I was re-watching the Sting during yesterday’s storm, and some things I hadn’t considered fell into place.
SPOILERS here, just so’s you know. It’s a 40+ year old film, but it’s too good to be spoiled (and I once showed it to someone who actually hadn’t seen or heard of it)
Harold Gould’s character “Kid Twist” is clearly the guy occupying the corner room overlooking the alley containing the “Billiard Hall” with the fake racing joint in it. You don’t ever clearly see the guy, but you can sorta make him out through the curtains. It’s his voice on the phone calling in to the drug store. It’s his shirt sleeve you see when the finger pushes the button. He’s the guy who asked about renting the room.
Of course, Doyle Lonnegan figures the voice on the phone is him, since he met him at “his” Western Union office. But Lonnegan surely thinks he’s calling from the Western Union office or a phone booth nearby – not from that corner window.
When approaching the climax of the actual “Sting”, Gould’s character (still in his Western Union persona, with glasses) wanders into the betting parlor to confer with Lonnegan, it seems as if he’s only there to add a little confusion and anxiety by telling Lonnegan that he has placed the wrong bet.
I hadn’t realized that there’s another purpose for his being there. It suddenly hit me. Just after Lonnegan learns of the apparent SNAFU, and starts indignantly demanding his money back, Dana Elcar as F.B.I. agent Polk bursts in with his cadre of G-men. Had Kid Twist been at his post in that corner window he’d have seen the army of G-men descending on the betting parlor, and would have alerted them with both the warning buzzer and the telephone. The only reason he didn’t would appear to be that he had left that post to play his last part in the con.
Of course, he wouldn’t have alerted them in any case, since the “FBI” army was actually part of the con. The diversion of Kid Twist from his post wasn’t done to satisfy Lonnegan of this – it was to fool the movie audience, some of whom might actually have wondered why he didn’t warn Henry Gondorff and company about the coming raid. A small detail – most people (like me) were probably still coping with the twists and turns at that point to wonder about that particular detail – but it’s significant that, like the others in the scheme, this one was well-thought-out, too.
Watching the first Catwoman episode of Batman last night (the same one I was watching in March 1966 when Gemini 8 went out of control), I noticed that her henchman Leo (the tall dude with the big feet) was played by Jock Mahoney, aka Marty Crane on*** Frasier*** (he clearly shrank in the thirty years between the two shows).
When Robin is talking to Commissioner Gordon on the Batphone after escaping from Catwoman’s clutches, he says Chief O’Hara can find one of her minions tied up at the Gato and Chat Fur Company. However, there were clearly two of them left at the lair after Leo got away (Felix and one other whose name Catwoman mentioned in passing). This made me wonder: What the hell?!? Did the Dynamic Duo feed him to the tigers or something?!? :eek:
Mad Magazine’s early lampoon, “Poopeye”, starts with Mazola Oyl stomping Poopeye. He eats some spinach, then he stomps Mazola. As you can see below, on the second page of the comic, his feet are shaped like (card suit) clubs. I just thought it was funny because it was weird.
I hadn’t seen this for decades, but I recalled it today. For the first time I got the blatant visual pun: feet in the shape of clubs –> club foot.
I just finished watching Season 17 of the Simpsons on DVD, and I’ve had one of these moments. In the episode “My Fair Laddie”, Lisa turns Groundskeeper Willie into a proper gentleman, and introduces him to an unknowing crowd as “G. K. Willington.” I thought the name was merely a take-off of G. K. Chesterson, until (after a while) it dawned on me that “G. K.”, in this context, stands for “Grounds Keeper.”
“Seven”. I just watched it for the first time last night, in something like ten years.
By the way, the movie “Seven” is 20 years old now. Wha?!
The victim of Greed was an attorney named Eli Gould. I missed it the first several times I watched the movie that the antagonist forced Gould to cut out the pound of his own flesh.
Waaaay back when Pushing Daisies was a going concern, I realized how to remember which aunt had which name. If you recall, one aunt had an eyepatch. That aunt was Lily. The other was Vivian.
This was because “Lily” has one “i” and “Vivian” has two.
The Marc Almond/Gene Pitney video for ‘Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart’ is about a rent boy and an old rich guy who fall in love. At the end they get married in Vegas.
Maybe everyone else in the world noticed this at the time, but my husband just pointed it out to me the other day. I can’t even remember what I thought it was about when I was a kid.
It should have been a visual pun, but they were so afraid people wouldn’t get it that the dialog reads: “However … even without shoes … the odd club-like shape of my forelegs enable me to deliver crushing tromps.”
That’s what those of us in the science fiction mines used to call an expository dump.
Here’s something I never noticed before, though. They consistently misspell broccoli as brocolli.
I’ve admitted before that for several years I thought actresses Leslie Bibb and Leslie Mann were the same person. In my defense, they have similar names, similar appearances, are about the same age, and do the same kind of roles.