August 1, 2011

"We all remember that classic scene from The Godfather where the movie producer Jack Woltz wakes up with a horse's head in his bed."

So begins a TPM post, where you know without glancing ahead that it's some damned analogy for the debt-ceiling deal. Predictably:
... Mario Puzo's description of Woltz's ensuing panic oddly parallels that of the Democratic debt negotiators when they realized the Tea Party idealogues [sic] really were willing to risk default.
Um. Okay. That reminds me. I've been meaning to ask... And I don't want another post about the debt deal. In that scene in "The Godfather"... we just see the guy slowly waking up and finally noticing there's a bleeding horse head in his bed. It's great cinema. You never forget it. But what the hell kind of a heavy sleeper was Jack Woltz anyway? I'd love to see the missing part of the story, where guys holding a giant, dripping horse head open the bedroom door, walk across the room, peel back the covers — I guess they'd have to set the head down — put the head in the bed, gently replace the bed clothes, and sneak back out of there. All that time, Woltz is snoozing peacefully.

The cinematic trick is: You're so preoccupied with the startling thing you've actually seen as you discover the horse head along with Woltz that you have no mental space remaining in which to ask how'd they get that thing in there? You might ask: What sort of people would do a thing like that? — which is the aspect of the scene that TPM invokes in its absurd analogy. But you're not supposed to think: No way could they do that. In fact, if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much.

132 comments:

Scott M said...

Tea Party members would never sneak into someone's room for any reason as this would be viewed a gross invasion of privacy and personal sovereignty.

caseym54 said...

I always wondered how they got the rest of the horse OUT of the bedroom. But I guess that would have been even messier and probably a bit noisier.

Icepick said...

I always assumed that Luca Brasi had slipped in first and chloroformed the sleeping Woltz, thus insuring he wouldn't wake up during the staging. Does the book clear that detail up at all?

The Crack Emcee said...

if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much.

Nah, I've envisioned that very scenario, coming to it in the same manner you did - without TPM, of course.

It could be done - if you know the guy's a heavy sleeper before hand. Anything can.

Hell, this was done while everybody was crashed-the-fuck-out,...

CrankyProfessor said...

Hobbits. Mobsters. Can't they stick to one vile anti-tea party characterization?

ndspinelli said...

Paralysis by analysis. Although I do analyze but not to the detriment of enjoyment. This being one of my fav flicks, I actually had thought of that scene. Movie folks notoriously take sleeping pills..I always assumed Woltz had taken one and was out like a light.

TWM said...

I always assumed that, being from Hollywood, he was in a booze and drug-induced heavy slumber.

Bob Ellison said...

If you're very, very careful, you can time your steps and the placement of the horse's head to be masked by the sleeper's breathing. His unconscious mind will interpret the dripping blood as coming from a leaky faucet.

Or so I've been told.

Bayoneteer said...

Cuz mob guys are just that good. Look at Whitey Bulger. Hell, look at any of them. They kill many people and go into witness protection instead of LIP or the needle.

dbp said...

I think the horse head trick could be done: In the Marine Corps, I was involved in two tricks, each of which was harder, if less grisly.

Once, we lifted up a guys rack (bunk bed) while he was sleeping and carefully lowered it onto empty soda cans. This requires a lot of strength plus delicacy--since you don't want the guy to wake up and the cans will collapse if you are not careful. The payoff comes when he rolls over in the middle of the night and the whole bed drops five inches.

Another trick, done three times that I can remember, we lifted up a mattress, complete with Marine sleeping and moved it to: The shower room, a janitorial closet and outside on the grass. This was a 3rd floor and there was no elevator.

For all of these pranks, there may have been alcohol involved.

Larry J said...

I actually thought of that scene when I read that Disney is copyrighting the term "SEAL Team 6." Do they really want to piss off some of the biggest bad-asses in the US military? These are guys who can cause a lot of damage to whatever gets in their way.

caplight said...

TWM beat me to it. Alcohol and the old fashioned barbiturates that Hollywood doctors used to prescribe by the truck load. That combo could easily snow a person under that deeply.

TWM said...

"TWM beat me to it. Alcohol and the old fashioned barbiturates that Hollywood doctors used to prescribe by the truck load. That combo could easily snow a person under that deeply."

Yeah, when you think about it, the only thing missing was a 13 year old drugged-up wannabe actress in the bed next to him ala Roman Polanski.

Lucius said...

Francis Coppola is one of my idols, but the "Godfather" movies are, on balance, wildly overpraised.

Wonderful, yes; but not up right next to Citizen Kane, Verigo, Persona, The Searchers . . .

All three films' plots are Byzantine capers longer on mood than sense.

As to the murder of the prostitute in Part II: if, as seems everyone's intention, Neri did it, that throws the whole trilogy out of whack.

It puts him--and Michael-- in the boat of the John Lithgow killer in "Blow Out." It's a fantastically brutal sex murder.

