Today is the birthday of German filmmaker Tom Tykwer. Tykwer directed one of my favorite films of all time, 1998’s Run, Lola, Run! As such, it only seems appropriate that today’s scene that I love should come from that film.
In this scene, Lola shows us all how to win at roulette. Do not try this in Vegas.
119 years ago today, Laurence Olivier was born in Surrey. The son of a clergyman, Olivier would go on to become one of the greatest stage actors of the 20th Century. He would also have a distinguished film career, one that led to him frequently being described as being the world’s greatest living actor.
He is perhaps best-known for his Shakespearean performances. He won multiple Oscars for directing and starring in 1948’s Hamlet. Before his turn in Hamlet, he was similarly nominated for his film version of Henry V. That said, for me, his best cinematic Shakespearean performance was as Richard III in the 1953 film of the same title.
Though acclaimed, Richard III was not quite the Oscar favorite that Olivier’s previous two adaptations of Shakespeare had been. Henry V was released at a time when its portrayal of a determined British ruler could be viewed as a metaphor for the UK’s role in the second world war. Hamlet was released at a time when the world was still rebuilding and trying to adjust to the new atomic age and its dark, noirish style captured those anxieties. Richard III was released in the 50s, at a time when Americans perhaps weren’t as receptive to films that suggested that leaders should not be trusted. As a result, Richard III received only one nomination, for Olivier’s performance in the title role.
Today, in honor of his birthday, here is a scene that I love from 1953’s Richard III:
Happy birthday, Mr. T!
For today’s scene that I love, here’s Mr. T as Clubber Lang in Rocky III:
Since today is James Stewart’s birthday, it seems appropriate that our scene should be from one of my favorite films of all time, 1946’s It’s A Wonderful Life. In this wonderfully acted and directed scene, George Bailey tells off Mr. Potter, for the first but certainly not the last time:
Today is Pete Townshend’s 79th birthday and today’s scene that I love features Pete Townshend (as a member of The Who) performing at Woodstock in 1969.
Roger Daltrey later said that this was the worst gig that they ever played and The Who did end up going on stage early in the morning, with the sun rising as they performed See Me, Feel Me. The majority of The Who’s performance was not included in the initial release of the Woodstock documentary but the noticeably grainy footage would later be included in various rereleases.
Unfortunately, no cameras recorded the moment when Pete Townshend became the hero that 1969 needed by kicking a ranting Abbie Hoffman off of the stage. But, audio of the incident survived.
Here is The Who at Woodstock:
Today is Frank Capra’s birthday! Capra was born 126 years ago, on this date, in Sicily.
Now, if you’ve been reading this site for a while, you should know that my favorite Capra film is It’s A Wonderful Life. However, a close second is 1939’s Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. In today’s scene that I love, Sen. Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart) holds the Senate floor as he denounces the corruption that he sees all around him in Washington. There’s a reason why Senator Smith is still held up as the ideal public servant. It’s just a shame that he was a fictional character.
Bill Paxton would have been 71 years old today. As a lover of both films and eccentric Texans, I still miss Bill Paxton.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Twister and it features Bill Paxton showing off some wonderful chemistry with Helen Hunt. One of the great things about Bill Paxton is that he was equally at home in both big blockbusters like Twister and Titanic and low-budget indies like Near Dark. He was an artist who also happened to be a star.
Today, we celebrate the birthday of Henry Fonda!
Fonda was born 121 years ago today and, over the course of his long career, he was often cast in role the epitomized everything great about America. It’s rare to find a Henry Fonda film in which he played an out-and-out villain, though he did just that in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. (Leone, in fact, cast Fonda as the evil Frank because he knew audiences would be shocked to see Fonda coldly gunning down settlers and their families.)
One of Fonda’s finest films was 1943’s The Ox-Bow Incident, in which he played a cowboy who finds himself drafted into joining a posse that ends up hanging three men for the crime of murder and cattle rustling. The members of the posse (including seven of whom voted against hanging the men) later learn that the men were innocent. In today’s scene that I love, Henry Fonda reads aloud the letter that one of the men wrote to his wife shortly before he was hung. This was one of Fonda’s most heartfelt and powerful performances.
On this date in 1905, the great actor Joseph Cotten was born in Petersburg, Virginia. A longtime friend and collaborator of Orson Welles, Cotten was one of the most dependable leading men of the 40s and 50s, an actor with the charisma of star and the talent of an artist.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1943 masterpiece, Shadow of a Doubt, and it features Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. Wright plays Charlie. Cotten plays her beloved uncle, who is also named Charlie and who might very well be a serial killer. In this scene, Uncle Charlie drags his niece to a seedy bar, where he confesses that, as she earlier deduced, he is a suspect in a murder investigation. With a mixture of charm and intimidating, Charlie tries to convince his niece to keep his secret to herself.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Robert Zemeckis!
Today’s scene that I love comes from Zemeckis’s 1980 comedy, Used Cars! In this scene, used car salesman Gerrit Graham interrupts a televised presidential address so that he can demonstrate the best way to deal with inflation.
(Of course, he does the demonstration at a rival used car lot.)
Jack Warden watches as his cars blow up while Graham’s boss (Kurt Russell) tries to keep his business partner (Deborah Harmon) from noticing what is happening on the television.
“That price is too high!”
