# Actions in movies that will never be done again. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 8, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700 "2008-09-08T23:34:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TommyTutone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c4cdca/32.png) [@TommyTutone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TommyTutone)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/21 "2008-09-09T14:32:56Z")
One of my favorite Hitchcock movies **Notorious** has a very drunk Ingrid Bergman wanting to go out for a drive. This isn’t enough, but Cary Grant, instead of trying to take the keys away, goes with her and rides passenger as she goes faster and faster narrowly escaping death. Admittedly he needed her for a job, but what good would she have been if she was dead? ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/22 "2008-09-09T14:41:31Z")
> [@stpauler](#): > > Almost a quarter century later, violence hasn’t waned but drinking and driving would be completely taboo. One notable exception: Billy Bob Thornton in the **Bad News Bears** remake. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/23 "2008-09-09T14:45:31Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > A movie like Ben-Hur will never be remade. No more sea battles or chariot races. I can’t imagine why not. They wouldn’t be filmed in the same way, of course. I’m not sure I understand the OP. I _think_ it’s using hyperbole (“never be done again”) to refer to things that were once commonly seen in movies, but now seldom are for various reasons. An example might be the 2001 movie _Pearl Harbor_. I didn’t see it, but I heard that, even though most of the characters were military people in 1941, _nobody smoked_. Yet another lesson from Michael Bay in what not to do as a director. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/24 "2008-09-09T16:22:18Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > An example might be the 2001 movie _Pearl Harbor_. I didn’t see it, but I heard that, even though most of the characters were military people in 1941, _nobody smoked_. Also, nobody farted. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/25 "2008-09-09T16:46:33Z")
Cell phones have prevented a looooot of movie scenarios from ever happening again. Remember the first couple years they were ubiqitous in real life but hadn’t been written into movies and tv shows yet? Every 5 minutes in a movie or tv show the viewers would be going COME ON! USE YOUR CELL PHONE! WHAT? HE DOESN’T HAVE ONE? WHO DOESN’T HAVE A CELL PHONE??? ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/26 "2008-09-09T16:49:00Z")
(two notable exceptions were Pulp Fiction and Saved by the Bell but rest assured they were **exceptions**.) ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/27 "2008-09-09T17:26:02Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > An example might be the 2001 movie _Pearl Harbor_. I didn’t see it, but I heard that, even though most of the characters were military people in 1941, _nobody smoked_. I don’t remember much about that movie, except that somehow the Americans won, so I can neither confirm nor disprove the absence of smoking. Smoking is still present in movies, but has anyone else noticed this new disclaimer? I think I’ve seen this in the closing credits of every major release in the past year: > [@](#): > > The depictions of smoking in this film are based solely on artistic consideration and not intended to promote tobacco consumption. Those of you who stay for the credits will definitely have seen this. As someone who goes to a lot of movies, movies targeted at each and every different demographic, I can tell you that this disclaimer now appears at the end of all Hollywood movies. Probably also in the end credits of independent films that have a deal with a major distributor, and maybe also in the end credits of the prints distributed in the U.S. of foreign films. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/28 "2008-09-09T17:49:42Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > We’ll never see anyone looking for a phone booth (unless it’s in a historical movie). [Or not](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_Booth_(film)). We are unlikely to see again a scene in which a character picks up a phone and says “Operator! Get me the police!” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/29 "2008-09-09T18:01:25Z")
> [@TommyTutone](#): > > One of my favorite Hitchcock movies **Notorious** has a very drunk Ingrid Bergman wanting to go out for a drive. This isn’t enough, but Cary Grant, instead of trying to take the keys away, goes with her and rides passenger as she goes faster and faster narrowly escaping death. Admittedly he needed her for a job, but what good would she have been if she was dead? Even better is _North by Northwest_, where Cary Grant is forced to drink himself stupid at gunpoint, then put behind the wheel of a car and sent careening down a mountain road. He manages to survive, but gets arrested. The penalty for driving a car when you’re drunk to the point of unconsciousness? Two dollars. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Dave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/46a35a/32.png) [@Great\_Dave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Dave)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/30 "2008-09-09T18:30:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Even better is _North by Northwest_, where Cary Grant is forced to drink himself stupid at gunpoint, then put behind the wheel of a car and sent careening down a mountain road. He manages to survive, but gets arrested. The penalty for driving a car when you’re drunk to the point of unconsciousness? Two dollars. Totally worth it. ---
