Reel Life 2.0: 1,101 Movie Lines That Teach Us About Life, Death, Love, Marriage, Anger and Humor

By Jon Anthony Dosa

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• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 2, 2008
• ISBN: 9781468501605

Jon Anthony Dosa

Jon Anthony Dosa is the Emmy Award winning producer of A Day At The Movies, the 90-minute,   no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes documentary shot during the filming of the 1976 horror classic Burnt Offerings with Bette Davis, Oliver Reed, and Karen Black. Born in Akron, Ohio, Dosa was a “poster child” of the fifties, and a “flower child” of the sixties. After graduating from San Jose State University with a major in Advertising and Psychology, he studied subliminal advertising before becoming a “systems analyst” for Title Insurance and Trust Corp, in San Francisco. In 1968, Dosa’s well-researched and well organized opposition to the Vietnam War led to his first media position, as producer of the politically controversial “Joe Dolan Show,” on KNEW-Talkradio in Oakland, California.   He also produced “The Pat Michael’s Show” and “The Hilly Rose Show” on KTVU-TV and KBHK-TV, in San Francisco. As Program Director for TelePrompTer Cable TV, one of the nation’s premier systems, Dosa’s highly creative and innovative programming caught the attention of the media, and owner Jack Kent Cooke. (“Wow! On a par with the Lakers.”) He’s also credited with creating the first shop-by-tv show, “TV Window Shopping,” in 1976. In 1980, Dosa moved to Los Angeles, where he became a Program Coordinator for KABC-Talkradio.   He produced local and nationally syndicated shows for such talk show luminaries as Larry Elder, Tavis Smiley, Dennis Prager, Bill Press, Gloria Allred, Michael Jackson, Susan Estrich, and psychiatrist David Viscott. He also appeared as a regular on the late night NBC-TV call-in series, “The Dr. David Viscott Show.” Now retired, Dosa lives  in Palm Springs, California, where he reads, walks, swims, writes, socializes, and watches lots of old movies on TCM. Reel Life: 101 is his first book.

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© 2008 Jon Anthony Dosa. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 9/22/2008

ISBN: 978-1-4343-7722-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4389-2232-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-0160-5 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2008903214

Contents

DEDICATION

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

FOR WORDS

DEATH

LOVE

MARILYN MONROE ON SEX

MARRIAGE

NATALIE WOOD ON MARRIAGE

ANGER

FRANK SINATRA ON ANGER

HUMOR

AFTER WORDS

RX: A MOVIE

INDEX OF MOVIES

INDEX OF STARS

MY FAVORITE LINE

About the Author

DEDICATION

To my mom Margie and my dad Augie,

they taught me how to watch a good movie;

and to my older sister Rosalie and big brother

Paul, they let me go with them!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, to the American screenwriter, whose talent and creative abilities to express words have made this book meaningful.

The Writers Guild of America for protecting the rights of their members.

Ted Turner, whose blessed foresight embraced and preserved one of America’s greatest treasures: our cinematic cultural heritage.

Turner Classic Movies, for generously and wisely sharing these cultural cinematic treasures with the American public without commercial interruption.

Ron Howell, Lynda Jean Groh, Shannar Abraham, David Lauer and Lawrence Hall Dawson, for their friendship, assistance and encouragement. The honorable Joseph A. Dolan and Rev. Richard Kingsley for their grammatical assistance. And to Karin Rosentrom for her technical and graphic assistance.

In the beginning was the word.

- John

Genesis 1-1

Gene Hackman: Ahh, you just like it ‘cause it sounds a little like movie dialogue.

Meryl Streep: Yeah, that’s me. I don’t want life to to imitate art… I want life to be art.

- Postcards from the Edge

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Prohibition? Ha! They tried that in the movies and, it didn’t work!"

- Homer Simpson

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You want me to count to three… like a movie?

- The Big Sleep

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Stop acting like a movie detective.

- Murder on the Blackboard

FOR WORDS

What can a movie teach us about life?

Consider the film Grand Canyon when filmmaker Steve Martin asks his associate: Mac, did you ever see the movie called Sullivan’s Travels? The associate: No. Martin: That’s part of your problem, you know. You haven’t seen enough movies. All of life’s riddles are answered in the movies.

And that’s what Reel Life 2.0 is all about: how the movies have helped us understand the great questions of our lives: What’s it all about? Why are we here? What is the mystery of life and death? Why do we marry? What makes us angry? And, hey… what’s so funny?

