Movies: My top 15 and top 100 list

I don’t like many comedies, but I noticed that you picked a few of my favorites for your top 100.

John Cleese said that writing comedy movies is so hard to do that he wrote only one great script in his life: A Fish Called Wanda. This is the guy who co-wrote the two Monty Python movies on your list.

I loved Groundhog Day. I heard the writers structured the script on the five stages of grief, so even though the concept of the repeating day is wildly fantastic, the story somehow rings true.

A couple of Steve Martin movies made the list, but not my fave, the remake of Cyrano called Roxanne.

The Odd Couple. . . of course. For me, the best humor comes out naturally out of the situation. A lot of comedies try to hard too be funny. Neil Simon always makes it look easy. 

And if your were including comedies in your top 15, one that would have to be there is Ninotchka. I wish Garbo made a few more like this before she retired. 

You missed Ninotchka, Jim. Harry has it at #3.

I tried to make a top 100 list years ago but I had trouble being so selective. I ended up with around 150. I’ve been meaning for years to post it to my web site. A while ago I used it to extract a top 10 list. I did this a few years back, so there are no films from this millenium.

These are in alphabetical order — I saw no need to rank them against one another:

Casablanca 1942
Conspiracy Theory 1997
How Green Was My Valley 1945
Lawrence of Arabia 1962
My Cousin Vinny 1992
Scent of a Woman 1993
Shane 1955
The Big Country 1963
The Hustler 1960
Tin Cup 1996

Thanks for pointing out my mistake, Adam. I guess my eyes glazed over from looking at too many titles.

I find it interesting that the only movie that both you and HB have in your top ten is Casablanca. I suspect most people would put Casablanca on their list. There have been quite a few movies over the years with great scripts and strong acting and directing. Why does that movie affect everyone so strongly? 

Maybe it’s the unabashed romanticism.

Of the 100 movies I’d like to especially second two of them. 

1. North by Northwest . Terrifically entertaining Hitchcock. Possibly his best movie.

2. Witness for the Prosecution. Topnotch Agatha Christie and Billy Wilder. With delightful performances by Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. And the perfectly cast Marlene Dietrich.

 

I do like comedies and would like to recommend four old ones.

1. It Happened One Night (1934) The famous screwball comedy and rightfully so. A highlight: the hitchhiking scene.

2. The Awful Truth (1937) Another marvelous screwball comedy. A highlight: the scene with the dog and the hat.

3. Bachelor Mother (1939) This one may be a personal quirk, but I just love this movie. A highlight: Charles Coburn as the “grandfather.”

4. Sitting Pretty (1948) Highly entertaining. Clifton Webb is perfect as a genius babysitter.

 

I’d also like to recommend two swashbucklers: The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) and the famous The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

 

I’ve seen most of the 100, but a few did not do it for me. Picnic. The Producers. A Thousand Clowns.

 

By the way, How Green Was My Valley was from 1941, not 1945.

I just watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels based on Harry’s recommendation, and I second his opinion! It’s a throwback to the caper movies I remember from the early ’60s.

The Winslow Boy 1950 is a copy of the 1948 original. Terrance Rattigan adapted his play for the movie.

There is a 1999 version of this. It was adapted by David Mamet and its available in a DVD format.

Dr Binswanger, do you know of a DVD copy that one can purchase?

For anyone who may be interested, quite a number of HB’s top 100 movies are showing on Turner Classic Movies in February.

Absence of Malice  2/26

The Apartment  2/18

Auntie Mame   2/21

Birdman of Alcatraz  2/20

The Bridge on the River Kwai  2/15

Cabaret  2/21

The Caine Mutiny  2/14

Camille  2/2

Casablanca  2/8

Father of the Bride  2/12

42nd Street  2/2

Gigi  2/16

Gone With the Wind  2/6

The Goodbye Girl  2/23

The Harvey Girls 2/9

How to Marry a Millionaire  2/13

The Hunchback of Notre Dame  2/13

Inherit the Wind  2/19

Judgment at Nuremberg  2/19

Key Largo  2/15

Laura  2/9

The Lavender Hill Mob  2/12

The Lion in Winter  2/27

The Maltese Falcon  2/15

A Man for All Seasons  2/19

The Miracle Worker  2/12

Mister Roberts  2/25

National Velvet  2/8

North by Northwest  2/3

The Philadelphia Story  2/7

Pillow Talk  2/16

The Producers 2/21

The Spirit of St. Louis  2/12

To Kill a Mockingbird  2/18

Top Hat  2/3

The Verdict  2/26

Wait Until Dark  2/28

Witness for the Prosecution  2/19

As a cinephile, thanks to Harry for the list and to all who commented. I picked up suggestions for films with which I was not familiar.

