Sunday, September 21, 2014

Top Movie Quotes continued, 85-81



Continuing the American Film Institute list of best film quotes, compiled in 2005, as selected by judges who comprised film artists, critics and historians. Selection criteria of the quotes included cultural impact and legacy, for example, to what extent the quote had become part of everyday language and the memories of the film as a result of the quote. Selections were from films shown in American cinemas, hence there is a weighting for American films. There have also been many superb films since 2005.

The list below provides the movie quotes on their own at first to enable you to see if you can identify the film and the actor speaking the line. This is followed by an identification and some trivia.

85. “My precious.”

84. "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast."

83. "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."

82. "Toga! Toga!"

81.”Hello, gorgeous.”

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85. “My precious.”


Spoken by Andy Serkis as Gollum in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)

Trivia:
  • Andy Serkis drank bottles and bottles of "Gollum juice" (a mixture of honey, lemon and ginger) to keep his throat lubricated for his intense vocal performance.
  • Andy Serkis was pitched the role of Gollum by his agent, who rang him up and asked him if he wanted to do three weeks' voiceover work in New Zealand. However, Peter Jackson was so blown away by Serkis' audition that he decided to have him perform the movements for Gollum as well.
  • Serkis said he based Gollum's desperation and cravings on the withdrawals of heroin addicts. 
  • Gollum's pupils signal his frame of mind. "Treacherous Gollum" has narrow pupils; "friendly Gollum" has slightly wider pupils. This is most obvious in the scene when the two sides of his personality struggle with each other.


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84. "Oh, no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast."



Spoken by Robert Armstrong as Cark Denham in King Kong, 1933

Trivia:
  • This film—along Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with (1937) and Laurel & Hardy movies--were thought to be Adolf Hitler’s favorites. 
  • Fay Wray, from the original King Kong, was supposed to make a cameo in the Peter Jackson remake, delivering the last line, "It was beauty killed the beast". Unfortunately, she died before this was possible. 
  • The name King Kong is said to have been created by director Merian C. Cooper who had happen to really like words that began with the letter "K". Some of which were Komodo, Kodak and Kodiak. His fascination with Douglas Burdens trip to the island of Komodo and subsequent naming of the giant lizard that lived there as the "King of Komodo" lead to the first part of the name King. The second part Kong is thought to be a combination of the words Komodo and Congo leading to King Kong. Cooper loved the name and the mysterious sound it had.

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83. "Listen to them. Children of the night. What music they make."


Spoken by Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in Dracula, 1931

Trivia:
  • When Bela Lugosi died in 1956, he was buried wearing the black silk cape he wore for this film.
  • The studio did not want the scene where Dracula attacks Renfield to be filmed due to the perceived gay subtext of the situation. A memo was sent to the director stating "Dracula is only to attack women". 
  • It was rumored that Bela Lugosi, who didn't speak English very well, learned his lines phonetically for this film. This however proved to be untrue as Lugosi had already learned English as well as he ever would by this point in his life. 

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82. "Toga! Toga!"


Spoken by John Belushi as John “Bluto” Blutarsky in National Lampoon’s Animal House, 1978

Trivia:
  • The hole John Belushi makes in the wall with the guitar is the only physical damage to the house the movie-makers made during the entire shoot. Instead of repairing it, the fraternity placed a frame around the hole with an engraved brass tag around the hole commemorating it. 
  • Te scene where John Belushi is teaching everyone the "dirty lyrics" of The Kiongsmen’s 1963 song "Louie Louie" is based on an actual investigation conducted by the FBI from 1963 to 1965 in which the agency spent more than 2-1/2 years trying to "decode" the song because of the supposed profanity that was "hidden" in the muffled lyrics. After spending more than two years and tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars, the agency announced that it could find no "obscene" words in the song. 
  • Originally popular during the late Fifties and early Sixties, fraternity "toga parties" became a huge fad all over again at colleges across America following the release of this film. 

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81.”Hello, gorgeous.”


Spoken by Barbara Streisand as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl, 1968  

Trivia:
  • Barbra Streisand tied with Katharine Hepburn for Best Actress - a first in the history of the Academy Awards. 
  • Co-stars Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif had an affair during the making of Funny Girl which Sharif details in his 1976 autobiography The Eternal Male. Later he told Rex Reed, "She's a monster. I had nothing to do but stand around. But she's a fascinating monster. Sometimes I just stood on the sidelines and watched her. I think her biggest problem is that she wants to be a woman and she wants to be beautiful and she is neither."
  • According to many sources, Barbra Streisand's reputation as a self-absorbed diva began partly as a result of a party thrown for her by producer Ray Stark. Stark wanted to introduce Streisand to his powerful Hollywood friends before shooting began on Funny Girl. She reportedly not only showed up very late, but she also spent the entire time at the party holed up in a single room forcing anyone who wanted to meet her to come to her. Stark's guests found her rude, aloof and arrogant for keeping them waiting. Streisand claimed that she was just shy about meeting them. 

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