LINES FROM THE PROJECTIONIST'S FOREHEAD

Yesterday’s blog on memorable last lines from the movies prompted my friend James the Magician to offer a few of his own favourite lines...

Strictly speaking, they’re not so much 'favourites lines' as ones that stuck in his head - through “constant exposure” - when (as one of his first jobs) he worked in the projection booth at the Embassy Cinema, Esher…

Nor, to be fair, are they LAST lines, which is changing the rules of the game somewhat. I mean, if I’d allowed myself lines from ANYWHERE in a picture then I’d have definitely included: “I suppose it’d be better if I’d never been born at all…”

And I’d have certainly have wanted: “Dip the apple in the brew. Let the Sleeping Death seep through…”; “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and - blow...”; and, somewhere near the top of the list: “Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!”

Anyway, here are James’ submissions for your amusement and/or puzzlement (answers in a day or two’s time):

A gun goes off at a football game.
“Oh my God! They've shot him!”
“--- ----, you incredible nincompoop! It's the end of the quarter!

“It just occurred to me... I've travelled halfway around the world, at great expense, simply to kill a different kind of bird.”

“------ told me once, 'Never be too disturbed if you don't understand what a woman is thinking. They don't do it very often.'"

“What's the point of all this, Doctor?”
“By doing this, I've survived a great deal of other peoples’ deaths, and I intend to survive a great deal more!”

“They're the Umbala tribe. They eat people. Very backward.”
“Well, they're not eating ME backwards!”

"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."


Suffice it to say, it’s a mixed bag: a couple of classics and one or two lost gems of cinema that, arguably, would have been better LEFT lost!