What is the Most Famous Movie Scene?

[mariab]

Errata,
this watermelon manipulation of the audience is similar to the man-with-the-cheese in the Buffy the vampire slayer episode Restless (the brilliant concluding episode of season 4 which deals with the dreams, deepest preoccupations, and psychological profiles of the protagonists).

[kensei]

Sorry, can't resist. Few might consider "Dirty Dancing" to be a classic movie, but the watermelon thing immediately made me remember Jennifer Grey rolling her eyes at herself in complete utter embarassment and saying, "Carried a watermelon." Absolutely hilarious.

[mariab]

Oh yeah, Dirty dancing. I think it's a cult movie in the way that The Rocky horror picture show and Plan 9 from outer space are. Everybody knows the line “'Cause nobody puts Baby in a corner“. The most famous visual scene from Dirty dancing is probably the lift scene in the water. Once when trying to teach a girl how to take her first wave (lying down), I told her “Do exactly what Linda Grey did when Patrick Swayze lift her out of the water.“ and the guys kept asking “What? What did she do?“ hoping it would be something sexy, and they were disappointed when I said “Just tense up every muscle like if you were a dancer or a gymnast lying on a beam.“

[jimarilyn]

The most memorable movie scene for me has to be the final scene in Carol Reed's masterpiece "The Third Man". Joseph Cotten leaning against a cart on a tree lined Viennese cemetery path, waiting as Alida Valli walks towards him and then past him. Falling autumnal leaves, beautiful Anton Karas zither music, this scene leaves a lasting impression.

Arguably the best movie ever made.

[kensei]

In my first post here back on page 9 I mentioned "The Dark Knight," the only film in the comic book superhero genre ever to produce an Oscar for acting, posthumously to Heath Ledger as the Joker. The centerpiece of that movie- him and Batman face to face in the interogation room- ranks as the greatest in my opinion in any comic book movie. But I was just thinking of giving honorable mention to the scene at the very end of the film's predecessor that heralds the Joker's coming.

End of "Batman Begins," aftermath of all the furious action as Gary Oldman's Gordon and Christian Bale's Batman meet on the roof of police headquarters, talking of how corrupt their city still is and how they will take it back.

GORDON: "Now take this guy. Armed robbery, double homicide, got a taste for the theatrical like you. Leaves a calling card." (Hands it to Batman face down.)

BATMAN: (Turns card over, sees it is the Joker.) "I'll look into it."

GORDON: (As Batman is turning to leave.) "I never said thank you."

BATMAN: (After dramatic pause). "And you'll never have to." (Then leaps off rooftop and glides away, end of movie.)

For all of us aging comic gook geeks, too cool for words!

[Stephen Thomas]

The most memorable movie scene for me has to be the final scene in Carol Reed's masterpiece "The Third Man". Joseph Cotten leaning against a cart on a tree lined Viennese cemetery path, waiting as Alida Valli walks towards him and then past him. Falling autumnal leaves, beautiful Anton Karas zither music, this scene leaves a lasting impression.

Arguably the best movie ever made.

Certainly the best British movie ever made, I'd say, completely riveting from start to finish but little known these days unfortunately. Buy the DVD folks, you won't regret it. I remember reading an interview with Orson Cart, sorry Orson Welles, just before he died and he was asked what his greatest regret in life was and he said it was taking a flat fee for The Third Man as opposed to a share of the profits. He said that the film did OK in America but in Europe it was like The Sound of Music.

[Red Zeppelin]

I think Jaws must be the film with the most amount of really famous scenes in it. To name just a few:

The opening attack on Chrissy.

The dolly zoom in on chief Brody after the little boy on the raft is eaten.

The head popping out from the hull on the half sunken boat.

The shark's first appearence with the "you're gonna need a bigger boat" line.

Quint's USS Indianapolis monologue.

I can't think of another movie that has so many famous scenes.

By the way even though it's commonly repeated that it was only by accident with the non working shark that Spielberg didn't show much of the shark during the first half of the film (even repeated by Spielberg himself now), that's not really true. The initial storyboards had more of the shark in them for sure but Spielberg had long decided to keep the shark hidden largely in the first time of the film by the time actual shooting began on Martha's Vineyard in early May 1974. If you read Carl Gottlieb's The Jaws Log you will see that the sharks weren't even due to make their debut on screen until July '74. Most of the first half of the film was already done and dusted by then including the opening scene and the well known sequence where the broken off pier turns back and comes after the man was always designed to be shot with the unseen menace in mind. In fact that scene was shot in May '74 when the mechanical sharks hadn't even arrived on Martha's Vineyard yet and also the water was only 3ft deep. Way too shallow for the mechanical sharks to ever have been used there, even if it they had been on the island. No shark was ever intended to be seen during the broken pier sequence.

Spielberg these days is being overly humble in putting it all down to luck and a non working shark. But don't believe most of it. The real non working shark failures were with the second half of the film at sea. That's where the filming schedule and the budget ballooned. The production was only 5 days behind shooting schedule by the time the land based scenes were finished. The filming at sea on the Orca put 3 months onto the schedule.

[Derrick]

I think Jaws must be the film with the most amount of really famous scenes in it. To name just a few:

The opening attack on Chrissy.

