorca personally...Whiskey and milk - Madame gave it to him
the night he died...Frank DeLorca had a history of coronary disease,
symptoms similar to those of arsenic poisoning...He said he wanted
it for his lawn...Heart failure induced by a massive dose of arsenic...Guesses,
opinions, but no proof...Facts, ladies and gentlemen of the jury.
Facts and proof beyond any reasonable doubt"
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"Maggie's" Final Conversation with Sgt. Hobbson
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- the final scene - "Maggie" was found guilty
of first-degree murder and sentenced to the gas chamber at San Quentin
State Penitentiary - she seemed resigned to her fate (she had committed
murder, but not of Mr. DeLorca); as she was led to a police car from
the courthouse, she had one final discussion with a very troubled
Sgt. Hobbson, who was still wondering about her identity: ("The
last time I was at your house, you said something I can't get out
of my mind. You said, 'I'm Edie, Jim. Don't you know me?' Something
like that. Was that the truth?");
to end the unrest in his mind about her, she repeated his words: "I'm
Margaret DeLorca, Sergeant. As you said, Edie would never have hurt
a fly"; he solemnly watched as she was driven away
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Chauffeur George: Revelation of Maggie's Faked Pregnancy
in Order to Marry Wealthy Frank DeLorca
Maggie
Edith
Split-Screen: Maggie and Edith (both Bette Davis)
Edith's Murder of Maggie
Edith's Fake Suicide Note
"Maggie" Burning Her Hand With Hot Poker
Tony's Knowledge of the Deception
Sgt. Hobbson with Tony
Mauling Death of Tony by Great Dane
"Maggie's" Trial for the Murder of Frank DeLorca
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Death in Venice (1971, It.)
(aka Morte a Venezia)
In director Luchino Visconti's stylistically lavish
adaptation of Thomas Mann's novel - a tale of sexual obsession by
a visiting composer in Venice (plagued by cholera):
- the beautifully shot, quiet and lonely death scene
of aging, avant-garde German composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk
Bogarde) slumped feverishly on a solitary deck chair on a Venice
beach (accompanied by the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's Fifth
Symphony)
dying of heart failure (other causes could be cholera, or
suicide); he was reclining close to the
Grand Hôtel des Bains on the Lido where he was staying
- recently-applied dark hair dye dripped from
his sweaty, chalk-white face (from under his straw hat) and down
his cheeks, while he lovingly watched an angelic-looking teenaged
Polish boy named Tadzio (Bjorn Andresen) (also on vacation) and
on the beach wrestling with an Italian youth; he then observed
Tadzio who waded out into the water and pointed out toward the
horizon of the pink-tinged ocean - Gustav's expression mixed contentment,
pain, and acceptance as he reached out his hand toward the unattainable
boy before his death
- the last image was an extreme long-shot
of his beach chair on the large deserted stretch of sand when his body
was found by other hotel guests and carried away by workers
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Teenaged Boy on Beach, Pointing
Gustav on Venice Beach Deck Chair
Final Long-Shot of Beach Chair with Deceased Gustav
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