Stupid Movie Lines (16 page)
Read Stupid Movie Lines Online
Authors: Kathryn Petras
You know the worst part? He was trying to seduce me with domestic champagne!
Fashion designer Susan Hayward about a lecherous businessman, to stranger and future lover John Gavin in
Back Street,
1961
On Self-Descriptions, Flighty:
Wingspread: thirty-seven; fuselage: twenty-five; and—hand-rubbed, by the way—tail is simply thirty-six. Shockproof landing gear and never stalls in a dive.
Playgirl Elizabeth Ashley, describing herself to George Peppard in
The Carpetbaggers,
1964
On Sex Goddesses, Runners-up:
She Sins in Mobile—
Marries in Houston—
Loses Her Baby in Dallas—
Leaves Her Husband in Tucson—
MEETS HARRY IN SAN DIEGO
! …
FIRST
—
HARLOW
!
THEN
—
MONROE
!
NOW
—
McCLANAHAN
!!!
Ad for
The Rotten Apple,
1963, starring Rue McClanahan
On Sex, Moments We’d Rather Not Think About:
You think I might find happiness in the animal kingdom, Duckie?
Beverly (Lea Thompson), crawling into bed with a giant cigar-smoking duck in
Howard the Duck, 1986
On Sexologists, Typical Thoughts from:
Why not run off with the swinging wife of the swinging director and knock off a piece! Lovemaking to you is like a stallion mounting a mare. Real people make love with their minds and their understanding, not just with their bodies!
Tippi Hedren as the sexologist at college, to young stud Don Johnson in
The Harrad Experiment,
1973
On Sex Talk, Repellent:
You’re not the first woman to find the physical act repellent.
Noted sex doctor Dr. Chapman (Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.) to frigid Jane Fonda, who is about to melt and marry him in
The Chapman Report,
1962
On Sexy Dialogues, Great Moments in:
Kansas:
Hmmm—it’s muy frio tonight, ain’t it?
Maria:
Um.
Kansas:
You cold?
Maria:
Um. My feet are cold.
Kansas:
Yeah?
Maria:
Yeah.
Kansas (reaching under her skirt):
Hey, hey, I know something that’s hot and—uh, heh, heh, yes sir!
Maria:
Hee, hee.
Dennis Hopper and Stella Garcia in Hopper’s
The Last Movie,
1971
On Sexy Lines, Overwrought:
I don’t want your gold. I want flesh. I want to touch human flesh. I want to kiss it. I want to suck it!
Theresa Russell as Tracy, the love- and sex-starved daughter of wacky rich man Gene Hackman in
Eureka,
1981
On Sexy Undulation, Inexplicable:
Under the spell of the full moon, Tigri and the women of her tribe dance restlessly, savagely, impelled by a feeling of frustration, not knowing why.
Narrator explaining the gyrating bathing beauties in
Prehistoric Women,
1950
On Shakespeare, B-Horror Movies and:
Girl:
Johnny, I never let anyone kiss me like this before!
Boy:
My name’s not Johnny!
Girl:
Well, what is it?
Boy:
Irving!
Girl:
Irving? [giggles, quotes Shakespeare] What’s in a name?
A Party Beach teen couple, before the monsters arrive in
The Horror of Party Beach,
1964
On Shakespeare, Little-Known Lines from:
Now I know how Shakespeare felt when he said, “Alone at last.”
Troy Donahue to Suzanne Pleshette, in love in the Alps in
Rome Adventure,
1962
On Shoeshine Songs, Bad:
Shoes to shine, shoes to shine.
Prancing shoes for dancing new romances to,
Shoes for morning, noon, and night,
Every shade from black to white.
Every type from boot to pump,
Suddenly my heart goes bump.…
Nelson Eddy’s serenade in
New Moon,
1940
On Signs We Think We’ll Never See:
I think one day in Monterey they’ll put a very big sign saying, “Robert Louis Stevenson and John Steinbeck and Hoyt Bricker wrote here.”
Connie Stevens (Susan) to Troy Donahue (Hoyt) in
Susan Slade,
1961
On the Simple Things in Life, Nuclear Holocaust Style:
It’s great to eat under an open sky, even if it is radioactive.
Frankie Avalon, enjoying a picnic with the family in after-the-nuclear-holocaust Los Angeles in
Panic in the Year Zero,
1962
On Sins, Pissed:
We’ve experienced death and somehow we’ve brought our sins back, and they’re pissed.
Scientist Kiefer Sutherland, after coming back from the dead in
Flatliners,
1990
On Skinny-Dippers, Dumb Things to Say to:
You’re a mighty fine swimmer, lady.