It throws out the code (maintained in Parts I and III) that the Corleones only hurt other bad people. So they're sinners, but sympathetic ones.

The sex-murder puts them in a radically worse light, one Coppola obviously doesn't want us to linger in. Killing Fredo is excusable-- tragic, but understandable. Killing the hooker makes the Trilogy an entirely different story.

If Geary did it: well, he's crazy. And a bigot. So it's understandable. Tragic, but the Corleones are only taking advantage of a man more evil than themselves. Decadent, like a crazier Fredo.

But apparently Coppola says it's Neri. He should backtrack that. But oh well, he'll always have "Rumble Fish."

Anonymous said...

We certainly don't want the government in your bedroom, so it shouldn't be an issue if one kills a horse in the bedroom, or if one kills a person either.

If we don't want the government in the bedroom.

caplight said...

Ann said, "if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much"

My wife is the one who would ask that question; during the movie! She is a person who finds it difficult to suspend belief even for entertainment. She thinks in very concrete terms. In fact she might miss the whole next scene while she analyzes the possibilities.

Shanna said...

the Democratic debt negotiators when they realized the Tea Party idealogues [sic] really were willing to risk default.

Welcome to negotiating 101, idiots. Be prepared to walk away.

John Burgess said...

Woltz was just zonked on barbiturates, the then-common 'sleep aid' easily procurable from the family doctor. Add a bit of booze and he wouldn't notice an earthquake unless it dropped the ceiling on him.

Trooper York said...

In fact if you had read the book you would know that Woltz had just had sex with a twelve year old actress that Tom Hagen had seen leave the estate as he was going to the airport. It was mentioned that the producer had to take sleeping pills to be able to sleep and wear a night mask. It would be a simple matter to bribe his servants to add something extra to his drink to really knock him out until he awoke with the horse's head in his bed.

Trooper York said...

Plus waking up with a horse head in your bed is no big deal.

Matthew Broderick does that every day.

Trooper York said...

Neri did kill the whore. What's the big deal. They are murdering gangsters.

The truest depiction of what those guys are is in the Soprano's where Paulie Walnuts smothers a 70 year old woman who was his mothers best friend who knew him since he was in diapers.

Don't fool yourself.

Fred4Pres said...

Wrong scene. Frankly I am not sure any Godfather scene fits, but this might be the closest:

Jump to Godfather II and the scene of Senator Geary and Michael Corelone at the Baptism and Senator Geary trying to shake Micheal down for the casino license. That might be a closer analogy.

Fred4Pres said...

Trooper York is right about murdering gangsters. That is what was good about the Sopranos, while making them human they did not pull any punches on what fucking monsters they are.

As for Godfather II and Senator Geary's indiscretion...how convienent.

traditionalguy said...

Strangely the Journolist story line is that the Terrorist fanatic Tea Party defeated Obama's Plan.

Therefore the economy that was in full recovery has been taken over by the Tea Party.

Obama is running against Washington!

He is the outsider who was working to create jobs until the Dark Side of insane nut cases took all power from him.

ron st.amant said...

Trooper York has most of it, but in the original print of the book the horse's head isn't IN the bed. It's near the bed (I think that the end of the bed) and he wakes up and sees it.
When Coppola wrote the intial draft of the script before showing it to Puzo for a rewrite, he thought it was in the bed so that's how he wrote it. Puzo actually thought the idea was pretty good and so they left it in.
It IS a more horrorfying visual made even more so by the slow dissolve to Don Corleone who is meeting with the just returned Hagan.

Scott M said...

He is the outsider who was working to create jobs until the Dark Side of insane nut cases took all power from him.

Given the sausage-making of Obamacare, I found it particularly telling that Pelosi was deriding Boehnor's process.

Trooper York said...

That's interesting ron. That makes more sense. It has been a long time since I read it. I have to get it on my knidle.

TWM said...

"Plus waking up with a horse head in your bed is no big deal.

Matthew Broderick does that every day."

Ouch. Actually it's worse that we all imagine due to the fact that he probably doesn't have soft-lighting over their bed. (I sure as hell would.)

Joaquin said...

Poor Khartoum!!

traditionalguy said...

We are beating a dead horse.

Fred4Pres said...

Obama loves this deal. It is all about him being re-elected. If that happens, well this deal is not worth anything. So buck up folks and keep your eyes open, a trap is being set.

Senator Gerry and Jack Woltz were too arrogant to see it coming.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Yeah, what's with that horse's head?

And while we're at it, there's no sound in space, so Stars Wars totally sucks!

Trooper York said...

What was really lame was that a couple of years ago they had some other guy write a couple of sequels that really sucked.

They took the same route of fictionalizing real events in Mafia history but created new characters that really sucked. They couldn't just deal with the original characters.

Trooper York said...

