In today’s scene that I love, two icons of cinematic cool meet in 1968’s Hell In The Pacific.
In this scene, Lee Marvin comes across Toshiro Mifune on the island on which they have both crashed. There’s not much dialogue in this scene but, when you’ve got two actors like Marvin and Mifune, there doesn’t need to be much dialogue.
Today, we wish a happy birthday to actor, director, and producer Warren Beatty!
This wonderfully-acted scene that I love comes from Beatty’s 1978 film, Heaven Can Wait. In this scene Warren Beatty plays a character who attempts to convince his friend (Jack Warden) that he has come back from the dead and is inhabiting the body of an old millionaire. (Watch the film, it makes sense.) James Mason plays the erudite angel that only Beatty can see.
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to Italian film star, Terence Hill!
This scene that I love comes from 1973’s My Name Is Nobody. It features Terence teaching a cocky gunslinger a thing or two about how to win a slap fight.
With today being Quentin Tarantino’s birthday, I almost feel like I have no choice but to pick this scene from the explosive finale of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood as my scene that I love for the day.
When this film, there was a lot of controversy by Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) using a flame thrower to set a hippie on fire in his swimming pool. Never mind that the hippie in question (played by future Oscar-winner Mikey Madison) was specifically in Rick’s bungalow to try to kill him. On twitter, there were cries about how this scene proved that Tarantino misogynist. On TV Tropes, someone actually wrote, “You have to feel a little sorry for the hippie at the end….”
No, actually, you don’t have to feel sorry for her in the least. In this scene, Madison is playing Susan Atkins, a.k.a. Sadie Mae Glutz. In real life, Susan Atkins was the most enthusiastic of Charles Manson’s band of hippie killers. She was the one who personally stabbed Sharon Tate to death while Sharon, 8 and a half months pregnant at the time, begged for the life of her baby. I won’t quote what Atkins said to Sharon while killing her but you can find it in any of the books written about the case. How do we know what Atkins said? Because she bragged about it in prison. She didn’t show a shred of remorse until after she realized she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison, which is when she suddenly decided she was born again and started claiming she was brainwashed. In real life, Sharon Tate, only 26 years old, died in 1969. Susan Atkins lived to be 61, saved just because the Supreme Court temporarily suspended the death penalty in the 70s.
So, as far as I’m concerned, turn those flames up, Rick. In Tarantino’s world, Sharon lived and had her baby. If the choice is between Tarantino’s alternate reality or the world in which Atkins spent 40 years having her food and housing paid for by the same California taxpayers that she wanted to kill, I know which one I’m going with.
Today would have been James Caan’s 85 birthday so today’s scene that I love comes from one of Caan’s best-known films, The Godfather.
This scene features Caan’s Sonny Corleone in all of his glory, congratulating Michael on his broken jaw and getting on Tom Hagen’s nerves. Robert Duvall and James Caan were close friends in real life and that friendship definitely comes through in their performances as Tom and Sonny.
The great British director David Lean was born 117 years ago today.
In honor of his films and his legacy, here is a scene that I love from Lawrence of Arabia. In this scene, Peter O’Toole blowing out a flame transports us straight to a sunrise in the desert. Though Lean started out his career directing small-scale but emotionally rich films like Brief Encounter and Great Expectations, he ultimately became best-known for directing historical epics and cinematic spectacles. This scene shows us why. Even to this day, it seems as if any epic film is destined to be compared to the work of David Lean.
In honor of the birthday of actor Steve McQueen, the true epitome of all things cool, here is the famous and trend-setting chase scene from 168’s Bullitt, featuring McQueen behind the wheel and doing his own stunts on the streets of San Francisco.
Today, we wish a happy 95th birthday to the one and only William Shatner!
In this scene that I love, William Shatner performs Rocket Man at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards (better known as the Saturn Awards).
Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy birthday to actor Gary Oldman!
My scene that I love features Gary Oldman as Harry S Truman in Oppenheimer. Oldman doesn’t get a lot of screentime in Oppenheimer but he shows what a brilliant actor can do with a small role. His casual dismissal of Oppenheimer’s guilt is one of the strongest moments in the film. (And, for those of us who found Oppenheimer, as a character, to be a bit self-asborbed, it’s a cathartic moment, as well.)
Wings Hauser, the great character actor who brought his unhinged intensity to many a film, has passed away. Rest in Peace.
Today’s scene that I love comes from what may be Hauser’s best-known film, 1983’s Vice Squad. In this scene, the Vice Squad thinks that they have busted Ramrod, the sadistic pimp played by Hauser. In this scene, Hauser makes Ramrod into an intimidating figure even as he’s being arrested. Martin Scorsese once said Wings Hauser deserved an Oscar for his performance in Vice Squad and he was right.
Through the Shattered Lens 