I’ll add two movies which I enjoy and which you may not have seen, True Believer (R Downey Jr., James Woods, an excellent supporting cast) and The Illusionist (written/directed by Neil Burger, Edward Norton, Jessica Biel).

And no, our potential future friendship does not turn on whether you like them. ” class=”spSmiley” />  

I just re-watched The Spirit of St. Louis, since it was on Turner Classic Movies. Highly recommended. Serious value orientation, plus fascinating depiction of heroic people working hard, creatively (you know, work — that activity that was MIA in the Atlas Shrugged movies). Fascinating as history, and the technology is part of the story — the airplane is almost a character. I could go on, but IMO it’s a must-see …

I agree Tom. On the theme of flight, I don’t see listed The Flight of the Phoenix, with Jimmy Stewart. I recently saw this film for the first time in years. Oddly, the place town where they are trying to land is Benghazi.

Great story about using the mind and effort to solve life and death problems.

Thanks, Robert. I tried to add that to my Netflix queue, but they don’t have the DVD of the Jimmy Stewart version. So, it’s on my queue with an “unknown” delivery date. I assume you don’t recommend the 2004 remake with Dennis Quaid. 

Also on the flight theme, and also with Jimmy Stewart, I highly recommend 1951’s “No Highway in the Sky.” It’s based on a Nevil Shute novel.

Thanks Adam. Tom, although I like Dennis Quaid, I haven’t seen the remake. Sadly, remakes are almost always a disappointment, so I tend to avoid them. (David Mamet’s The Winslow Boy was a nice surprise however.)

I agree The Flight of the Phoenix is a terrific movie. Along those lines, I recommend 1953’s Island in the Sky starring John Wayne. It’s about a plane going down in frigid Canada, surviving, and rescue attempts.

Two great movies I got from HBL (or other Objectivist recommendation ) over the years:

Chocolat (2000) 

October Sky (1999)

Five of my Favorites:

“Princess Caraboo” is a beautiful film, which if I didn’t know better, I’d swear was written by an AR admirer or even AR herself.

A beautiful young, exotic woman is found wandering (apparently begging) in 18th century England.  The punishment for begging is hanging.  The woman has darkish skin, speaks no English, and has exotic tattoos on her legs.  Through hand gestures she appears to be a Spice Island princess thrown overboard by a passing merchant ship – but local constables consider her a fake.

The evidence is evenly balanced: beggar or princess.  The London reporter who investigates the story falls in love with the woman.  The conflict: her very life and his very happiness.  If the reporter discovers that she is a beggar, she will be hanged.  If the reporter discovers that she is a princess, then she is out of reach – for he is commoner.

The real issue is like the issue in “Night of January 16th”.  Who do you, the viewer, want her to be?  Do you want her to a beggar, or do you want her to be a princess?  

Excellent acting and production values.

“Open Range” is an unacknowledged updating and adaptation of “Shane” but with much better acting and production values.  Simply beautiful to watch. 

Two of my very favorite films are unfortunately TV films, and thus not readily available.  But I was able to transfer VHS to DVD.  The first is “Hobson’s Choice”.  This an updating and adaptation of the earlier British film.  It stars Richard Thomas, Sharon Gless, and

---

Lillian Gish!  This film celebrates the business owner.  The scene of Gless attempting to borrow money from Gish in order to set up her business, and Gish driving a hard bargain on the interest rate reads like a scene from _Atlas Shrugged_.

The other TV film is “All My Sons” with Michael Learned (mother from the Waltons).

Finally, I have to recommend the earlier British version of “The Winslow Boy” over the modern update.  Production values on the modern are lush; but the script or the earlier version if far, far superior.

_Twelve Angry Men_ has an epistemological theme.

I am pretty surprised the film Airplane! is on this list. May I ask for a justification? I tried to watch it a few weeks ago and turned it off halfway through. I thought the humour would appeal only to adolescent males.