Vito Corleone was a composite of Joe Profaci and Tommy Lucchesi and Frank Costello.

Profaci had the olive oil company and Lucchesi did his business in the Bronx and Frank Costello had the reputation as the "Prime Minister" who had the political connections and who banned the sale of drugs.

There was no real Michael Corleone as Mob sons were never effective in taking over for their fathers. Every one who did it was a disaster of epic proportions.

Anonymous said...

"...the only thing missing was a 13 year old drugged-up wannabe actress in the bed next to him ala Roman Polanski."

As other folks have pointed out, the 13 year old drugged-up wannabe actress is in the book. (Not, however, in bed next to him. And now that I think about it, she may have been even younger than 13.)

TWM said...

"As other folks have pointed out, the 13 year old drugged-up wannabe actress is in the book. (Not, however, in bed next to him. And now that I think about it, she may have been even younger than 13.)"

Never read the book.

Known Unknown said...

Plus waking up with a horse head in your bed is no big deal.

Matthew Broderick does that every day.


Those two don't sleep in the same bed. They're not even on the same team.

CJinPA said...

Paul Krugman managed to work in the phrase "raw extortion" *three times*, plus one "blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists" before capping it off by concluding that maybe American democracy can't work.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html

I don't know what the truth is with the debt deal. I just know that when Krugman pouts and throws his things, an angel gets its wings.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

In fact, if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much.

Unfortunately, I do think those things, but immediately tell myself....verisimilitude... verisimilitude so we all can enjoy the movie and then pick it apart later. It is hard, but I try.

My husband can pick out the slightest discrepancies in the movie.

Like the lapel on the coat is up and then down in the next moment.

Hair behind the ears and then not then again behind.

Chopping tomatoes and there are three then two then four on the cutting board. Is the character assembling tomatoes?

Glass half full, woman takes a sip and suddenly it is full!. Is she spitting up into the glass?

Number of bullets in the bandolier keeps changing during the scene.

At home we can pause the movie and back up and ....dang....he is right every time. Uncanny and really funny. How can he do that?

Trooper York said...

I always wanted to write a Godfather style book about the Mob in Carroll Gardens.

Al Capone married a girl who lived on my block.

The Gallo's fought Profaci and Colomubo and the fish in the bullet proof vest happened on President St.

The Anastasia brothers ran the ILA which dominated the neighborhood for about 100 years until containers came in.

The dirty politics kept going and had a big part in Carter and Daniel Patrick Moyinihan's campaigns in 1975.

There is still one of the old timers around who dates back to Lucky Luciano's time in the 1950's
and they are waiting for him to die before several books come out.

Trooper York said...

The book would start at Al Capones wedding at St Mary Star of the Sea which is my parish church.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

And while we're at it, there's no sound in space, so Stars Wars totally sucks!

YES!! This annoys me every time. Plus flames in the absence of oxygen in space. !

However, I totally believe the flying Winnebago to be accurate [Space Balls]

And squealing tires on a dirt road. Really?

Trooper York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Craig said...

And it created a job for old blue eyes when he was still young and restless. If they'd used the horse's ass he might have gotten the Monty Clift role.

TWM said...

Newest Hollywood Original Idea:

Mobsters and Aliens!

Titus said...

I had what I call "a low hanging stick " hanging from my pucker today during my morning pinched loaf.

You try and "clip it" with your pucker but it doesn't clip.

As a result when wiping you use quite a bit of toilet paper because the stick contains lots of loaf material.

How are You?

chuck said...

Yes, I don't enjoy movies too much unless they are explicitly unrealistic, like cartoons. Pseudo realistic bullshit movies like Erin Brockovich drive me nuts. I then drive everyone around me nuts with my bitching.

Thorley Winston said...

Neri did kill the whore. What's the big deal. They are murdering gangsters.

The truest depiction of what those guys are is in the Soprano's where Paulie Walnuts smothers a 70 year old woman who was his mothers best friend who knew him since he was in diapers.


Good point, as enjoyable as they were both the Godfather and the Sopranos (not to mention Good Fellas and Casino) are people who fascinating to watch but are horrible people who don’t think twice about hurting or killing others to get what they want.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Again: Republicans are evil for helping the private sector keep some of their money. All of your money belongs to the democrat stimulus machine. If you do not agree- you are evil; You are Hitler, you are someone who cuts the heads off horses... and on and on..

CJinPA said...

What about the rest of the horse? The guy who got that part, man they were really pissed at.

Titus said...

Have you guys ever watched a horse pinch a loaf?

The loaf falls a great distance.

Trooper York said...

Did you see the one where they wanted to terrorize David Geffen so they left a horse's cock in his bed?

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wince said...

Leave it to virtual reality.

The Godfather Game fills in many of the blanks, but doesn't show exactly how the horse head was put in the bed.

Go to the begining of the video to see the full scenario.

Anonymous said...