The dolly zoom in on chief Brody after the little boy on the raft is eaten.

The head popping out from the hull on the half sunken boat.

The shark's first appearence with the "you're gonna need a bigger boat" line.

Quint's USS Indianapolis monologue.

I can't think of another movie that has so many famous scenes.

By the way even though it's commonly repeated that it was only by accident with the non working shark that Spielberg didn't show much of the shark during the first half of the film (even repeated by Spielberg himself now), that's not really true. The initial storyboards had more of the shark in them for sure but Spielberg had long decided to keep the shark hidden largely in the first time of the film by the time actual shooting began on Martha's Vineyard in early May 1974. If you read Carl Gottlieb's The Jaws Log you will see that the sharks weren't even due to make their debut on screen until July '74. Most of the first half of the film was already done and dusted by then including the opening scene and the well known sequence where the broken off pier turns back and comes after the man was always designed to be shot with the unseen menace in mind. In fact that scene was shot in May '74 when the mechanical sharks hadn't even arrived on Martha's Vineyard yet and also the water was only 3ft deep. Way too shallow for the mechanical sharks to ever have been used there, even if it they had been on the island. No shark was ever intended to be seen during the broken pier sequence.

Spielberg these days is being overly humble in putting it all down to luck and a non working shark. But don't believe most of it. The real non working shark failures were with the second half of the film at sea. That's where the filming schedule and the budget ballooned. The production was only 5 days behind shooting schedule by the time the land based scenes were finished. The filming at sea on the Orca put 3 months onto the schedule.

Jaws is a great film but there are more great memorable scenes in Oliver!

[sdreid]

I guess I would say Cuddles busting of John Hurt's chest in Alien.

[Red Zeppelin]

Jaws is a great film but there are more great memorable scenes in Oliver!

LOL, you are joking right?

Jaws is known the world over, from Bali to Bombay.

Oliver???????

[miss marple]

Well a lot of good stuff mentioned, Just want to add, Bill Sykes dog scrabbling at the door frantically trying to escape as Bill murders Nancy, in David Lean's Oliver Twist.
Carrie being pelted with sanitary towels in the shower in Carrie. My son who has seen more horror films than I have had hot dinners, watched it over christmas and was blown away by,the whole film, had him on the edge of his seat,but he thought that scene was more edgy than anything they would make today.
Robert De Nero taking Cybil Shepherd to a porn movie in Taxi Driver, touching and embarassing at the same time.
Chief uprooting the sink and chucking it out the window in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Th first shot of Cyd Charisse's leg with the hat on the toe and the green dress, then the dance with Kelly in Singin in the Rain, In fact most things in Singin in the Rain.
Miss Marple

[Tom_Wescott]

Errata,
this watermelon manipulation of the audience is similar to the man-with-the-cheese in the Buffy the vampire slayer episode Restless (the brilliant concluding episode of season 4 which deals with the dreams, deepest preoccupations, and psychological profiles of the protagonists).

Not one of my fave episodes, but I think the cheese was a reference to the dreamers being 'rats in a cage', which each of them were, running blind along wall, down halls, and amongst curtains and such.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

[Natalie Severn]

Janet Leigh taking that shower in Psycho!

[mariab]

Tom Wescott wrote:
Not one of my fave episodes, but I think the cheese was a reference to the dreamers being 'rats in a cage', which each of them were, running blind along wall, down halls, and amongst curtains and such.
Hmmm...clever with the “rats in a cage“. Josh Whedon in his episode commentary says that he put the cheese man in the mix as a joke, so that people ask about the significance of him, and that this way Whedon can say that they understood everything else (but the cheese man) in the dream sequences. Plus, that even in the most revealing dreams there's always a silly detail.
Whedon also said that the red curtains are an hommage to a dream sequence in Twin Peaks (which I'm afraid I've never watched), plus a reference to a woman's body (with Willow meeting Tara inside of the red curtains). Actually Whedon says “It's a reference to a woman's...and I don't wanna say more, in case 5 years old are watching“.
I love Xander's dream, not just the Apocalypse, now cut to cut parallel scene (with the school director in the Marlon Brando part!), but also the part where Xander, wherever he goes, keeps ending up in his parents' basement and there's some menacing presence on the top of the stairs, and at the end it's revealed that it's his (alcoholic, possibly abusive) dad, who keeps complaining “Why aren't you coming upstairs? Are you ashamed of us?“. I haven't seen a scene anywhere, movie or TV, which captures in a more insightful fashion the stage where one's a “young adult“ searching for identity under harsh circumstances. (And yes, I've been there myself, as many of my friends.)

[mariab]

To Miss Marple:
Oh yes, Carrie (the original) is such a visually strong movie. Almost every single scene remains very strongly in memory.
Miss Marple wrote:
Robert De Nero taking Cybil Shepherd to a porn movie in Taxi Driver, touching and embarassing at the same time.
Cybil Sheperd was such a humorless, unpleasant character in that movie.
I hear a LOT about Cyd Charisse's legs by men in their 50s. I really have to pay attention next time a flick of hers is shown, to finally see what all this is about.
To Natalie Severn:
If you can believe it, Norma, every single time Psycho's on TV somehow I've managed to miss the shower scene – and the whole beginning of the movie. Probably starts too early in Germany.