TCM, beloved by <a href=” http://jackpendarvis.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html”_blank”> many</a>, had a particularly good Saturday: Singin’ in the Rain/Funny Lady (so bad it’s good)/The Barefoot Contessa/All About Eve/Crimes and Misdemeanors/Radio Days. I’m surprised I ever left the house. (I did go to the gym, but I managed to time my interval training to “Let’s Hear it For Me,” which was pretty nifty.) At the end of Singin’ in the Rain, as I watched Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Millard Mitchell* flap their arms in imitation of Jean Hagen’s Lina Lamont, I emailed a friend that it made me think of a favorite line from MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR: “They say it’s a vale of tears, Marjorie, but there are such things as fried shrimps.”** I prefer, “They say it’s a vale of tears, but there is Jean Hagen as Lina Lamont.” But it’s actually that moment, when the three men flap their arms like spastic wings, that delights me. Then Kathy runs up the aisle and Don screams stop that woman and — oh, who am I kidding? I burst into tears.
In ANOTHER THING TO FALL, Tess Monaghan is asked point-blank what cinematic moments make her cry. We’ll get to that later this week. What’s the movie moment – the line, the image, the performance – that makes you doubt this world is a vale of tears? I’m not talking about the obvious showstoppers, but the throw-away, idiosyncratic moments that are precious to you. I’ll contribute another one: “You’re too short for that gesture.” (Addison Dewitt to Eve Harrington in ALL ABOUT EVE.)
*Used to denote things I had to look up, to maintain the transparency of the Memory Project.
** I had it close to right. The actual quote is: “Ah, Lord, they say it’s a vale of tears, Marjorie, but there are such things as fried shrimps.” I can’t decide if I’m proud of this or not.
The end of the movie “Wonder Boys” does wonders for me; I always want to go off and start writing no matter what time of day or night it is when the movie’s over.
I also love Fred and Ginger dancing to “Night and Day” in “The Gay Divorce.” It’s not a very good movie, even by their standards, but I think that’s one of their finest routines, if not the finest. Others are more dazzling, have more flash maybe, but this was their first real movie as the leads, and this was the first real “mood dance,” as Fred called them. All the other “mood dances” were working from this template, but this has an understatement and reality (after a fashion) that later ones do not. (But that’s just me.)
And I just love “Christmas in Connecticut,” the original, not the Schwarzenegger-directed remake. (Seriously.) Quotes from that pop up in my daily life entirely too often.
The end of LITTLE BIG MAN, when Dustin Hoffman takes his adopted Indian grandfather up onto the mountain to die in peace. The old man sings his death song, composes himself, and lies there with his eyes closed…and it starts to rain. The moment when the raindrop hits Grandfather in the face and he twitches never fails to make me laugh. Then there’s this classic exchange:
“My son, am I still in this world?”
“Yes, Grandfather.”
(Sigh).”I was afraid of that.” (getting up)”Well, sometimes the magic works and sometimes it doesn’t. Come on. Let’s go down and see if Buffalo Cow Woman will give us something to eat.”
Good ol’ Buffalo Cow Woman.
I am loving this.
Oh, Miller’s Crossing — Albert Finney slipping into his slippers. The following sequence, with the tommy gun and “Danny Boy” is too much of a showstopper for this thread, but his precise movments as he girds for battle are wonderful.
Sorry to pick the most obvious one of all, but I am a sucker for the moment when Cary Grant realizes Deborah Kerr is paralyzed in An Affair to Remember. I don’t just wipe tears away, I bawl.
Diner: Fenwick in the manger.
Tin Men: Bruno Kirby, reiterating Richard Dreyfuss’s ability to merengue.
The moment in THE BAND WAGON when, during the cast party after the disastrous out-of-town opening, the mood suddenly goes from “MORE BEER!” to depression, without any dialogue.
The ending of Some Like it Hot. Sheer, total genius.
Norma Raie climbs up on the table with the cardboard sign reading “UNION” and one by one, the workers shut down every machine in the room.
Hannah and her Sisters has a great final line that caps off the film beautifully. Diane Wiest hugs Woody Allen and says “I’m pregnant”.
Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry as he and Annette Benning show up at their daughters boarding school, saying ” I missed her 1st ten years . . .”
Along the make me laugh until I cry lines is Whoopi Goldberg in Jumpin’ Jack Flash. The first time I saw the scene where she was being towed down the street while stuck in the phone booth “I’m a little black woman in a big silver box….” made me laugh so hard my sister was concerned for her furniture!
I also love the scene in When Harry Met Sally when Harry realizes he is in love with Sally. And during his discourse to her about why he loves her he says “I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts.” and they cut to Sally and she has that EXACT crinkle over her nose.
“I’m gonna pistol whip the next person who says Shenanigans!”
“Hey Farve, what’s the name of that restaurant you like?”
“Shenanigans?”
“OOOHHHH.”