Anybody ever read the Michael Crichton book "Timeline"?Apparently he checked his brain at the door when he wrote that one. (And his editor was AWOL, too.) It's full of things that make no sense if you think about them for more than 12 nanoseconds. After awhile suspending disbelief was a real problem. Maintaining disgust was not.

Small example: In one scene a door in a castle opened in one direction and characters were hiding behind it. In a following scene it opened in the opposite direction because that was more useful to the plot at that point.

Wince said...

Isn't the horse head equivalent to the national debt that taxpayers woke up to find in their bed, eliticting the question: how could they have slept through that?

MayBee said...

I don't know.

My husband can come to bed without it waking me up. He has to walk across the room, pull back the covers, lay down, and pull the covers back up- and I never notice.

How much does a horse head weigh? More than a husband?

Scott M said...

Small example: In one scene a door in a castle opened in one direction and characters were hiding behind it. In a following scene it opened in the opposite direction because that was more useful to the plot at that point.

Not to mention the little discs that worked as a Babblefish. Not one of his best. Burying some eyeglasses and a "help me" for someone marooned in time, big plus. Minus for everything else.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I was never moved by that scene for the same reason. The first time I saw the movie, I ruined the power of that scene for everyone else when I asked out loud, "How'd they get that in there without him waking up?"

LOL.

Anonymous said...

Meanwhile, Syrian troops continue to kill their own citizens, and our peter-pan president says nothing.

Anonymous said...

That was the first question I asked. While The Godfather has a great ending, overall The Godfather II was a much better movie.

Scott M said...

Meanwhile, Syrian troops continue to kill their own citizens, and our peter-pan president says nothing.

Didn't he pretty much set the bar on Libya that wouldn't have triggered our pummeling the hell out of Syria by now? Or do we and everyone else think he was full of shit on that one?

Trooper York said...

Jack Wolz was a stand in for Harry Cohn who was the most hated guy in Hollywood. When he died almost everyone in the industry went to the funeral.

When a reporter asked why so many people came to his hated guys funeral Red Skelton said "When you give the people what they want they are sure to show up."

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ kcom

You related to my husband?

Also, being a very serious car buff, he can tell you whether it is a 67 or 68 vehicle by the tail light or some other itsy detail. He is always picking apart movies that have vintage cars and trucks in them that are later than the time frame of the movie.

Sorry guys. When your movie is set in 1936 and you are using a 1938 Pontiac Coupe.....the dumbplumber will out you as incompetent boobs.

Unknown said...

"But what the hell kind of a heavy sleeper was Jack Woltz anyway?"

But what the hell kind of a heavy sleeper were the Democrats anyway?
Comatose?

TeaPartiers have attended town halls that Dem politicians fled, were called Tea Baggers by the "impartial, non-partisan" MSM, they'd rather nominate a little witch than a business-as-usual Republican Politician and lost a "safe" seat to a commie, they took away Pelosi's "private" airforce jet coast-to-coast service...

TeaPartiers "sneaked up" on the business-as-usual earmarked taxpayers' money to stimulate cronies politicians.

KCFleming said...

I hesitate to mention that I have never seen more than about 5 minutes of any of the Godfather movies.

Are classic movies like classic books, because no one actually sees them/reads them, once they become 'classics'?

Trooper York said...

They recently filmed Men in Black 3 on Court St where I live. The scene is about the aliens landing in Flushing Meadow near the Unispear in the 1960's and there is a chase scene the wrong way down Court St with a bunch of sixties cars dodging these people on a motorcycle.

They had all of the extra wearing sixties garb and they also kept people moving along the street when they were setting up the shot. This one black dude was all decked out in a sixties get up. Short sleeve banlyon shirt, white pants and little hat like they wore then. I went up to him and said "Man your research department really sucks." "What do you mean?" he said. "You wouldn't be allowed on Court St in 1960. Just sayn brother you got to keep it real."

Titus said...

Horses have large hogs.

When visiting Kentucky I got to see championship horses fucking.

They actually have to put them in this weird contraption so they don't injure themselves.

There were actually bleachers for the spectators so we could watch championship horses fuck.

Known Unknown said...

I'm a screenwriter, so I find myself doing this all of the time. I can suspend disbelief for only so much.

Coincidences are the worst.

Just saw Unknown and it was rife with things that made my writer head explode.

The villains off the nurse in the hospital, but how dare they kill illegal immigrant/cab driver Diane Kruger in her apartment when they have a gun pointed at her head. She's just too damn pretty to kill, I guess.

And, after a lengthy car chase sequence that culminates in a crash scene, Neeson and Kruger escape on foot into a club where she just happens to know the bouncer out front.

The Godfather scene, however, assumes that Woltz has probably taken some kind of dope to sleep, so its not that egregious a violation.

Joe said...

I thought Godfather was a terrible movie and the horse head scene was so campy and stupid it made me laugh.