**Author:** ![Figaro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ea666f/32.png) [@Figaro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Figaro)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/31 "2008-09-09T18:38:03Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Even better is _North by Northwest_, where Cary Grant is forced to drink himself stupid at gunpoint, then put behind the wheel of a car and sent careening down a mountain road. He manages to survive, but gets arrested. The penalty for driving a car when you’re drunk to the point of unconsciousness? Two dollars. This is making my head spin, because I’ve seen that movie several times and I can’t remember the scene you’re talking about at all…😕 I’m getting old. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/32 "2008-09-09T18:52:19Z")
> [@Figaro](#): > > This is making my head spin, because I’ve seen that movie several times and I can’t remember the scene you’re talking about at all…😕 I’m getting old. Perhaps [this](http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=hUZ_qBk26lg) will help jog your memory, Mr. Kaplan. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/33 "2008-09-09T18:58:07Z")
Chose a random Buster Keaton movie for stunts that will probably never be attempted again. Why he wasn’t killed a dozen times is beyond me. Or _Way Down East_, wherein Lillian Gish’s character is rescued from an ice floe in a thawing river, so they went on location to an actual thawing river and had the actual actor playing her rescuer leap from tossing, grinding ice floe to tossing grinding ice floe to rescue the actual Lillian Gish from an actual tossing, grinding ice floe. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/34 "2008-09-09T19:05:43Z")
I wish they would do car wrecks and stunts again instead of computer simulating them. The computer imaging looks fake, and I gotta think it costs just as much to hire a graphics expert to do all that work as it does to just drive a real car off a real bridge or whatever. Maybe it’s insurance costs that make cgi attractive. If so they need to get on board with Bill Hicks’ idea of using terminally ill patients as stuntmen :D. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/35 "2008-09-09T19:16:50Z")
[the Parrallax View](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071970/). Warren Beatty stumbles onto a (frankly absurd) plot to control the government by brazenly assassinating anyone they didn’t want holding office as president. Anyway, there is a great ironic scene in which Beatty is on the trail of assassins, which leads to an airport. He sees them get on a plane, and simply follows them onboard - no security check, no preboarding ID check, no ticket! The plane takes off, and the stewardess (it’s that old a movie, she’s a ‘stew’ not a flight attendant) only then asks for tickets. Beatty, not having one, buys one from her! What’s more, HE CAN PAY FOR IT IN CASH! (When was the last time you bought a plane ticket for less than $100?) Then, Beatty realizes the assassin plans to blow up the plane - so he goes right up to the cockpit and tells the flight crew! Instead of restraining Beatty, the pilot turns the plane around and lands. As security folks surround the actual assassin, Beatty simply manages to slip away. Were someone to remake that movie today, that entire scene would have to be omitted. There is simply no way that the hero could do any of that. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/36 "2008-09-09T19:44:13Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > As early as 1978, “Superman” made a joke of the fact that there were no more phone booths for Clark Kent to use as a changing room. If I remember correctly, he had the problem that all the phone booths were replaced with those half height, unenclosed public phones. These days even ones like that are as unlikely to be part of a movie scene, unless a cell phone breaks or the characters are in East Bumblefuck and can’t get service. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/37 "2008-09-09T20:10:27Z")
Divine’s infamous scene in Pink Flamingos. ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/38 "2008-09-09T20:29:31Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > I wish they would do car wrecks and stunts again instead of computer simulating them. The computer imaging looks fake, and I gotta think it costs just as much to hire a graphics expert to do all that work as it does to just drive a real car off a real bridge or whatever. Maybe it’s insurance costs that make cgi attractive. If so they need to get on board with Bill Hicks’ idea of using terminally ill patients as stuntmen :D. Like that horrible **Gone in Sixty Seconds** remake. They faked the stunts. The whole point of the movie is to see really cool real car stunts, and they faked them. Geez Louise. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/39 "2008-09-09T20:36:51Z")
Not a movie, but still. The very first new Jack-In-The-Box commercial featuring the hydrocephalic “Jack” clown character was very funny at the time, but not now. He was portrayed as the new go-get-em yuppie who was out to shake up the old business establishment. The commercial showed the old JITB board members assembling in a conference room, while Jack emerged from the room in his smug yuppie suit and a remote device in his hand. He then pressed the button and triggered a bomb which blew up the conference room and everyone in it. I don’t think the JITB franchise would benefit from that kind of imagery nowadays. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700/40 "2008-09-09T20:45:33Z")
After 9/11 alot of people were saying that big disaster epics showing American cities being devestated would never be seen again in Hollywood, I think that lasted about six months. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/actions-in-movies-that-will-never-be-done-again/462700.md?page=3)