I never noticed that either! How neat.
I think I noticed the boats, but not the sailors.
Did you know The Great Wave off Kanagawa was part of a set of paintings called Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji?
Agreed. The book is better.
The discussion of the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail over in this thread reminded me of this – Arthur was framed! The knight who killed that historian earlier in the film was riding a horse. Arthur doesn’t have a horse! Nor do any of his knights. The police have the wrong guy!
I watched that movie so many times I pretty much had it memorized in high school. But I didn’t notice that until someone else pointed it out.
TIL learned from the History of Rock in 500 Songs podcast that Chubby Checker’s name - a stagename of course - was a parody of Fats Domino 
Apparently he got his start making parody records of various artists including Domino, and that was the comedy name they chose for that track.
In Pulp Fiction, Marcellus pays Butch to throw his upcoming fight, and to do it in the fifth round. Presumably, Marcellus plans to bet heavily on Butch losing.
Who is Marcellus going to bet with? If a gangster came to me and offered such a specific bet, I’d know something was up. In 1994, were there places that Marcellus could go to make that wager that wouldn’t recognize him and instantly suspect that he had some inside information? Marcellus Wallace was probably not a household name, but he seems like someone who would be known in the L.A. underworld, or to anyone who’d be taking bets on a fight.
Doesn’t he have employees?
That “you’re taking a fall” has been a part of boxing movies since sound came it. Wallace would simply send flunkies to place the bet, in small amounts with a bunch of bookies.
Heck, to distribute small amounts to his other flunkies, he could first hand it off to one of his flunkies in, say, a briefcase, or — hey, wait a minute.
You think Marcellus’s flunkies aren’t known to the local bookies? Well, maybe not someone who’s been in Amsterdam for three years.
Speaking of which, is it ever explained why Vincent was in Amsterdam? AI is telling me that he was running a nightclub for Marcellus, but I don’t remember that from the movie. And I’m a little surprised that Marcellus would have such globe-spanning interests.
Team, are we actually debating whether or not a mob boss can lay bets? He would just place them in Vegas or Atlantic City and hope the activity wouldn’t move the market.
Implication was that he was laying low from the heat. But, yes, it was never explained.
Would the books in Vegas take his bets, or would they recognize someone like Marcellus and realize that the fix was in?
In The Sting, Redford has a cup of Joe in the diner and the way he holds his mug has always seemed fluky — middle and ring fingers through the handle, pinky and index fingers braced against the side of the mug, thumb sticking straight up. I wondered if that was some affectation of the 1930s that has since disappeared but, no, Redford, IRL, was working with a broken thumb.
I always figured the name was obviously “inspired” by FD, but had no idea about the story behind it. I thank you.
You can make such specific bets now, it’s one of the reasons games like Tennis have moved to automatic like calls – if you are betting on the next serve being out, you want the call to be accurate.
But Marcellus only has to be on Butch losing. The specific instruction is to make the fight look good: if you are giving coaching instructions to a boxer, you are always specific.
The specific instruction also allows you to put on bets late, to get better odds, but that kind of instruction is used even when the fight isn’t fixed.
I certainly didn’t think that Marcellus was going to place bets with anyone. It seemed much more likely that he was intending to cheat those who have been placing bets with HIM. If the action has been mostly Butch winning, either by KO or points, Butch lasting all 10 rounds, or anything other than Butch KOed in the fifth, he would come out way ahead. And, of course, he can manipulate the odds he is giving to further influence the betting action and make even more money. (But he has to be subtle. “Butch losing in the 4th, 8 to 1. Butch losing in the 6th, 9 to 1. Butch losing in the 5th, 2 to 1. Yeah…don’t ask me. That’s the word from Marcellus.”)
Yeah, Marcellus was the “house” and the house “fixing” the game has a long history.
This is all specifically referenced in the movie when Butch tells Scottie (his accomplice) that after it got out that the fix was in, the odds on Butch winning would go way up. That’s how he got his payday…