Great movie lines that don't look great on paper

Some movie lines were destined for greatness from the moment they were written. Epigrams like Gene Kelly’s “It is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and flick the comfortable” or Bette Davis’ “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” shine when you read them. Any director with common sense will leave them in the script and any actor worth his chops knows how to make the best of reading them.

But some lines that were not obviously destined for greatness, or even goodness, are made good by the particular way the actor delivers them. On paper, even in context, they sound perfectly flat and ordinary. Here are some lines that I think actors rescued from oblivion by discovering the right way to deliver them.

Jaws: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Stated matter-of-factly, this is merely the blazingly obvious. It’s Roy Scheider’s completely freaked-out look and tone that makes this a famous line.

The Fellowship of the Ring: “They have a cave troll.” They have a what? Unless you’re a D&D player, this line means nothing. But the way Sean Bean says it, you can almost hear him adding, “Oh, we are so fucked.”

Gangs of New York: “I come for my due and proper.” Doesn’t sound particularly menacing, until you hear John C. Reilly growl it with a menacing stare. Now it sounds like the Devil himself has come to Earth to enforce his end of one of those contracts signed in blood.

Ash: “Groovy.”

Ni!

I’ll be back.

The entire script of Airplane!

Mr. Pink: “You’re acting like a first-year thief! I’m acting like a proffessional.”

Hardass posturing when read. Amusing when squealed by Buscemi from this position.

yay for misspelling professional. :cool:

Sam Jackson & John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction” (Still don’t know why this works)

In Paris, you can buy beer at MacDonald’s. Also, you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with Cheese in Paris?

–They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with Cheese?

No, they got the metric system there, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is.

–What’d they call it?

Royale with Cheese.

–Royale with Cheese. What’d they call a Big Mac?

Big Mac’s a Big Mac, but they call it Le Big Mac.

–What do they call a Whopper?

I dunno, I didn’t go into a Burger King.

“They mostly come out at night. Mostly.”

I’m going in.

“I love you.”
“I know.”

“I have one word for you son. Plastics.”

“I’m not a bum, I’m a jerk.”

You shall not pass.

“The district attorney is a Republican.” – hilarious in context, meaningless alone.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Oh shit!

Well, I’ve always loved “North By Northwest,” but if you were to READ the dialogue between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, you’d groan! All of the supposedly smooth banter reads like hokey, cheesy, embarrassingly dated pickup-lines from a 1950s Playboy seduction manual!

Cary Grant is so suave, so debonair, he can somehow make the cheesiest pickup line sound charming. But if any ordinary man tried to charm a lady with the same phrases, he’d get his face slapped… or worse yet, he’d be laughed at.

“Nazis. I hate these guys.” Harrison Ford’s delivery makes the line a classic.

“You know…for kids!”

that is logical captain