Why is it that hundreds of people can sit in the same theatre, see the same movie, walk out at the same time, and yet feel completely different about exactly the same experience? Why does the lady sitting on our right cry during a scene, while the man on our left thinks about business? Why does the child in front of us sit on the edge of his seat in excitement, while the lady behind us concentrates on a candy bar wrapper that she can’t quite open? Why do some people feel they’ve gotten their money’s worth and others consider it a waste of time?

The truth is, whether you’re sitting alone in an old movie house, or with family and friends in an ornate picture palace, or among strangers in an urban multiplex, every movie that you’ve ever seen was meant for only one person… you! It was a personal message meant just for you… and you got it!

And the ultimate value of the movie may be when we reenact its behavioral truths into our real-life dramas.

Most of us can recall a movie that changed our lives, but we often forget the line that did it. For some, it was Scarlett O’Hara’s line that: Tomorrow is another day that encourages us not to buckle under to the trials and tribulations of today. For others, it’s Mae West’s come-hither invitation to: Come up and see me sometime that gives us permission to ask for what we really want.

Remember tivoing your mind when you heard somebody on the screen say something that resonated with you? Somebody was expressing something so deep within you, that you were momentarily stunned by its meaning. Reluctant to miss the rest of the story, you quickly file it away, totally unaware that it has transformed the rest of your life. You want to tell a friend, but you probably don’t remember it. That’s what Reel Life 2.0 is all about.

Now, sit back and relax. As the fabulous Bette Davis said in the 1950 classic All About Eve: Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.

LIFE

LIFE: n. 1: The sequence of physical and mental experiences that makes up the process of living. 2: One or more aspects of the process of living. 3: Spiritual existence transcending physical death. 4: Human activities.

We live, we die, and the wheels on the bus keep turning.

- Jack Nicholson

The Bucket List

What are some of the great questions posed in the movies?

Think of Jennifer Jones when she asks Joseph Cotton in Portrait Of Jenny: Eban, do you think people can know what lies ahead? I mean what’s going to happen to them? And when we think about some of the great answers given in the movies, consider The Fountainhead when Raymond Massey tells us: A man’s self is his spirit.

From watching movies we learn that life can be unexpectedly long, and that there are consequences to our actions. As Dustin Hoffman told Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes: Movies are like life. Everything depends on a few decisions you make at the very beginning.

From watching movies we learn that life can be unexpectedly short, and shouldn’t be wasted frivolously. As Van Heflin, in Kid Glove Killer figures it: A minute here, a minute there, before you know it, you’ve dribbled away a whole lifetime.

The movies teach us that an individual can change the world for good, and for bad. For good: Greer Garson, in the title roll of Madame Curie, speaking to the French Academy of Science: Each of us perhaps, can catch some gleam of knowledge, which, modest and insufficient of itself, may add to man’s dream of truth. It is by these small candles in our darkness that we see before us, little by little, the dim outlines of that great plan that shapes the universe. For bad: Remember George C. Scott in the biographical Patton and its opening image? Swaggering on-stage, a riding crop in one hand, he stands in front of a massive American flag filling the screen and addresses his troops: And all this stuff about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the way, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. All real Americans love the sting of battle.

From our movies, we learn to understand the differences between the sexes. The mother in The Grapes Of Wrath: Well pa, a woman can change better than a man. A man lives, sorta… well… in jerks. He gets a farm, or loses it. That’s a jerk. Baby’s born, or somebody dies, that’s a jerk. Well, with a woman, it’s all in one flow… like a stream. Little eddies, waterfalls. But the river, it goes right on. A woman looks at it that way.

Our movies show us how to let go of the past and to get on with life. Orson Welles to Claudette Colbert in Tomorrow is Forever: The past, with all its good, and its bad, is beyond our reach. It’s gone. All gone. We must learn to forget it, you and I. All of us… and the world. We must learn to live for tomorrow, because tomorrow is forever.

We learn life can be tough, and that we’ll need all of our mental resources to negotiate it. Robert Mitchum in The Friends of Eddie Coyle: This life’s hard man, but it’s harder if you’re stupid. We learn the difference between thinking and feeling. Humphrey Bogart tells Lauren Bacall in Key Largo: Your head says one thing, and your whole life says another. Your head always loses.

