absolutely...
Posted on 05/02/2010 7:12:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
TCM shows One Night often. All these shows are viewable on that channel. I’ve discovered so many NEW favorites - for instance, Joel McCrea in the 30’s and 40’s was gorgeous and his scene on the front steps in The More the Merrier is one of the sexiest ever!
Another example? Casablanca, the night before Ilsa and Victor Lazlo leave. Earlier, Rick Blaine has the following conversation with a beautiful young Bulgarian refugee:
Annina: Oh, monsieur, you are a man. If someone loved you very much, so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the world, but she did a bad thing to make certain of it, could you forgive her?
Rick: Nobody ever loved me that much.
Annina: And he never knew, and the girl kept this bad thing locked in her heart? That would be all right, wouldn't it?
Rick: You want my advice?
Annina: Oh, yes, please.
Rick: Go back to Bulgaria.
It is clear from context that Annina has agreed to engage in adulterous sexual intercourse with Casablanca's Prefect of Police, Capt. Louis Renault, in exchange for the exit visas she and her (unwitting) husband need to escape. (Lisbon will not accept refugees from Morocco without visas signed by the country's Vichy government.)
During the course of the movie, Rick comes to possess two "letters of transit" personally signed by General Charles De Gaulle -- letters that are accepted as exit visas in any country outside of the Axis powers. Victor Lazlo, an escaped freedom fighter fleeing from a Nazi death camp, and his wife Isla Lund, need these documents if they are to escape the SS.
Unfortunately for the Lazlos, Ilsa had broken Rick's heart in favor of Lazlo in Paris several years prior. Now, Rick Blaine finds in his hands the power of life and death over the man responsible for ruining his life.
In the end, of course, Rick's conscience gets the better of him, and he gives the letters of transit to Victor and Isla. As the airplane for Portugal and safety prepares to take off, Rick hands the documents to Victor Lazlo. The dialog between the two men makes it plain the price Isla paid for changing Rick's mind.
Victor Laszlo: Everything is in order.
Rick: All except one thing. There's something you should know before you leave.
Victor Laszlo: Mr. Blaine, I don't ask you to explain anything.
Rick: I'm going to anyway, because it may make a difference to you later on. You said you knew about Ilsa and me.
Victor Laszlo: Yes.
Rick: What you didn't know was that she was at my place last night when you were. She came there for the letters of transit. Isn't that true, Ilsa?
Ilsa: Yes.
Rick: She tried everything to get them and nothing worked. She did her best to convince me she was still in love with me but that was over long ago. For your sake she pretended it wasn't — and I let her pretend.
Victor Laszlo: I understand.
And so do we.
Then, in one of the most famous scenes in all of cinema, Rick and Ilsa say their goodbyes:
Rick: Last night we said a great many things. You said I was to do the thinking for both of us. Well, I've done a lot of it since then, and it all adds up to one thing: you're getting on that plane with Victor where you belong.
Ilsa: But, Richard, no, I... I...
Rick: Now, you've got to listen to me! You have any idea what you'd have to look forward to if you stayed here? Nine chances out of ten, we'd both wind up in a concentration camp. Isn't that true, Louie?
Captain Renault: I'm afraid Major Strasser would insist.
Ilsa: You're saying this only to make me go.
Rick: I'm saying it because it's true. Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor. You're part of his work, the thing that keeps him going. If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow — but soon, and for the rest of your life.
Ilsa: But what about us?
Rick: We'll always have Paris. We didn't have, we, we lost it until you came to Casablanca. We got it back last night.
Ilsa: When I said I would never leave you...
Rick: And you never will. But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that.
[Ilsa lowers her head and begins to cry]
Rick: Now, now...
[Rick gently places his hand under her chin and raises it so their eyes meet]
Rick: Here's looking at you kid.
Cue la Marseillaise! Buy War Bonds! The End!
I miss old movies.
The stupid age for movies is now.
absolutely...
At least they could tell a story.
Take a look at “The Pacific”. Spielberg and Hanks can’t make it through any 45 minutes of plot in the miniseries without a 15 minute sex scene.
Just think of having to compress a 3 year World War in the Pacific theater from before Pearl Harbor to after Nagasaki into 7 or so 1-2 hr segments, yet over 10% to a quarter of the film time is dedicated to sex scenes.
Speaks volumes to the incredibly perverted leadership in the film-making.
"We'll always have Paris."
Rick was fighting for the wrong side in Spain, in my opinion. Still, it’s my favorite Hollywood movie!
My fave too-—and I’ll add Notorious, Maltese Falcon and African Queen.
Holy cow, 26 times?
Actually I can relate. My friends and I were little kids when we saw it in the theater, and it practically defined our childhood. Nearly all of our pretend play for the next several years was Star Wars based (it was always a fight over who got to be Han Solo). That movie is still seared into me in a pretty fundamental way, as corny as that sounds.
I call this bull. There were horrible movies made under the code... and great movies made without it. (and vice versa)
Just a few that are made for the ages and made after the code:
2001
A Clockwork Orange
Logan’s Run
Blade Runner
Star Wars
The Godfather
Fiddler on the Roof
Goodfellas
Schindler’s List
Amadeus
Full Metal Jacket
One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Rocky
Patton
Unforgiven
...just to name a few.
In my defense, it’s the only movie that I did that with. I was also a HUGH Star Trek TOS and 2001 a space odyssey fan. The previews to Star Wars completely ruined the movie Silver Streak for me at the theater.
It was a quantum leap in movie entertainment for me.
You beat me to it. One of the greatest movie lines ever written.
If you liked Sixth Sense you’ll also like Unbreakable. It was written by the same guy and has the same lead guy (can’t believe I’m blanking on his name), plus Samuel Jackson. The concept is different but it has an equally clever and satisfying twist.
Another good one along those lines is The Game, with Michael Douglas.
Thank the Good Lord. That was the biggest soap opera ever put on film.
Bruce Willis and M. Night Shyamalan??
The people running the code may have had a better virtuous grasp of justice than those who think illegitimate violence is just.
That’s them.
I am sorry to have to ask this but did you bother to read any of the article? If so, I must have missed your sarcasm. It is hilarious that the vast majority of the films you chose to illustrate your assertion that good films were still made after the fall of the code, were themselves the very few films made since 1968 to the code's standard! If you intended this self-depricating irony, I applaud your wit!!!
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