Titus said...

Some people have sex with horses.

"Mr. Hands" died as a result of being fucked by a horse.

Rest in Peace Mr. Hands.

William said...

There's a scene in A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens that is similar to that scene in The Godfather......Mobsters don't succeed because of their intelligence. They have one great gift. They're scary. They're willing to put an icepick in someone's ear to settle a minor dispute. Moreover, when dealing with them, you immediately sense that they have this capacity for violence. It's very intimidating .... Back in the seventies I knew some of them in an extremely peripheral way. As peripheral as I could make it. Their uniform was the pork pie hat, black leather car coat, and fifty extra pounds. And that aura of violence. They were screwy people already, and the pressures of their life made them even screwier. Their family life was nothing like that depicted in The Godfather. They used violence as a negotiating tool even in family disputes. It was nothing like The Godfather or even The Sopranos. These were seriously fucked up people and so were their families.

author, etc. said...

In the original novel of The Godfather, the horse head is impaled on Woltz's bedpost. As Wolltz wakes up his eyes slowly focus on the silhouette of the head as its framed against his bedroom window. Great scene, better (and certainly more believable than placing the head under Woltz's bedsheets).

blake said...

The Friday the 13th series was, in fact, based on this entire cinematic trick.

Carol_Herman said...

Oy. If we're using Puzo's story, then all politicians are mobsters. And, they have secret handshakes. Winks and blinks. And, they feed at the pork barrel. Play golf a lot. And, live off the checks they get from lobbyists.

Ahead? Life for the lobbyists will be easier. They just have to get the "super 12" ... with the likes of McPain and Murkowski, Brown, Snowe, and her twin ... representing republicans. And, the "safe seat democraps," like Shiela Lee Jackson ... representing the donkey's ass.

While the game isn't about a "dead horse" in a movie scene ... where I don't think PETA would allow you to slaughter a horse ...

And, what you're gonna get the American people to believe ... Who have lost all their nest eggs. And, all their savings. And, have debt, too, coming out the ying yang.

We also wave at jobs that went overseas. So we've lost an important part of manufacturing.

Where everything is tied up in government officials. More paperwork, here, than in Istanbul. Where under-the-table payments of graft is an art form.

We're still in a ZOMBIE ECONOMY.

No inflation ... because we have DEFLATION.

And, people outside of government understand the problem better than the FLY-WEIGHT CREDENTIALED elites.

Is there hope?

Well, at least there's the Internet. We can check out that there are other people who are sane.

And, who saw behaviors that rival Mother Russia ... played out like propaganda. Whom will you believe?

edutcher said...

Have to agree with Joe and, yes, Madame, it did hit me that they were stretching credulity to the breaking point.

Toshstu said...

What's always bothered me is the shower scene in Psycho, she gets in the shower then turns the water on.

No-one does this, for obvious reasons.

virgil xenophon said...

RE: Parts of animals in beds/

When in undergrad school @LSU circa
1964 the section of the old pre-Civil War brick barracks I was staying in (The "Pentagon" Dorms--four 3-story bldgs arranged in a pentagon w. the street as the base) was occupied by a true "mountain-man from eastern Ky, we called "Curly Wolf" (who had a 5 0'clock shadow by 9am after shaving) And the Proctor, who was another outdoors-man from Mobile--and who naturally had a key to my room, lived just across the landing. I was the tennis-player from the country-club. One night I came back drunk, stumbled into bed, and nestled in between the sheets. My legs felt something. "Wait! There's something slimy and wet in here!" I threw back the sheets turned on the lights and in one fell swoop lept out of the bed like a scalded cat. Harp had caught a raccoon, skinned it and put the fresh skin, still wet with the inner epithelium attached, in my bed under the sheets! The crowd that had gathered in anticipation to watch my reaction outside my door with the door open in the dark (the Proctor's key, remember?) HOWLED with laughter..

traditionalguy said...

The movie business is the illusion business.

But Godfather I and II have become as much a part of American culture as Shakespeare.

Christopher said...

It's called fridge logic

Michael K said...

They used the guy from Animal House who brought his chain saw.

Scott M said...

What's always bothered me is the shower scene in Psycho, she gets in the shower then turns the water on.

Ditto the blue-dye shower scene from "Private Benjamin" for the same reason. Even as a kid surreptitiously watching the new late-night HBO, I thought that was crap.

Bryan Caskey said...

Lane at TPM has this analogy somewhat right, but he's missing the main point, and he compares the Democrats to a sleazy, spiteful movie producer. (well, maybe that's ok) I explain here:http://tinyurl.com/3ta5r8j

Michael K said...

When a reporter asked why so many people came to his hated guys funeral Red Skelton said "When you give the people what they want they are sure to show up."

The version I read was that all those people came to be sure he was really dead.

Fred4Pres said...

