40 Comments

1. Buddy Larsen:

Moonstruck, Cher to Cage re the steak: “Eat it, it’s good for the blood.”

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:29 am 2. Buddy Larsen:

#14 is Shakespeare, The Tempest…did the listmakers goof? Or, is it just the line, and not the scriptwiter’s work per se, being rated?

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:49 am 3. mrp:

And not a single quote from the Wilder-Lubitsch classic Ninotchka ! This is an outrage!

Ninotchka (Garbo): Why do you want to carry my bags?

Porter: : That is my business.

Ninotchka : That’s no business. That’s social injustice.

Porter : That depends on the tip.

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:50 am 4. erp:

How could they leave out?

“So shall I say it, so shall it be”

Yul Brenner in The King and I.

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:57 am 5. Silicon valley Jim:

Only one from Animal House? Mais non!

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”

“You f****ed up. You trusted us.”

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” (and just about anything else from that speech)

“Grab a brew. Don’t cost nothin’.”

And to think that Roger was there. Many more quotes at

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/quotes

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:01 am 6. Ray Zacek:

I guess exercises in trivia and nostalgia like this help to distract from the fact that box office is in the doldrums and now f/x rather than dialog is the main currency of movies.

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:03 am 7. Patrick Tyson:

First thought:

I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

Buddy—Hammett, if memory serves, changed the last letter in the last word. So, if anything, it’s a misquote.

Th—that’s all, folks!

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:24 am 8. Kyda Sylvester:

Before I read the list:

“It’s Chinatown, Jake.”

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:25 am 9. Buddy Larsen:

Patrick, you is right–”on” to “of”.

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:38 am 10. Buddy Larsen:

Kyda–that was a watershed in a way, a matinee idol Nicholson wearing a big nose bandage for half the movie.

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:41 am 11. Kyda Sylvester:

One of my top five, Buddy. Nicholson at his zenith.

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:57 am 12. Robert Schwartz:

14. “The stuff that dreams are made of,” “The Maltese Falcon,” 1941.

William Shakespeare (1564ñ1616), The Tempest, Act VI, Scene I, ln 158-168:

Prospero: You do look, my son, in a movíd sort,

As if you were dismayíd: be cheerful, sir:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air:

And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-cappíd towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep.

Jun 22, 2005 - 9:11 am 13. Buddy Larsen:

Robert, it gives as good an excuse as any to have a big ole lump in the throat, don’t it. I swear Ronald Reagan–blessed be his name–used it in a speech, once upon a time. Just can’t recall. It wasn’t the Challenger speech–he used “High Flight” in that one.

Jun 22, 2005 - 9:29 am 14. Buddy Larsen:

I guess Challenger should be referred to as a requiem, or funerary, rather than the slightly crass “speech”.

Jun 22, 2005 - 9:31 am 15. Rick Ballard:

elegy – YMMV

Jun 22, 2005 - 9:45 am 16. Redman:

One they missed from True Grit:

Lucky Ned Pepper: “I call that bold talk from a one-eyed fat man”.

Rooster Cogburn: “Fill your hand, you son-of-a-bitch”.

And then there’s the classic Mel Brooks comedies of the 70’s, like Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles, that are full of great lines.

And so on. Boiling it down to 100 would be tough.

Query: Is the criteria that the line is memorable on it’s own merit or that it’s memorable because of it’s place in a memorable movie or scene? “Get over it” arguably makes it on the latter scale but clearly not on the former.

Jun 22, 2005 - 10:06 am 17. Buddy Larsen:

Yes, that’s the one. Rick, you da word-master! But–what is YMMV?

Jun 22, 2005 - 10:07 am 18. Rick Ballard:

Your Mileage May Vary

Some consider elegy to refer only to a poetic form. Thus, the Challenger speech would be elegiac in nature but not an elegy.

The “Rick Ballard Permanent Cure for Pedants” involves shotgun and shovel and cannot be performed on the internet. YMMV is just an attempt to avoid a lecture.

Jun 22, 2005 - 10:40 am 19. OldManRick:

Snap out of it – indeed.

What have they got against westerns? Only Shane.

“This is the west, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:13 am 20. Buddy Larsen:

Thanks–but surely I’m not a pedant, why I can list a thousand reasons I’m not. Let’s see….;-)

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:14 am 21. Buddy Larsen:

The Wild Bunch:

“It ain’t what you MEANT to do, it’s what you DID do!” (bank manager in opening scenes, to young employee)

“When ya side with a man, ya SIDE with ‘im.” (William Holden, to the Gorch brothers, IIRC)

“Who’s ‘they‘?” (Edmomd O’Brian)

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:22 am 22. triticale:

These may be the top 100 movie lines (this can clearly be debated), but it is not a collection of great quotations. A great quotation shouldn’t just be memorable in the context in which it was scripted, but remain of value in other contexts. “This sort of thing has cropped up before and it has always been due to human error” beats “Open the pod bay doors, HAL” all hollow, especially if you do computer tech support.