Here are, approximately, my 25 favorite movies, not totally in order:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)

Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

The Miracle Worker (1962)

Les Miserables (1934, French, 4 hrs. 40 min.) The 1935 Hollywood version starring Fredric March and Charles Laughton is also excellent.

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

Ben-Hur (1959)

On The Waterfront (1954)

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Fiddler on the Roof (1971)

The Sound of Music (1965)

Patton (1971)

Network (1976)

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

A Night at the Opera (1935)

Gone With the Wind (1939)

Camelot (1967)

Vertigo (1958)

Casablanca (1942)

The Godfather (1972)

Citizen Kane (1941)

All About Eve (1950)

Spartacus (1960)

  Although I did not include any Greta Garbo movies, she is, by far, my favorite actress. However, aside from Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke’s performances in The Miracle Worker, I would say that the best individual performance by an actress was by Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). Although there is only film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, a top 100 list could easily include 10 of his films, along with 10 by my other favorite director, Akira Kurosawa.

I had the chance recently to watch “High Noon” and “Inherit the Wind.”

I was born more than thirty years after the creation of these films, but I still found both enjoyable.

I’ll keep these reviews short.

High Noon:

This film portrayed a newly married sheriff who was just about to leave his hometown, which he cleaned up from criminals. When he finds out that a number of hooligans and murderers had been found not guilty and were returning to town to enact revenge, he turns his horse and buggy around and chooses not to abandon the town. 

The majority of the movie depicted him trying to round up other townsmen to help him combat the bandits, but none of them show any sort of courage and actively abandon him in his time of need. So, at the end of the film he is alone in a shootout against the hooligans, and with a bit of accidental help from his wife, he manages to shoot them all down. He rides off without a word to the cowards in the town.

I enjoyed the film and thought that the morals portrayed were consistent with Objectivism, and I thought the shootout at the end was exciting. That said, I found the meat of the film to be a bit repetitive. After the 5th+ encounter with a neighbor who abandons the protagonist, it was obvious to see where the film was going, and I wanted things to move along a bit quicker. 

Inherit the Wind:

I enjoyed this movie much more. It was about a school teacher who was teaching Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution to his classes, even though it was against the law to teach anything other than creationism. The majority of the film depicted the school teacher’s courtroom trial, and two famous lawyers played by Spencer Tracy and Fredric March go head to head as defense and prosecutor, respectively.

Their performances were simply fantastic, and the film had some of the best dialogue and acting that I’ve ever seen. The movie was exciting and values-driven, and depicted the collectivism and thoughtlessness that can accompany religion.

One particularly interesting part was when the defense argued that if the freedom to think were outlawed as was the case with the school teacher being able to teach Charles Darwin’s Theory, then one day it might become illegal to teach creationism in schools. Well, this is the case today. Does that line of thinking hold? Because creationism is illegal to teach in many public schools, is this a restriction on the freedom of thought in the same way that banning the teaching of evolution once was? It seems that the defense was advocating for a more decentralized approach to education which is driven largely by the beliefs of individual teachers. This approach might even contradict the values of “Common Core” or education standards more generally, which some Objectivists have argued for extensively, at least to me personally. I would be interested to read subscribers’ thoughts on this point. 

Like most movies which ‘stand up well over time’, the scripts for these two films are superb. The same is true for such films as Casablanca, To Catch a Thief, North by Northwest, Judgement at Nuremberg, and a Man for All Seasons, as well a number of the films on the list above.

Just watched the Miracle Worker for the first time based on your list.

Brilliant movie, just wish it was longer…

Re: Susan DeYoung’s post 10589 of 04/15/16 at 5:17pm

I see I spelled Ed’s last name wrong and I obviously was able to post my previous post.  Please if you can refer to that post.

Re: Susan DeYoung’s post 112919 of 04/15/16 at 5:19pm

I don’t know who this Ed Wildarsky is, but he’s got great taste!

— Adam Wildavsky

P.S. I promise I’ll post my top 150 list, organized by category, real soon now.

Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 112920 of 04/15/16 at 5:31pm 

Thank you for post  Adam Wildavsky. There I spelled it correctly this time.

Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 112920 of 04/15/16 at 5:31pm

I am trying to reply to my 10589 post.  Please see that post. Thank you.

