Stupid Movie Lines (20 page)
Read Stupid Movie Lines Online
Authors: Kathryn Petras
Narrator in
The Weird World of LSD,
1967
On Weirdos, Why So:
He’s not crazy. He’s dead.
Doctor explaining his girlfriend’s father’s bizarre behavior in
Re-Animator,
1985
On Welcomes, Ones That Don’t Sound All That Great:
You will be welcome in Zukuru! The headman’s locust bean cakes—they’ll be your locust bean cakes! His fermented buffalo milk will be your fermented buffalo milk.
Sheena (Tanya Roberts) declaring her undying love for Ted Wass in
Sheena,
1984
On Western Clichés, Clichéd:
That’s a lot of man you’re carrying in those boots, stranger.
John Carradine to new cowpoke in town, Johnny (Sterling Hayden), in
Johnny Guitar,
1954
On What Doctors Say to Patients Who Have Turned into Brain-Eating Monsters:
It looks like you’re experiencing some complications.
Doctor to patient who is turning into a brain-eating monster after having received some experimental youth-serum injections in
Rejuvenatrix,
1988
On What Life Really Is, World-Weary Thoughts About:
Nancy:
We’re all spoiled for choice, aren’t we, darling? I knew after the first three days and nights that I’d blown it. I married for love instead of money. I came home and I found him sleeping in my garter belt. So, I left him and married a Mexican who owned an ocean liner and two hundred acres of Acapulco, and after about a week I knew that I’d really blown
it. Here I am in the bathroom, utterly pissed, alone on my birthday, without love, without money, asking myself, “What else is there?”
Claire:
Ambition and a half-hour of prime-time TV.
Jodie Foster (Nancy) complaining and Ellen Barkin (Claire) answering in
Siesta,
1987
On What Not to Pack for Your Honeymoon:
A corpse has no place on a honeymoon.
Conversation in
Dead Men Tell,
1941
On What People Who Give Names to Their Breasts Say:
Wife, showing one of her breasts to her husband:
Like it? Want to kiss it? Its name is Jasmine. But I can’t let you—because Cyclamen will get jealous.
Soon-to-be-dead wife Nathalie Delon to husband and soon-to-be-murderer Richard Burton in
Bluebeard,
1972
On What They Talk About in Space:
First astronaut:
Why, it’s a woman!
Second astronaut:
You can say that again—with all the necessary ingredients!
Two astonished astronauts meeting a woman on the thirteenth moon of Jupiter in
Fire Maidens of Outer Space,
1955
On What to Say After Your Lunch Partner’s Face Has Been Eaten by Slugs:
Businesswoman:
God! You never saw anything like what happened in that restaurant.
Businessman:
Oh, put it out of your mind, Sue!
Businesswoman:
How? His whole face was …
Mayor:
Uh, can I freshen your drinks?
Businesswoman:
I sure hope things like that don’t happen around here again!
Man and woman, who had been trying to consummate a business deal with the slug’s lunch, having a conversation with the town’s mayor in
Slugs,
1988
On What to Say to an Alien:
Alien:
It should interest you to know that I have visited hundreds of other worlds and your Earth seems most suitable.
Submarine commander:
Swell!
Bug-eyed alien and Earth fellow having a conversation in
The Atomic Submarine,
1959
On What to Say to Giant Evil Cucumbers:
I hate your living guts! You’re ugly! You think you’re going to make a slave of the world. Go on. Try your intellect on me!
Scientist’s wife (Beverly Garland), confronting the giant cucumber that is trying to take over Earth in
It Conquered the World,
1956
On What to Say to Giant Man-Killing Apes:
I’m a Libra. What sign are you? No wait, don’t tell me. I bet you’re an Aries, aren’t you?
Jessica Lange as Dwan, the lady in distress, to Kong in
King Kong,
1976
On What to Say to a Killer Whale:
I’d tell him I didn’t mean to kill his wife. I’d tell him I was sorry …
Sea captain Richard Harris explaining what he’d say to the killer Orca whale he is hunting in
Orca,
1977
On What to Say to Lovely Russian Secret Agents:
I always think of you as two girls: Anna, the lovely kid I thought was a refugee, and Olga, a Soviet Tootsie Roll that made a chump out of me.
All-American pilot John Wayne, to his love, the Russian double agent Janet Leigh, in
Jet Pilot,
1957
On What to Say to Psycho Commanders Before They Detonate Nuclear Warheads:
You need to get some sleep!
Navy SEAL to his psychotic commander, who is about to detonate a nuclear warhead underwater that will kill them all in
The Abyss,
1989
On What to Say to Slow-Moving Women:
You’re moving like a deeply offended Tibetan yak!