When I was a young boy scout, I found a dead porcupine and put it in the bed of the camp counselor. He flipped out and that was entertaining. It was relatively fresh road kill so I justified it as being okay.

The Crack Emcee said...

Scott M,

Ditto the blue-dye shower scene from "Private Benjamin" for the same reason. Even as a kid surreptitiously watching the new late-night HBO, I thought that was crap.

Nah - this is crap, and lots of it.

SunnyJ said...

Being a life long equestrian and horse breeder and having a daughter raised the same, we always watch movies with an eye on the horses. Sometimes it ruins the movie because they substitute horses that don't even look like the original horse with wrong markings, have them do things that they would naturally never do, change breeds even in the middle of the film.

It makes it really funny at times, and at other times...just ruins any story line as it's so fake you can't get by it. Other times they do a great job and while we hate the movie we love the reality in the horse behavior.

I like to think about all the officiandos of minutia that watch movies with an eye for this or that. Somewhere, someone sees behind the veil...when they don't...then that must be a great movie!

Scott M said...

Nah - this is crap, and lots of it.

"It really clears out your head."

"Head? Head? I think they were doing the wrong end."

LA Story (best Steve Martin flic after Roxanne)

Fred4Pres said...

Let's not forget about the gay mafia...

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Fridge Logic.

LOL Great link.

@ Sunny J

Cars are to my husband as horses are to you. I wouldn't notice the horse changes unless it was really smack you over the head with a two by four obvious. Like a color change from dark to light.

However, mess with the furniture or decorating accessories in a vintage film: I'm all over it.

:-D

Trooper York said...

I only notice if they use a body double and the tits change.

Stosh2 said...

Suspension of disbelief is what makes movies work. It's what also used to make Washington work...

Scott M said...

It's what also used to make Washington work...

I'm trying to think of a form of government in which it isn't a prime ingredient. Hell...prom was the same.

Anonymous said...

Traditional guy -

Don't get me started on Shakespeare.

It's hard to believe that no one recognized Edgar in any of his disguises in King Lear.

Trooper York said...

When they used a body double for Angie Dickenson in "Dressed to Kill" I got up in the movie house and started yelling and screaming. How dare they!

I still can't go to the Lowes Alpine on Fifth Avenue.

Lucius said...

@Trooper York: I think Coppola very much wanted to underline that ruthlessness with the murdered prostitute.

My problem is, it's not integrated. He wants to demythologize the mob (and he still complains, rightfully, how much it bothers him how people romanticize the Corleones).

But he has a competing agenda: he wants to make a grand Shakespearean tragedy. Part III goes completely into that Shakespearean realm, which I think is the subconscious reason why it's been so hated by so many (Sofia's performance a convenient excuse).

Anyway, he still plays it a bit ambiguously on screen. It'd be hard to deny Neri did it. But in the context of the whole story, he'd've been better off to leave it Geary's fault and let the other atrocities underline the family's wickedness.

Btw: I do love your reportage from the MIB3 shoot . . .

Fred4Pres said...

I saw a young Angie on Have Gun--Will Travel the other night. Wow. She was so friggin hot.

Trooper York said...

The worst case of body double switches was in "Nowhere to Run" when they used someone to double Roseanna Arquette.

Trooper York said...

Personally I prefer the mature Angie of "Police Woman."

Who would want some Pepper on their cock. Just sayn'

David R. Graham said...

Well, a range of sensible explanations have shown that GF scenario feasible in the real world. It is. There are teams who can remove one person from a shared bed without waking the other. Not the GF scenario, more difficult and still doable.

Hoosier Daddy said...

You know Bambi said that was his favorite movie.

Peter V. Bella said...

Frodo: Leave the knife, take the cram.

Trooper York said...

Who George Bamberger?

I thought he really liked "The Pride of the Yankees."

Fred4Pres said...

That gay mafia short cracks me up. Those guys made that to suck up (so to speak) to Geffen after Ovitz went crazy. It is still funny.

Anonymous said...

OT -

After all of these years, I just found out that Garage has a blog. I feel kind of stupid.

altered states said...

"But you're not supposed to think: No way could they do that. In fact, if you're inclined to ask questions like that, you probably don't enjoy movies too much."

True for me - I watch movies and think to myself "No way that would happen in real life." Saves me from spending too much at the cinema.

traditionalguy said...

Talk about the illusion business, Global Warming is still being replayed long after it has been declared an all illusion.

Every data point use in the "settled science" was carefully faked. And they are still re-running the crap.

The day the free comment internet dies is the day we will all become serfs.

Chip Ahoy said...

You want a film analogy involving beds relating to government debt? FINE!

* thinks *

The scene is a delivery room hospital. A woman is experiencing late labor.

"Breathe, Honey, breathe"

The woman breathes haltingly and clenches her teeth.