Re: Adam Wildavsky’s post 106093 of 01/28/15 at 10:41pm

Good post Adam,  I also posted another post but cannot recall the number plus it was some time ago.  Do you recall it Adam Wildavsky? I do hope so because I am in trouble if not.   Please reply Reply To The Author.  Thank you and anyone reading this message.

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

There’s a typo for the date on HB’s Top 15 list for Yankee Doodle Dandy. It should be 1942, not 1952. The date on the Top 100 list is the correct one.

*sb [Thanks! I fixed the date in HB’s post and also the breakdown by decade.]

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

Onto the top-100 list.

I suggest that “onto” doesn’t mean the same thing as “on to,” and the latter is what is meant here.

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 105952 of 1/7/15

I couldn’t help but notice that you omitted: Hardware Wars and Attack of the Killer Shrews.

*sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 120157 of 8/27/17

Thank you for recommending Breaking the Sound Barrier, which I found on Netflix (DVD) as The World War: Disc 1: The Sound Barrier. Wonderful. Inspiring. And a tremendous score. I’m recovering from a (minor) surgery this week, and the film really lifted my spirits.

*sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

Apparently “real soon now” means in about 30 months. In the meantime, my list has grown from roughly 150 titles to around 200, plus honorable mentions. No doubt there are many I’ve forgotten as well. You can find it here:

http://tameware.com/adam/myfavoritefilms.html

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

Harry, I count 190 titles in your Top 100 list! I know only too well how that goes – so many to choose from.

*sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

The list impels me to find two films which have been recommended to me but which I’ve neglected:

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch 1982
Scream of Fear 1961

Thanks!

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

I can think of many good movies, but it’s difficult to rank them. I can’t decide on an all-time favourite movie. However, it’s relatively easy to come up with a comparative ranking: there are a handful of movies that I loved and that are superlative examples of good movie-making. There are another handful of movies that I loved, but which have some flaws. Then there are many movies that are good, but that I don’t class amongst my all-time favourites.

Top tier:

Black Swan — a unique story, executed perfectly. Natalie Portman is perfectly cast as the tightly-wound, emotionally repressed “white swan” who learns to unleash her hidden dark side.

Fight Club — ostensibly a criticism of consumer capitalism, the real message of this movie (as I took it) was the tendency of people to continually seek a new system to conform to. The anarchist revolutionaries of ‘Project Mayhem’ wind up creating a quasi-fascist cult that’s even more conformist than the society they were trying to overthrow.

Ex Machina — brilliant, polished, tightly-plotted sci-fi drama revolving around an elaborate version of the Turing test. A female android must prove that she can pass as human, while her (human) captor gradually reveals that he is rather inhuman himself.

The Princess Bride — an incredibly benevolent, fun movie, packed with tons of clever lines and humorous scenarios. “Plato, Socrates, Aristotle — morons!”

 

Second tier:

Les Miserables (2012) — a very good screen version of Hugo’s epic. Some people disliked the use of Hollywood actors as singers, but I think it lends more dramatic/emotional weight to their performances. Still, the movie glosses over some parts of the story, which can be hard to follow as a result.

Red Sparrow — this movie had a powerful story, and resonated with me deeply, but the plot becomes overcomplicated in the second half, and doesn’t quite carry the weight of the themes introduced at the start of the film.

Sunshine — a potentially amazing, one-of-a-kind psychological sci-fi thriller — which for some reason turns nonsensical in the third act.

The Martian — very well-researched story of a resourceful individualist surviving against all odds.

 

Other very good movies:

Groundhog Day — for similar reasons to those given above.

 

A Clockwork Orange

Dr Strangelove

2001: A Space Oddysey

All of Stanley Kubrick’s movies are excellent — based on deep philosophical ideas, technically brilliant, and with a unique and well-defined sense of life. Still, they are ‘cold,’ a reflection of Kubrick’s ‘auteur’ approach to movie-making.

Team America — one of my favourite comedy movies. Crude humor, but some brilliant satire. Skewers all sides equally, while still having a moral core. The following exchange perfectly satirizes the impotent bluster of the UN:

Hans Blix: I’m sorry, but the UN must be firm with you. Let me see your whole palace, or else…

Kim Jong-il: (in English) Or else what?

Hans Blix: Or else we will be very, very angry with you. And we will write you a letter, telling you how angry we are.

 

The Shawshank Redemption

True Grit

The above two movies are both very good portrayals of determined protagonists struggling against constant obstacles.

 

The Dark Knight

Inception

Interstellar

Christopher Nolan’s movies are often epic in scope, and packed full of interesting ideas, but seem to lack something thematically. For example, I found the artificial dream technology of Inception fascinating, but didn’t really care too much about the characters. Still, they’re all rewarding to watch.

Pirates of Silicon Valley — a dramatization of Silicon Valley titans, portraying the personal and commercial clash between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

/sb

Re: Isaac Lewis’ post 131271 of 6/18/20

The Social Network — a (rather fictionalised) portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg as a 21st century Citizen Kane.

It is not a “portrayal,” “fictionalized” or not; it is a malicious, envy-driven take-down of an existential giant. One depraved thread of the film uses racist sexual fetishization of East Asian women (Mark’s then lover, and now his wife, is East Asian). In the film, a pair of Asian women have sex, with a pair of men they just picked up, on top of adjacent toilets in the lavatory of an MIT fraternity house. Zuckerberg is portrayed as a generally nasty person — but he can’t help it, because he’s autistic…

Please judge.

/sb

Re: Adam Reed’s post 131277 of 6/18/20

Having thought about it, I think you are right. I deleted that movie from my post.

I still think that movie has positives: it shows some of the intellectual and creative effort behind FB — for example, by showing how the fictional version of Zuck slowly develops the concept for the site while he’s working on it — and it also has the character make some points in his own defence (e.g., when he argues that the Winklevoss twins did not actually invent Facebook).

It also represents certain aspects of ‘noughties tech culture pretty well, such as Zuck’s “hack” that went viral (I studied computer science in the late 2000s and that was the period when you could still hack together a novelty site and have it spread like wildfire around a university campus).

Still, I cannot in good conscience recommend a movie that makes up information about a real person. The real story is interesting enough, and does not need to be embellished. Pirates of Silicon Valley is much better in that regard.

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

I won’t dispute the picks made on this thread; most are also on my list and I’ll watch those that weren’t.  So thanks to everyone who’s contributed over the years.  This was a real find during the 2020/21 lockdowns!

But Harry’s assertion (“The 1970s was a lost decade for movies”) gave me some pause.  I can’t disagree with his broad generalization with one exception (and no, not “Star Wars”).

After quickly re-reviewing its plot and various heroic portrayals in case my conclusions derived from 40 years ago (before I’d even begun studying Ayn Rand) required amending, I could still find no significant error.

So I’ve decided to counter with one word.  I believe it will suffice.

Rocky

On a personal note, as art, this film has continually raised my spirit (now well into my late 60’s) when I occasionally felt like letting that spark go out in whatever battle I had steered myself.

I won’t comment on the other films in the franchise (which, like this first one, had their good and bad points), other than to go a bit farther out on a limb for one: The opening sequence of “Rocky III” with its “Eye of the Tiger” soundtrack was a concise, dramatic concretization of the plot’s two major and disparate conceptual world views.  It brilliantly sets the stage for the remainder of the film.  It reminded me of how Tom Clancy would juxtapose seemingly disconnected tributary events until, later in the book, he’d crystallized their confluence into one of sobering, grave, Mississippi Delta proportions.

Or in this instance the heroic James “Clubber” Lang’s challenge, “I want Balboa!  I want Balboa!”

Here is the opening sequence of “Rocky III”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZldDvunHQd0

Warning: The quick clips of knockouts can appear brutal.  I found they are incidental to the theme and not gratuitous.  They exist in context with the film’s two primary heroic antagonists–one who has fallen because with fame and wealth he lost focus on what mattered to him; one who is on the rise because he is absolutely committed to remain focused on what matters to him.

/sb

Re: Isaac Lewis’ post 131271 of 6/18/20

Ex Machina — brilliant, polished, tightly-plotted sci-fi drama revolving around an elaborate version of the Turing test. A female android must prove that she can pass as human, while her (human) captor gradually reveals that he is rather inhuman himself.

Ex Machina is not at all about the Turing test. It’s obvious from the beginning that the android is conscious and self-conscious (a much bigger achievement than the ability of a sophisticated machine to simply pass for human). Although the protagonist has the task of figuring out whether the android can pass the Turing test, the movie itself, and the viewer, take for granted that at least this is the case; the fact is established quickly in the first scene between the prize winner and the android.