When ordering a martini, the brand of gin and the percentage of vermouth are as worthy of specification as the method of preperation.

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:34 am 23. Ben:

I was pleased to see a number of quotes from one of my favorite movies, Casablanca, but my personal favorite was not on the list:

Ugarte: You despise me, don’t you?

Rick: If I gave you any thought I probably would.

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:38 am 24. Rick Ballard:

Buddy,

You ain’t what I’d consider a pedant. ‘Cept about Texas bureaucrats – and with good reason.

“Who are those guys?”

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Jun 22, 2005 - 11:51 am 25. Buddy Larsen:

While Wild Bunch is a fave, I could never get behind Butch Cassidy &SDK. All I could see was Paul Newman and Wobert Wedfud playing dress-up-like-cowboys, and mugging cute for the camera. Sorta like Bonnie & Clyde and Easy Rider–self-conscious fashionista crap all the way. But, lotsa folks like ‘em, and as they say, de gustibus non est disputandum.

Jun 22, 2005 - 12:40 pm 26. StevenT:

Leave the gun. Take the cannoli

Jun 22, 2005 - 1:10 pm 27. TigerHawk:

Casablanca’s domination of the list is profound. Indeed, there are any number of other lines from that movie that might also have made it on the list, but I’m sure the list-makers did not want to skew the rankings even more profoundly in that movie’s favor. Does that make me a cynic?

Jun 22, 2005 - 2:23 pm 28. Knucklehead:

Tigerhawk,

Since you teed it up, somebody’s gotta whack it!

I suspect that under that cynical shell, you’re at heart a sentimentalist.

Jun 22, 2005 - 2:45 pm 29. triticale:

And, to putt in Knucklehead’s drive,

I came here for the water.

Jun 22, 2005 - 3:59 pm 30. Patrick Tyson:

Anne Bancroft, in her final role, about to appear in Curb Your Enthusiasm on HBO Comedy West, which reminds me…

…I’m in pain! I’m in pain, and I’m wet!… and I’m still hysterical!

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:37 pm 31. Patrick Tyson:

It’s good to be the king!

That’s an unconscionable omission.

Jun 22, 2005 - 7:59 pm 32. Kyda Sylvester:

It’s not personal. It’s strictly business.

I’d like to kiss you, but I just washed my hair.

What’s up, Doc?

Follow the yellow brick road.

You’re tearing me apart!

There’s only two things in this world that a real man needs: a cup of coffee and a good smoke.

Yippee-ki-yay, mother****er. (I guess I understand why they didn’t put this one in)

Jun 22, 2005 - 8:26 pm 33. StevenT:

Listen ladder-legs!

Someday they’re gonna find your hair ribbon and an axe. Nothing else. The mystery of Morgan’s Creek.

Jun 23, 2005 - 12:49 am 34. Kyda Sylvester:

You aren’t too bright. I like that in a man.

Jun 23, 2005 - 7:56 am 35. Buddy Larsen:

Was that Lauren Bacall? The top all-time screen beauty?

Jun 23, 2005 - 8:46 am 36. Kyda Sylvester:

Kathleen Turner to William Hurt in Body Heat. A personal fave.

Like ‘em tall, lank and whiskey voiced, do ya?!

Jun 23, 2005 - 9:41 am 37. Robert Schwartz:

Kada: I also like Hurts line: “What do you want? I’ve got it all: ugly, horny, stupid.

Jun 23, 2005 - 10:14 am 38. Buddy Larsen:

That’s her alright–and them cat-eyes. the 40s gals reached some sort of smoky raw something that’d sure be nice to see come back. ‘Course, Bogies are sorta rare these days, too, I guess.

Jun 23, 2005 - 10:14 am 39. Kyda Sylvester:

Robert, that’s lazy, ugly, horny. She replies “You don’t look lazy”. Great flick.

Nope, no more Bogies. Even the cool blonds–like Bergman–had that smokey raw back then. They knew something about sex appeal in those days–both sexes.

Jun 23, 2005 - 11:27 am 40. Buddy Larsen:

…’swhy there’s so many boomers….

Jun 23, 2005 - 1:50 pm

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