From our ‘reel-life,’ we learn how to influence the characters in our ‘real-life.’ Tabloid editor Edward G. Robinson, in Unholy Partners: You can’t preach to people until you get them in the church.

We learn about happiness, a quality much desired, yet seemingly elusive. In Road To Bali, the sultry Dorothy Lamour laments that: Happiness is like smoke in the wind… so quickly gone.

In our ‘reel-life’ we’re taught to go easy on ourselves and stop feeling pressured over situations we can’t control. As the woman in Kid Glove Killer said: It’s like putting a lot of pressure on a tree to grow faster… it’s a waste of time.

Friendship is another value exemplified in Virginia City. Randolph Scott, tells his new friend, Errol Flynn: We’re in the same boat, eh? Flynn: Maybe we can pull together. In Cowboy, Glenn Ford explains: An honest man has friends wherever he goes.

Someone once said: The business of America is business and the movies show us how some people conduct it. Bartender Jim Backus in The Man With A Cloak: He had an unusual theory of business… take, and you shall receive. And cynical George Sanders in Death Of A Scoundrel: Business is the art of getting something for nothing.

Movies teach us about growing older. George Sanders in The Picture Of Dorian Gray: You can be sure, when a man says he’s exhausted life, life has exhausted him. By the way, Sanders’ lines are eerily prophetic. In 1937, as a young man, he once told David Niven that he intended to commit suicide. In 1972, in Barcelona, Spain, at the ripe old age of 66, he fulfilled his prophecy, leaving a note which sounds as if it could have come right out of his reel-life: Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.

When sadistic prison guard Hume Cronyn, in Brute Force, complains that an aging prison physician is: Too old, the meek doctor offers us this second opinion: Age is a matter of arteries, not years. Cronyn must have also learned from that scene. He continued his acclaimed acting career almost up to the time of his death, in 2003, at the age of ninety-two. Perhaps he took to heart what Gregory Peck said in Spellbound: My age hasn’t caught up with me yet.

Family is another value that the movies teach us about. Henry Fonda’s mother in The Grapes of Wrath: Old folks died off, and little fellas came, and we was always one thing. We was a family.

Truthfulness. Ava Gardner tells Gregory Peck in The Great Sinner that she’s going to tell someone else the truth, because: I want him to take me as I am.

Faith. Maureen O’Hara’s advice to little Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street: Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to. And Jean Brooks’ in The Seventh Victim: Some of us must believe without understanding.

From watching movies we learn about the extremes of human behavior and the dark abyss that we human beings can fall into. In the 1945 Oscar-winning The Lost Weekend, screenwriter Charles Brackett elegantly expresses the spiraling spirit of those suffering from a vain attempt to quench their alcoholic thirst with: One little jigger of dreams. One approach to living life comes from John Garfield in Golden Boy: You live your life, do your work. As simple as all that. You find out its not that easy. Nothing comes free. One way or another, you pay for what you are.

You see, Reel Life 2.0 is not a book of one-liners. It’s not a book of trivia or parlor games. I’ve chosen not to include the lines you’re familiar with in favor of un-mined literary nuggets. While some of these movies may be among your favorites, others may be quite obscure. On these pages you’ll find some of the most profound expressions on life and death. From Gary Coopers impassioned courtroom defense of capitalism in Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead (1949) to the social plight of the poor expressed by Tom Joad’s anguished mother in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). From WWII battlefield reporter Ernie Pyle’s solemn plea for world peace in GI Joe (l945), to the earthshaking warning of interplanetary space traveler Klaatu in The Day the World Stood Still (1951). Here you’ll learn of the harsh realities of the impoverished in Angels With Dirty Faces (1938), the angelic spirits of the dearly departed in A Guy Named Joe (1944), the glory of war heralded by General Patton (1970) and the utter futility of war as expressed in All Quiet On The Western Front.

The quotes are preceded by a short contextual setup including, when appropriate, the fictional name of the character speaking, and the actual name of the actor/actress playing the role. Please keep in mind that real people do not always speak grammatically, and unfortunately, the written word cannot convey the nuance, subtlety, inflection and unique dynamics of a familiar, distinctive voice. However, in most cases, because you’re so familiar with the actor and actress you can almost hear them saying it. It was my pleasure to watch almost a thousand American motion pictures searching for these literary gems, these little bits of profound wisdom handed to us on a silver screen.