Ronald Reagan as the hired ranch hand, to skinny-dipping Barbara Stan-wyck as Sierra Nevada Jones in
Cattle Queen of Montana,
1954
THE STUPIDEST ATTEMPTS AT HISTORICAL DIALOGUE
H
ow did people talk in bygone days? This is a burning question that has long plagued Hollywood. Lacking tape recordings from biblical times, ever-resourceful screenwriters have been forced to hypothesize—and two distinct schools of thought seem to have evolved:
1. The Classic School: In the past, people apparently spoke as though they were walking thesauri. They were prone to using unwieldy words (“abjure,” “bereft,” “hardihood,” and the like), stilted syntax (always heavy on compound verbs), and convoluted sentences (replete with dependent clause upon dependent clause). Declamation was extremely popular, as was speaking as though one were not completely comfortable with the use of action verbs.
2. The Modern School: In the past, people apparently were hip New York/LA types, and talked and acted exactly like New York/LA film people. Great figures like Moses, Columbus, and Washington were more concerned with looking cool than with saving their people or discovering new lands. They used words like “hip,” “drag,” “dig” (if it was a 1960s film), or “bitch,” “dude,” “awesome” (if it was a 1990s film), and posed a lot, as if they were aware that someday someone would come along and film them. In most cases, everyone has styled hair, which was, of course, the big thing from biblical times onward.
In either case, the result is more hysterical than historical, as the following demonstrate.
On Biblical Chitchat, Common:
Abjure this woman and her idolatries. Tear down the obscene abomination she has erected!
An elder to King Solomon in
Solomon and Sheba,
1959, starring Yul Brynner and Gina Lollobrigida
On Romantic Dialogue, Great Moments in:
Genghis Khan:
I shall keep you, Bortai. I shall keep you unresponding to my passion. Your hatred will kindle into love.
Bortai:
Before that day dawns, Mongol, the vultures will feast on your heart!
John Wayne and Susan Hayward in
The Conqueror,
1956
On Things We’re Willing to Bet Columbus’s Men Never Said:
It’s not just about how far we’ve come, it’s this bitch of a wind.
Andy Robert Davi, the captain of the
Pinta,
to Columbus in
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery,
1992, starring Georges Corraface
On Sludge Monsters, Weakness of:
Dr. Yano:
In each creature a weakness exists.
Ken:
Hedorah’s only sludge—we could dry it out!
The scientist and his young son discussing ways to rid the world of the smog monster in
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster,
1972
On Sly Stallone Films, Moving Moments from:
Did you bump uglies with my sister?
From the Sylvester Stallone—Kurt Russell buddy film
Tango and Cash,
1989
On Solaronite, Fascinating Info on:
Colonel:
You speak of solaronite, but just what is it?
Eros:
Take a can of your gasoline. Say this can of gasoline is the sun. Now you spread a thin line of it to a ball representing the earth. Now the gasoline represents the sunlight, the sun particles. Here we saturate the ball with the gasoline—the sunlight—then we put a flame to the ball. The flame will speedily travel around the earth, back along the line of gasoline to the can—or the sun itself. It will explode this source and spread to every place that gasoline—our sunlight—touches. Explode the sunlight here, gentlemen, you explode the universe. Explode the sunlight here and a chain reaction will occur directly to the sun itself and to all the planets that sunlight touches. To every planet in the universe.
Colonel Edwards (Tom Keene) and Eros the Alien (Dudley Manlove) having a scientific discussion in
Plan 9 from Outer Space,
1959
On Song Lines, Utterly Banal:
I’m just the total of what I’ve become.
Song in
The Harrad Experiment,
1973
On Songs, Messy:
Go on away and leave me alone …
I don’t care whether I live or I die.
Why is it everything happens to me
And my dreams all explode in my face?
Song sung by nightclub chanteuse Ann Pellegrino, after she learns that her sister (a drum majorette) has been kidnapped by the evil Herr Doktor in
The Yesterday Machine,
1963
On Songs That Never Made the Top Ten:
We have cobalt,
it’s full of mercury.
Too many fumes in our oxygen.
And the smog now
is choking you and me.
Good lord, where is it gonna end?
It’s up to us
to make a choice.
Save the earth!
Chorus:
Save the earth!
Save the earth!
Title song “Save the Earth” from
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster,
1972
On Soothsaying, Stupid:
Gods of fire and gods of water.
Gods of air and gods of thunder.
Show thy message in the blade bones
Burning hot before my eyes.
Through the vapors,
From the heavens,
Make the truth arise! Arise!
Mina mina chey tambina,
Nee nee nee nee shockazee!
The double-dealing shaman (John Hoyt) reading the portents, in
The Conqueror,
1959
On Sound Tracks, How to Cover Up Problems with:
The sergeant, a shaken man, returned babbling about what had happened. Colonel Caldwell, realizing the full danger of the situation, decided that he had only one means left to stop the monster: grenades! Now Professor Bradford made a drastic move. Acting on his superior authority, he forbade Caldwell to destroy the creature. The colonel, more concerned with saving lives than advancing science, told Bradford to go to hell.
Narrator in a scene in which the dialogue was apparently unusable in
The Creeping Terror,
1964
On Space Crews, Childish:
