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Post two film examples where a set of stairs figure prominently, either advancing the plot at points, or having at least some integral part in the film, and then a third example that’s considered more on the minutiae side, a kind of little zinger, that fleetingly adds atmosphere for maybe just one particular scene.
In The Exorcist, the spookiest thing for me were the stairs and especially the harsh lighting when going up to the bedroom hall. Seeing von Sydow saying “There is only one”, and then heading upstairs, younger priest in tow, (soundtrack courtesy LB’s phlegmy growling) - whole grain goodness. Also the director’s cut crab-walk up said stairway gets a dubious honorable mention.
(can’t find the post where I mentioned this in another thread) The stairs leading up to Rusk’s apartment in Frenzy appears several times, with Hitchcock’s camera panning behind the actors going upstairs, and in a later instance quietly:eek: pulling back, eventually out into the street.
minutiae example: in Blue Velvet, Jeffrey goes upstairs as Lynch’s camera oh-so-slightly pans to a tv showing sneaky-weaky footsteps going up some stairs that are at the same angle as the stairs that Jeffrey’s going up (just behind the tv).
It’s too late for me to sort out which is which, but when it comes to stairs, for some reason My Man Godfrey always comes to mind, but it’s been far too long since I’ve seen the movie to remember why. It may have just been the once scene where he’s being booted out of the house.
Noises Off! is a play turned into a movie (an amazing movie at that), but still set up like a play. 95% of the movie takes place on this set. The stairs are very predominant, mostly as a means to get from the top of the set to the bottom, but they also play a role in some of the jokes, as well as John Ritter being a bit of a physical comedian, so it’s a fair assumption that something will happen on them at one point or another as well. Also, the other 5% of the movie is backstage and there are stairs back there as well.
Another great movie is Arsenic and Old Lace, I’m not sure the stairs themselves figure into the movie in quite the way you’re looking for, but most of the movie is in a living room, but most of the discussion is about what’s going on the basement and all the characters go up and down the basement stairs many times…come to think of it, they go up to the second floor as well, via an open staircase, so there’s that.
In Vertigo they climbed the dizzying stair case to get to the top of the tower.
Home Alone featured multiple gags involving the upstairs and basement stairs.
Auntie Mame has a grand set of stairs in the main living area of the house where the party is.
How’s that for a start?
One last one…I only saw it once, a long long time ago, but IIRC, stairs were featured prominently in Gone With The Wind, but mostly as a ‘we’re super high class’ type thing, not as a plot point.
In What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? there’s a famous scene set on the stairs.
Lots of good jokes involving the stairs in Dana’s building in the original Ghostbusters. Plus scenes on the stairs leading to the basement storage facility at QB HQ.
Sunset Boulevard, in which Norma Desmond descends the staircase at the end and delivers her famous line, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”
And in Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O’Hara descends the staircase, wearing the dress made from the drapes, although it was odd that she didn’t remove the curtain rod.
Hitchcock loved staircases. Notorious: Cary Grant helping Ingrid Bergman down the stairs and being confronted by Claude Raines. Suspicion: Cary Grant again, carrying a glass of … milk? poison? up the stairs.
Friz Freling accompanied by Carl Stalling, putting Bugs and Sam through their paces in Buccaneer Bunny. It’s at 5:30. Freling used similar gags in a couple of other cartoons.
In addition to those already mentioned, Hitchcock’s films where there were important scenes on staircases include *Number 17, * (much of the film takes place on a staircase), The Thirty-Nine Steps (ignoring the title, Madeleine Carrol realizes Robert Donat is telling the truth when standing on the top of a staircase), Shadow of a Doubt (Uncle Charlie tried to kill Charlie by sawing through a stair; later, she confronts him at the end as she walks down a staircase with a incriminating evidence), Strangers on a Train (Guy is confronted by a dog when he climbs the stairs to murder Bruno’s father), Vertigo (the famous bell tower shot shows a staircase), Frenzy (when Barbara is being murdered, the camera dollies down a staircase and into the street), and Family Plot (The final scene).
The grand staircase in The Magnificent Ambersons framed major scenes and provided a canvas for Welles’s sweeping (er - technically, Stanley Cortez’s) cinematography.