When Myrna Loy realizes that Frederic March is home in BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, is that too obvious? By the way, Laura, thanks for the “link”! Did you know I got to have lunch with Robert Osborne just before I left Atlanta? We don’t get TCM on our cable system here. Sometimes I cry about that! My FAVORITE movie scene ever, which makes me cry with how GREAT it is, not with sadness, is Marlon Brando’s final scene in THE GODFATHER, the scene with the orange, the flit, that whole scene, all the way to the long shot of the kid running back to the house. GREATEST SCENE EVER!
Laura, you missed the one that was on before SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN–it was STAGE DOOR, with Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Eve Arden, and Lucille Ball tossing George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber’s witty lines with seeming effortlessness. Just great.
I read this post and thought I would be able to think of multiple examples, but naturally NOT ONE would come to mind. Then one of them came on television. The scene in THAT THING YOU DO! when the band first hears their record played on the radio…
Actually, you know what scene always gets me, in terms of emotional moments you don’t see coming? In TEN THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU, when Julia Stiles reads the poem. For some reason I dig that scene. (And the teacher in the book is awesome too.) Here’s the poem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84e0HYgo_eU
The end of “Wish You Were Here”, when she holds up the baby and the sun twinkles in your eyes for a moment. Ditto the end of “The Age of Innocence”, when the sunlight bounces of Madame Olenska’s Paris window and he sees the ship passing the dock briefly. I’m big on “Sun Gets in Your Eyes.”
Gene Wilder with the bit of his “blankie” in The Producers(it should never have been remade!)
Wow, I hadn’t thought about “Wish You Were Here” for years. Wasn’t that the one with the terrific young actress that Woody Allen cast in Husbands and Wives, then dropped for Juliette Lewis?
I’m a big Woody Allen fan, by the way, but I think Match Point is a much lesser rehash of Crimes and Misdemeanors. Although it always bugged me that the blind rabbi in the former dances with his daughter to the song, “I’ll Be Seeing You.” I think H&W is pretty terrific, too. And I had forgotten how charming Radio Days was.
What a wonderful topic — too many to choose from, but the first one that sprang to mind was Ed Begley in BEST IN SHOW, talking about the peculiar hygiene challenges of having a lot of dogs in the hotel. He says it was nothing compared to the damage a rock band had done a few years back, and then says something like (following Memory Project rules, I’m paraphrasing), “Why they decided to roast a whole goat up there, I still don’t know.”
You could make a whole movie out of that one line.
At the end of Trading Places, Eddie Murphy is lounging on the beach in his sweater and Dan Aykroyd is sailing with Jamie Lee Curtis.
Eddie says, “Looking good, Louis.”
Dan says, “Feeling good, Billy Ray.”
I LOVE THAT!
Vinny Gambini, whacking Ralph Macchio on the arm and saying “Watch this,” the moment before unemployed hairdresser Mona Lisa Vito takes apart the prosecuting attorney’s knowledge of V8 engines in MY COUSIN VINNY.
She’s mad as hell at him, but he just never stops thinking she’s the greatest thing ever.
That whole scene, really.
From The Producers: When Max and Leo go to meet Franz at his apartment, they have to talk to the woman who identifies herself as the “concierge”. Her speech about Franz’ pigeons is priceless. Her parting shot, after Leo says politely “Thank you, Madam,” is the very funny “I’m not a madam. I’m a concierge.”
Personally, the entire movie “Bringing Up Baby” makes me laugh until I cry. But especially when Kate Hepburn is stealing Cary Grant’s car (after stealing his golf ball) and she says (paraphrasing) – “Is there anything that doesn’t belong to you?” And he says, “Yes, thankfully, YOU!” And that’s when the tears start rolling.
Jimmy Stewart in the climatic scene of Mr Smith Goes to Washington — the one-man filibuster where he talks of lost causes.
“Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father’s passin’.”
The whole movie, really, but my favorite scene is Atticus and Scout in the swing, talking about her bad days at school and reading and compromise, in one of the best movies ever made: To Kill a Mockingbird.
Oooh, and the hair washing scene in Out of Africa.
Pick a scene, any scene of Avalon, speaking of Barry Levinson.
Boy, it is hard to pick one. The end of Some Like It Hot is pretty great, no question. And the goat line in Best in Show, yeah, you do kind of wish Ed would talk a little more about that don’t you? Not to mention all the things you hear about Catherine O’Hara’s character.
I watch more sci-fi, mystery, and horror so I guess it’s hard to really pick those kind of moments.
Little Amelie, sitting on the roof, vengefully pulling the TV antenna plug on the jerk’s soccer game.
“Stand up, Miss Jean Louise, your father’s passin’.”
Andi,
I couldn’t think of one (because I have no memory-which one of the reasons why I read The Memory Project) but as soon as I read yours I thought that’s it!! That’s the moment my brain was striving to remember.
Diane