Crazed movie director Peter Finch, to his new protégée Kim Novak in
The Legend of Lylah Clare,
1968
On What to Say to Smiling Bad Guys:
It would be less repugnant to be strangled by a thousand serpents than to have to endure your smile.
Princess Mila (Lisa Foster) to the evil villan in
The Blade Master,
1984
On What to Say to a Woman on a Deserted Isle:
If the gods had meant me for another, then why, why, did they send you? Marry me at once—or leave my island!
South Seas hunk (Dayton Ka’ne) to his deserted island find Mia Farrow in
Hurricane,
1979
On What to Say to Your Other Head:
Moron:
Who are you?
Maniac:
I’m your brother.
Moron:
I don’t have a brother.
Maniac:
You do now.
Moron:
My neck hurts.
Maniac: Our
neck hurts, stupid!
The newly transplanted heads having one of their first discussions in
The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant,
1971
On What to Say When You’re Making Love to Another Man on Your Dead Husband’s Grave:
I’ve never kept anything from him. He’d like to know.
Beautiful widow explaining her actions in
Cemetery Man,
1995
On What to Say When You See a Burning Lake with Horrible Monsters Swimming Around:
I don’t like the look of this lake, sir.
Crewman expressing some doubts about the burning lake filled with horrible monsters in
The Land That Time Forgot,
1975
ED WOOD: THE KING OF THE STUPID MOVIE LINE
T
he lover of stupid movie lines finds a gold mine in the films of producer/writer/director/actor Ed Wood, who also cheerfully delivers incomprehensible plots, wooden acting, bizarre continuity, and horrifyingly bad scenery. His magnum opus,
Plan 9 from Outer Space
, has been consistently voted the worst movie of all time, but other films of his are just as bad. Wood had a tragic life—among other things he was a cross-dresser (he wore pink panties underneath his Marine uniform during World War II) before such behavior became yawningly clichéd, and he suffered during the 1950s and 1960s as a misunderstood, perversely bad genius … if genius is the word.
Today, of course, it is all different, and Wood has achieved in death an odd sort of cinematic success that was denied him in life. His film career was brought to the silver screen in an eponymous movie starring Johnny Depp, and today he has a legion of fans who can happily repeat verbatim the many screenplay gaffes that truly make him the Dan Quayle or Yogi Berra of incomprehensibly odd or bizarre
(stupid
doesn’t seem to be quite the right word) movie lines.
On Comebacks to Aliens, Great Moments in:
Colonel Edwards:
Why is it so important that you want to contact the governments of our Earth?
Eros the Alien:
Because of death.
Because all of you of Earth are idiots!
Fighter pilot:
Now, you just hold on, buster!
Tom Keene (the colonel), Dudley Manlove (the alien), and Gregory Walcott (the pilot), in
Plan 9 from Outer Space,
1959
On Dialogues with Aliens, Great Moments in:
Eros the Alien:
Your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb—split the atom! Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you bring the total destruction of the entire universe, served by our sun. The only explosion left is the solaronite.
Fighter pilot:
So what if we do develop this solaronite bomb—we’d be even a stronger nation than now!
Eros the Alien:
Stronger? You see! You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Fighter pilot:
That’s all I’m taking from you! [He punches the alien.]
Dudley Manlove (the alien) and Gregory Walcott (the pilot), in
Plan 9 from Outer Space,
1959
On Baldness, Interesting Thoughts About:
Men’s hats are so tight they cut off the blood flow to the head, thus cutting off the growth of hair. Seven out of ten men wear hats, so the advertisements say. Seven out of ten men are bald! But what about the ladies? Yes, modern woman is a hardworking individual also. But when modern woman’s day of work is done, that which is designed
for her home comfort, is comfort. Hats that give no obstruction to the blood flow. Hats that do not crush the hair. Interesting thought, isn’t it?
Psychiatrist (Timothy Farrell) in
Glen or Glenda?,
1952
On Great Thoughts of Modern Man:
Modern man is a hardworking human.
Psychiatrist (Timothy Farrell) in
Glen or Glenda?,
1952
On Things You Never Learned at the Police Academy:
Monsters, space people, mad doctors. They didn’t teach me about such things at the police academy.
Officer Kelton (Paul Marco) complaining in
Night of the Ghouls,
1959
On Fantastic Stories, Fantastic!:
Colonel:
This is the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard!
Pilot:
And every word of it’s true, too.
Colonel:
That’s the fantastic part of it!
Plan 9 from Outer Space,
1959
On What to Say When You See a Giant Man-Eating Bird:
Pilot 1:
I’ve seen some mighty big chicken hawks back on the farm, but this one takes the cake.
Pilot 2:
Honest to Pete, I’ll never call my mother-in-law an old crow again!
Pilots discussing the giant man-eating bird in
The Giant Claw,
1957
On What to Say When You See a Giant Slime Mold:
What you are looking at is no ordinary plant!