On this date, 118 years ago, Katharine Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut. She would go one to become a cultural icon, a performer who survived being labeled box office to poison to eventually become one of our most acclaimed actresses. Hepburn was a total of four acting Oscars over the course of her career, a record that has yet to be topped.
Today’s scene that I love comes from 1940’s The Philadelphia Story and it features Katharine Hepburn acting opposite another one of my favorite performers, the great James Stewart.
Chow Yun-Fat was such a big Hong Kong movie star, and he couldn’t do anything wrong in the late 80’s. While he’s most well known for his action films, he also starred in a lot of comedies. He was often goofy and over the top and the audiences loved it. In the hit film, THE DIARY OF A BIG MAN (1988), Chow plays a man married to two of the most beautiful women of Hong Kong cinema, Sally Yeh (THE KILLER) and Joey Wong (GOD OF GAMBLERS)… at the same time. Needless to say, it’s not an easy situation. Fair warning, if you’ve never seen a Chow Yun-Fat comedy, this may take some getting used to. I personally love it and can’t help but smile as big as Chow when I watch it. I present Chow Yun-Fat singing “Oh Very Nice” from THE DIARY OF A BIG MAN. Enjoy my friends!
Norman Bates, now there’s someone who probably made a big deal out of every Mother’s Day. Today’s scene that I love comes from 1960’s Psycho and features Hitchcock, Janet Leigh, and Anthony Perkins at their absolute best,
“Holly, I’d like to cut you in, old man. There’s nobody left in Vienna I can really trust, and we’ve always done everything together. When you make up your mind, send me a message – I’ll meet you any place, any time, and when we do meet old man, it’s you I want to see, not the police. Remember that, won’t ya? Don’t be so gloomy.
After all it’s not that awful. You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.”
Orson Welles has been a giant of the film industry since he first stepped foot in it with his masterpiece Citizen Kane. He has been lauded as one of the greatest filmmakers and his innovation in the techniques of filmmaking continues to influence past, present and future filmmakers.
Yet, he wasn’t just a great director but a great writer and producer. He was also a great actor both on-screen, and previously, on stage where he honed his craft. He has had some memorable moments in all the films he’s acted in (even his final film which was the cult classic animated film feature Transformers: The Movie, where he was the voice of a planet-devouring transforming robot planetoid).
It is his brief but great monologue past the halfway mark of the classic noir film The Third Man that is my choice for Scenes I Love and another entry in the “Great Film and TV Monologues” series.
Welles plays the amoral Harry Lime who meets up with his childhood friend Holly Martins. As they ride the famous Wiener Riesenrad in Vienna, Welles waxes poetic about the insignificance of people, in general. How, from the the heights of the Riesenrad, people looked like little dots and would one dot or a group of them be missed if they suddenly stopped moving.
Yet, it is when Lime and Martins exit the ride that Welles’ as Harry Lime performs what is considered one of the greatest monologues ever put on film and, most likely, one of the briefest. It is a philosophical observation on the cynics take on the violent nature of man and how it affects society.
The monologue itself wasn’t written by the film’s writer, Graham Greene, but was inserted in the script by Orson Welles himself. The Third Man was one of the greatest films ever produced even without Welles’ contribution as a writer, but we should be all glad that he decided to add this brief monologue which helps explains the character of Harry Lime and the meaning of the “third man”.
As I continue to celebrate Chow Yun-Fat, as he gets ready to turn 70 on May 18th, 2025, I thought I’d highlight his performance as the evil Emperor Ping in CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. Chow doesn’t often play a bad guy, but he can do it extremely well, and he’s still the ultimate badass. Enjoy this scene between Chow Yun-Fat and Taiwanese superstar Jay Chou as Prince Jai.
Today would have been the 89th birthday of the great British actor, Albert Finney!
And today’s scene that I love features Albert Finney in the role of history’s most famous miser. In 1970’s Scrooge, Finney played the title role and, early on, his worldview was perfectly captured by a song called I Hate People. Finny was only 34 when he played Ebenezer Scrooge but he does a wonderful job of bringing the character to life and he’s just as convincing when he’s being good as he is when he’s being bad. Finney is the main reason why Scrooge is my personal favorite of all of the versions of A Christmas Carol.
Today’s scene that I love comes from Rome, OpenCity:
Filmed in 1945, Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City was one of the first films to be made about life under the Nazis. What set this film apart from others is that the majority of the cast actually had lived under the occupation. While there were a few professional amongst the cast, Rossellini also used many nonprofessional actors, who brought a weary authenticity to their roles and their portrayal of life in occupied Rome.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to director Amy Heckerling!
Today’s scene that I love comes from Amy Heckerling’s feature debut, 1982’s Fast Times At Ridgemont High. In just two minutes, Heckerling introduces us to almost all of the major characters, establishes the mall as the center of Ridgemont High culture, and leaves us with little doubt that we’ve entered a time machine and found ourselves in the 80s. Look at all the future stars. Look at Mike Damone, future mobster. My heart always breaks for Stacy and her brother Brad. They have no idea what’s waiting for them this year.
One of the most influential scenes in action movie history, the restaurant shootout from A BETTER TOMORROW still packs a punch. I watched HAVOC (2025) from director Gareth Evans recently and he used the music from this scene in his movie. It felt like a love note to fans of Hong Kong cinema like me, and it made me want to revisit this movie again immediately. Chow Yun-Fat is amazingly badass, and John Woo himself even shows up at the end.
Since today is Orson Welles’s birthday, I wanted to share at least one scene that I love from his films. The famous tracking shot from 1958’s TouchofEvil, which begins in America and ends in Mexico, truly shows Orson Welles at his visionary best.
It’s also Welles at his most clever. Knowing that he wouldn’t be given control over the editing of the footage he shot, Welles included as many long shots as possible to make it more difficult for an editor to chop up or alter his vision.
Through the Shattered Lens 