The movie is about whether it is possible for a fully conscious and rational being to be utterly amoral and manipulative. And the answer is yes. As you point out, there is an android example of this amorality (at least one android example, possibly two) and a human example. 

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

These additional titles are of acceptable-to-good quality and have not been mentioned on most others’ lists.  I  have mentioned a few of the titles myself elsewhere but not many.  I’ve also included some quotes.

 

1776 (1972) – “This is a revolution, dammit!  We’re going to have to offend SOMEbody!”

Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) – “Pearl Harbor? They must mean The Phillipines…”

Sebastian (1968) – “How many words can you make out of ‘thorough’?”

Midway (2019) – “It’s me, isn’t it?”

Phantom (2013) – “More precision from Squadron Command. I’ve heard they’ll shoot people just to keep their paperwork straight. “

Cold Comfort Farm (1995) – “Seth, you drain the well.  There’s a neighbor missing.”

Raise The Titanic (1980) – “I’m a dynamite fisher-person. I just can’t put the wormy on the hooky. “

Inside The Third Reich (1982 WTBS miniseries) – “If they ask you to inspect a camp in Upper Silesia, don’t go.  Don’t go to Auschwitz under any circumstances.”

The Monolith Monsters (1957) – “The desert’s full of things that don’t belong.”

Fantastic Voyage (1966) – Stephen Boyd: “They can’t shrink ME…?”  Edmond O’Brien: “It’s only for an hour.”

Phantom of the Opera (1962) – “Yes, Mrs. Tucker. Today we both got the sack. “

The Architecture Of Doom (1989) – (The old women of the village said) “This National Socialism is a tough one; it is only the teacher that might manage it… or the barber.”

The Protectors (1972 British TV) – “…where the soul of a man is easy to buy…”

Le Mans (1971) – Lisa: “But what is so important about driving faster than anyone else?” Michael: ” A lot of people go through life doing things badly. Racing’s important to men who do it well. When you’re racing, it’s life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.”

Destination: Moon (1950) – “Unless these (spacesickness) pills work, space travel isn’t going to be… popular.”

Apollo 13 (1995) – Gene Krantz: “I don’t care about what anything was designed to do, I care about what it CAN do. “

Downfall (2004) – Oberleutenant: “Orders, sir?”  General Weidling: “I am to be shot.”

The Addams Family (1964) – Morticia: “Mind if I smoke?”

The Endless Summer (1965) – “Many of us ride (surf) winter and summer, but the ultimate thing for us would be to have an endless summer. The only way to do this is to travel around the world. “

The Endless Summer II (1994) – “I thought the locals at Huntington were mean…”

Operation Crossbow (1965) –  Barbara Rueting as Hannah Reitsch while inside a Fiesler buzz bomb prototype after four test pilot deaths: “The autopilot can’t correct! Taking over manual controls!”

Zeppelin (1971) – “You have met Professor Autschul and Count Zeppelin socially?”

Have Gun Will Travel (1957) – “This gun was handcrafted to my specifications and I rarely draw it unless I mean to use it. Would you care for a demonstration? “

Perry Mason (1957) – “My fee?  Since I haven’t been able to give you any advice, nothing.”

Lincoln (2012) – (Thaddeus Stevens): “Trust? Gentlemen, you seem to have forgotten that our chosen career is politics. “

Zelig (1983) – “I worked with Freud in Vienna. We broke over the concept of penis envy. Freud felt that it should be limited to women. “

Solo (1981 British TV) – “What are you doing out here?”  “Waiting for Alec Guiness.”

D.O.A. (1949) – Homicide Captain: “Who was murdered?” Bigelow: “I was.”

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 99465 of 1/7/15

One movie I didn’t see on your list was Other People’s Money. Can you tell me if you liked it?  I think that was a beautiful and upliting story.  

/sb

Re: Harry Binswanger’s post 149901 of 7/26/24

I would suggest Working Girl and The Secret of My Success. Both are set in NYC with shots of the WTC.

/sb

Re: Jeffrey Remboldt’s post 150230 of 8/26/24

If you are referring to Michael J. Fox’s 1987 film, then yes!  There are many scenes in which you not only see the skyline, but also the busy Manhattan streets.  The film is quite entertaining, too.

*sb