Perhaps here I should share with you exactly how I selected a particular quote. I did it the old-fashioned way; I watched every movie in this book… all the way through, with a yellow legal-pad at the ready, Whenever I heard a line that served the purpose; relevancy to our understanding of life, death, love, marriage, anger and humor, I stopped the video and rewound it to accurately transcribe the words. Some lines, such as Gary Cooper’s impassioned courtroom plea in The Fountainhead, and George C. Scott’s opening speech in Patton, almost jammed the heads of my VCR. Eventually, the merciful properties of Tivo came along. The lines come from theatrical films only, most made prior to the 1980s.

Also, please, keep this in mind. When you read a quote from a movie that you know you’ve seen before, but don’t remember the line, it only demonstrates the power of your subconscious to assimilate, process, compress, and store them under the appropriate conditions (see Celebrity Cells). Reel Life 2.0 is a homage to our teachers, the screenwriters who’ve had a lifelong impact on our lives.

Now, if all of this information is beginning to overload your neurons, here’s a little suggestion from the 1997 Clint Eastwood thriller Absolute Power. A bartender tells Clint: Your life would be a whole lot simpler, if you could learn to operate a VCR. Clint: "True.

And now ladies and gentlemen… it’s show time!

AGE & AGING: vb, 1: To show the characteristics of increasing age 2: To acquire a desirable quality (as mellowness or ripeness).

1. TOBACCO ROAD

The beautiful woman to David Brian: Did you have fun?

Brian: Honey, fun is like insurance… the older you get, the more it costs.

2. THE MAN WITH A CLOAK

Barbara Stanwyck: I always felt the best way to stay young is to forget your youth.

3. SPELLBOUND

When the older Leo G. Carroll meets the young Gregory Peck, he’s surprised: You’re younger than I thought you’d be

But, Peck is wise beyond his years: My age hasn’t caught up with me yet.

4. THAT HAMILTON WOMAN

Alan Mowbray to Vivien Leigh: You are young, and the young heal quickly.

5. DUCK SOUP

During cross-examination, Chico Marx is queried:

When were you born?

Chico: I don’t remember. I was just a little baby.

6. BROTHER ORCHID

Expressing an over abundance of self-confidence, mobster Edward G. Robinson explains: I always was just a little better than the other guy. The only reason I ain’t conceited about it is because I found out about it when I was young."

7. FIRECREEK

Town elder, Dean Jagger, to a young James Stewart: I’m old enough to have learned that nothing ever stands still. You grow… or you die.

8. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Staring at the grotesque image of his own portrait, the eternally youthful-looking ‘Dorian Gray’ (Hurd Hatfield) wonders which is worse: The signs of sin, or the signs of age?

9. BRUTE FORCE

Hume Cronan, a sadistic prison guard, tells the elderly prison physician that he’s: Too old!

But, the doc gives his second opinion: Age is a matter of arteries, not years.

10. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Lord Henry Wottom(George Sanders): One of the great secrets of life; to regain one’s youth, one has merely to repeat one’s folly. Most people die of a sort of creeping common sense and discover too late that the only things one never regrets is one’s mistakes.

11. PUBLIC ENEMY

A wise old bartender to young Jimmy Cagney: I’m older than you, and I’ve learned nobody can do much without somebody else. Remember this boy… you gotta have friends.

12. ANIMAL CRACKERS

Looking to the future, Captain Spalding (Groucho Marx) tells Roscoe W. Chandler: Well, I’m getting along in years now, and there’s one thing that I’ve always wanted to do.

Chandler wonders: What?

Groucho: Retire.

13. GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL

Gunfighter Burt Lancaster gives some friendly professional advice to a young upstart: There’s always a man faster on the draw than you. And, the older you get, the faster you’re gonna run into that man.

14. STALLION ROAD

When a little six-year-old girl tells Zachary Scott that she just rode her horse several miles in a severe rainstorm, he’s incredulous: You mean you rode all this way in that storm? A kid like you?

The little girl: But the horse doesn’t know how old I am.

15. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY

Hedonistic George Sanders explains his personal view on aging to the young, handsome, Hurd Hatfield: "Time is jealous of you Mr. Gray. Don’t squander the gold of your days. Live! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be afraid of nothing. There’s such a little time that your youth will last, and you can never get it back. As we grow older, our memories are haunted by the exquisite temptation we haven’t had the courage to yield to. The world is yours for