From the other side of the bed but concealed by tented sheets a doctor's head is seen, then his uplifted arms reveal a newly delivered baby. The staff clamps the umbilical and trays the accompanying material. They gently clean the neonate, bundle it in soft cloth and pass it the mother.

"It's a girl."

The mother wanly smiles, the father who is present beams with awe. A government official who is standing nearby, wasting no time at all, shoves aside family and hospital staff and coldly mechanically efficiently clamps a chain to the leg of the newborn baby that is much heavier than the baby itself and then departs without so much as a word. The attention of the camera is now on the chain and not on the baby. The chain is made of thick titanium steel that cannot be cut. The other end of the chain is attached to a heavy steel crib of no discernible design. Upon close inspection the first links of the chain read: Dept. of Education, Agriculture Dept., Homeland Security, H.U.D., D.O.D., D.O.J., D.O.I., Treasury, Energy Dept., Transportation., V.A.,

The camera runs the length of the chain. It's a very long chain indeed covering all the letters of the alphabet to "V" except for "Q". Admin. for Children and Families, Admin. for Native Americans, Admin on Aging, Admin of Developmental Disabilities, to name just a few of the agencies starting with "A," but the camera travels the whole length not stopping to linger on Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (Justice) and Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade (Treasury) Bureau of Citizenship an dImmigration Services (DHS), Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection, and many more bureaus through the "B" category to Bureau of the Census and Bureau of Transportation, and so on this chain continues through the alphabet, Central Command, Central Intelligence Agency, Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Chief Acquisition Officers Council, and so on, Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee, "C" category is long set of linkages including, Congress, Congressional Budget Office, Congressional Research Service, Consumer Product Safety Commission, Copyright Office and Corps of Engineers, the Council of Economic Advisors, Council on Environmental Quality, County and City Governments, Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, Court of Federal Claims and other courts, and so on through many courts, on to Customs and Border Protection, and then finally the "D" links. The audience gasps.

Strelnikov said...

Maybe he was extra tired form all the sex with starlets. He's had them all over the world, you know.

Chip Ahoy said...

Seventeen agencies beginning with the word "Defense." Advanced Research Project Agency, Commissary Agency, Contract Audit Agency, Contract Management, Field Activities, Finance and Accounting Services, to name only a few beginning with "Defense". The "D" category is also quite long and the director wisely races through, Dept. of Agriculture, Dept. of Commerce, Dept. of Defense, Dept. of Education, Dept. of Education and many other departments. The viewers are thinking, "holy shit." Finally the "D"s are closed out with Domestic Policy Council and Drug Enforcement Administration.

Hey! I didn't say it was an interesting to watch film analogy did I? The point is this baby is born into the chains of an overarching government and this is the situation that people like Klein find desireable. Only a portion of these letters are listed, the least you can do is stick with the speeded up exceedingly truncated analogy to the "E"s.

Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Economic Adjustment Office, Economic Development Admin., Economic Research Service, Economics & Statistics Administration, Election Assistance Commission, Employee Benefits Security Admin., Employment and Training Admin., Endangered Species Committee. There are many more "E" departments but the director of this analogous film realizes the point is nearly made so the rest of the alphabet is blurred and the chain is shown piled up in an unwieldily heap at the foot of the stark steel crib. As the camera pours over the piled up chain it lingers there on the last single "Y" link which is then clamped to the brutal steel crib. Because this baby is a girl the link reads simply: "Your eggs."

As the camera pulls away from the details on the links of the chain to the pile of links comprising the ridiculously burdensome chain to to take in the whole simple steel crib, the scene has changed from the hospital delivery room to the the hospital nursery where continuing to back away hundreds of similar cribs are seen as a factory warehouse all with tiny infants chained with impossibly heavy piles of titanium links.

David R. Graham said...

"Jump to Godfather II and the scene of Senator Geary and Michael Corelone at the Baptism and Senator Geary trying to shake Micheal down for the casino license. That might be a closer analogy."

Tech point: it was Confirmation party, not Baptism scene.

Purpleslog said...

I would like to see a movie that is a spinoff of the original King Kong movie on the Clean-up afterwards. And dealing with mounds of Kong Poo.

virgil xenophon said...

LOL. Great vid find, F4P! How does your truly demented mind seek these things out?

Scott M said...

And dealing with mounds of Kong Poo.

And the search for human remains therein?

Dan in Philly said...

Why the crying over if Neri did or did not kill a hooker in movie II when you see a hooker get gunned down just for being in bed with the wrong man at the end of movie I?

There is noting redeemable about the mob in any of the movies unless you happen to be in the mob. In that case, you've got a good life assuming you're willing to do all the crap they did. Otherwise it's no fun being associated with the whole thing.

virgil xenophon said...

Great vid concept, Chip! Have you approached the RNC? I'm thinkin' you've got, as they are wont to say in Hollywood, a "hot property" there..

Titus said...

