Top Movie Quotes, 58-56

Continuing the countdown of the American Film Institute’s top 100 movie lines (2005)
__________________________________

58

 
“Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.”
 

- Spoken by Al Pacino as Michael Corleone, The Godfather 2, 1974

Trivia: 

• This was the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. The second, and as of 2016 the last, was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).

• In a scene set in 1960, Tom Hagen says that nobody could kill the President of the United States and Michael Corleone replies that anyone could be killed. Of course three years later, President John F. Kennedy was killed and there are some theories that the Mafia was involved in the assassination.

• The presence of oranges in all three "Godfather" movies indicates that a death or an assassination attempt will soon happen. The Senator is framed for murder after playing with oranges at the Corleone house, and Johnny Ola brings an orange into Michael's office before the attempt on Michael's life. Fanucci eats an orange just before he is gunned down and Michael is eating an orange while plotting to kill Roth. However, after the young Vito Corleone buys oranges from a street vendor, no immediately related death occurs.

__________________________________

57

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.” 

 
- Spoken by Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, Wall Street, 1987

Trivia:

• Gordon Gekko's "Greed is good" speech was inspired by Ivan Boesky's speech at the University of California's commencement ceremony in 1986. Boesky was a Wall Street arbitrageur who paid a $100 million penalty to the SEC later that year to settle insider trading charges. In his speech, Boesky said "Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself."

• According to Oliver Stone, he was "making a movie about sharks, about feeding frenzies. Bob [director of photography Robert Richardson] and I wanted the camera to become a predator. There is no letup until you get to the fixed world of Charlie's father, where the stationary camera gives you a sense of immutable values". The director saw Wall Street as a battle zone and "filmed it as such" including shooting conversations like physical confrontations and in ensemble shots had the camera circle the actors "in a way that makes you feel you're in a pool with sharks".

__________________________________

56 

 


“A boy’s best friend is his mother.”

- Spoken by Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Psycho, 1960

Trivia:

• Walt Disney refused to allow Alfred Hitchcock to film at Disneyland in the early 1960s because Hitchcock had made "that disgusting movie, 'Psycho.'"

• On set, Alfred Hitchcock would always refer to Anthony Perkins as "Master Bates."

• Paramount gave Hitchcock a very small budget to work with, because of their distaste with the source material. They also deferred most of the net profits to Hitchcock, thinking the film would fail. When it became a sleeper hit, Hitchcock made a fortune.

• In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic." After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.

• Every theatre that showed the film had a cardboard cut-out installed in the lobby of Alfred Hitchcock pointing to his wristwatch with a note from the director saying "The manager of this theatre has been instructed at the risk of his life, not to admit to the theatre any persons after the picture starts. Any spurious attempts to enter by side doors, fire escapes or ventilating shafts will be met by force. The entire objective of this extraordinary policy, of course, is to help you enjoy PSYCHO more. Alfred Hitchcock"

• First American film ever to show a toilet flushing on screen.

• The Bates house was largely modeled on an oil painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The canvas is called "House by the Railroad" and was painted in 1925 by American iconic artist Edward Hopper. The architectural details, viewpoint and austere sky is almost identical as seen in the film.

Hopper's painting

 

The Bates Hotel

• After the film's release Alfred Hitchcock received an angry letter from the father of a girl who refused to have a bath after seeing Diabolique (1955) and now refused to shower after seeing this film. Hitchcock sent a note back simply saying, "Send her to the dry cleaners."

• Alfred Hitchcock tested the fear factor of Mother's corpse by placing it in Janet Leigh's dressing room and listening to how loud she screamed when she discovered it there.

• The novel upon which the film is based was inspired by the true story of Ed Gein, a serial killer who was also the inspiration for Deranged: Confessions of a Necrophile (1974), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

• Bernard Herrmann achieved the shrieking sound of the shower scene by having a group of violinists saw the same note over and over. He called the motif "a return to pure ice water."

• Contrary to popular belief, Alfred Hitchcock did not use ice-cold water for the shower scene in order to inspire realistic screams from Janet Leigh.