The eyes of a horse sometimes say, "come fuck me".

Does anyone else see that in a horse's eyes?

Fred4Pres said...

David R. Graham said...
"Jump to Godfather II and the scene of Senator Geary and Michael Corelone at the Baptism and Senator Geary trying to shake Micheal down for the casino license. That might be a closer analogy."

Tech point: it was Confirmation party, not Baptism scene.


Actually it was First Holy Communion.

blake said...

Dammn good point, Troop.

Not only did they use a body double, she was a good 20 years younger than Angie.

Who they foolin'?

Fred4Pres said...

Of course the baptism/killing of family enemeies in GFI of and the Geary deal following the First Holy Communion in GFII is for dramatic contrast.

I respectfully disagree Angie, she was at her peak in Rio Bravo. Now her Police Woman days were fine, but she was awesome in her thirties.

Bill said...

Bob Ellison: ... Or so I've been told.

Heh.

Fred4Pres said...

Trooper? Body Double in this one too?

Fred4Pres said...

That one NSFW above.

Scott M said...

There's a couple of great Harvey Birdman (Adult Swim's version) in which various Hanna Barbara characters end up decapitated and in his bed when he wakes up. It might have had something to do with the fact that he was defending Fred Flinstone (aka the Daba Daba Don) from racketeering charges.

Got him off scott free too.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ Chip

Your concept film (great idea btw) reminded me of an art film that I saw way back in the 1960's as a filler between headline movies. I think it was call "The Creditors"

The black and white movie opens with a bunch of scenes of a killing. Kind of film noir looking. The title scrolls and then the normal stuff like producer, editor etc. Meanwhile all sorts of strange stuff is happening in the background. Wounded detectives crawling up a dingy hallway, steam locomotives racing across the screen, dogs jumping off of cliffs.

The credits just keep rolling and pretty soon we are down to who made the sandwiches, brought the flowers, polished the star's nails, bought the pizzas, washed the cars......it went on and on and after about 3 minutes or longer....we all realized....it was a joke.

That's all there was. Credits. Overlaying a lot of unconnected old black and white film clips. Very funny.

I don't even remember what the real movies we went to see were.

janetrae said...

Oh -- he was a movie producer, sleeping pilled to the gills (think of him as Judy Garland or Amy Winehouse), so you wouldn't even have to tiptoe around.

ndspinelli said...

When people ask me the best private investigator movie I say w/o a doubt..The Converstion, which I also believe is Coppola's best and Gene Hackman's best performance. And, when I say this most folks have never heard of this superb flick. A damn shame!

My bride had Joey "The Clown" Lombardo on her caseload @ the Federal MCC in Chicago. A stone cold killer but a gentleman according to my bride. I think having a dago last name didn't hurt her.

avwh said...

"When people ask me the best private investigator movie I say w/o a doubt..The Converstion, which I also believe is Coppola's best and Gene Hackman's best performance. And, when I say this most folks have never heard of this superb flick. A damn shame!"

Agree - The Conversation is the best PI/ surveillance movie. And Coppola only managed to get it made b/c Paramount desperately wanted him to do GF II - so the studio agreed to do The Conversation in return for getting the GF sequel.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

@DBQ

YES!! This annoys me every time. Plus flames in the absence of oxygen in space. !

Rockets carry their own oxidizers. I would let Star Wars slide on that one

virgil xenophon said...

ndspinelli, avwh,

Re: The Conversation. Agee, agree. Caught it when it first premiered in a now-defunct theater on Elysian Fields near UNO in New Orleans. Really fine flick.

And re: stone-cold killers? We owned a temp nursing agency in Louisville in the 80s/90s and one of our clients was Luther Luckett max security State pen in LaGrange, Ky., just outside Louisvlle. Occasionally my wife the RN (who was the unpaid Dir of Nursing of our firm) would fill in on the night shift if an RN we had scheduled there couldn't make the shift due to illness, etc. at the last minute and we couldn't get a replacement, just to keep the client happy. She said that when passing meds, etc,. invariably the guys in for multiple murders, etc., were the politest of prisoners as long as one treated them politely as well; she never had any trouble whatsoever with any of them.

Anonymous said...

Saw an ad for Back to the Future coming on TV again. It reminded me to check my computer to see if I have enough jigabytes of memory to run it properly.

(That's one mistake in pronunciation that I don't think anybody, even in Hollywood, would likely make today. I guess in 1985 giga was still an unknown term. Heck, in 1955 apparently even the scientists didn't know it.)

Known Unknown said...

Saw an ad for Back to the Future coming on TV again. It reminded me to check my computer to see if I have enough jigabytes of memory to run it properly.

(That's one mistake in pronunciation that I don't think anybody, even in Hollywood, would likely make today. I guess in 1985 giga was still an unknown term. Heck, in 1955 apparently even the scientists didn't know it.)


The pronunciation was not a mistake