Couldn’t find a video clip, but…from John Wayne’s El Dorado,
[spoiler]…when Cole (Wayne) returns MacDonald’s son’s body to his father.
“I’ll tell you what happened. You left a boy out there to do a man’s job.”
“He went to sleep. When I came by, he woke up, jumped up and started firing his gun…all I saw was somebody shooting at me from the rocks.”
“How do you know he was asleep?”
“He told me that. He told me his name. That’s how I knew where to bring him. He said you told him what happens to a man that’s gut shot. How he hasn’t got much of a chance. Did you tell him that?”
“I told him that.”
“Then you’re partly to blame. You’ll find two bullets in him. One of them’s mine. He was…hurtin’ worse than he could stand. 'Had a handgun that I didn’t see. Any more questions you want to ask?”
“No. I guess you’re telling the truth. If you weren’t you’d never have brought him here. I thank you for that.”[/spoiler]
The first one that I thought of was Jimmy Cagney in 13 Rue Madelaine. He’s being tortured by the Nazis for information. The Allies are bombing the building so that he’ll be killed and can’t give the info out. When the bombs start falling, Cagney just starts laughing like it’s a great joke on the guys torturing, and he knows he beat them.
When somebody upthread mentioned going singing into certain death, it reminded me of Sean Connery in The Man Who Would be King, when he goes to it.
Also, the St Crispins Day speech, in Henry V. Particularly Brannagh’s version, because Laurence Olivier sounds like such a tool in his version.
Mel Gibson made a movie called “Payback” wherein he was the baddest of badasses all the way through, but he was also a pathological criminal, so it lacked the nobility of the other examples.
And yet, a few people have mentioned Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” character, who is still a hired killer even after his late wife’s civilizing influence, and I don’t disagree with them, so I guess it comes down to how sympathetically the character is portrayed, no matter what a bastard he is.
Now, I haven’t read the story, so I’m going on the movie-- I’m willing to listen to insights from the story but of course the movie could be trying to make a different point.
Anyway, I agree that Spade maybe didn’t care so much for Miles (and was sleeping with his wife), and was going after Miles’ killer more out of duty than personal feelings (which in itself is Doing the Right Thing). But I’m not so convinced that there’s only hate/disdain for Briget. If she’s nothing to him, why does he make such a (tortured) speech to her, trying to get her to understand why he’s turning her in? Why does he say something about being there when she gets out?
I thought the whole point was that Spade was in fact very attracted to her, and he was working as hard as he could to fight that attraction-- because he owed his partner (and also because Spade knows he can’t really trust her, of course, and refuses to play the chump for her). IMO, the biggest failing of the movie is that it doesn’t really show that attraction very well, so the depth of Spade’s sacrifice, and the reason for his impassioned speech, isn’t very clear. But that’s just me, maybe I’m wrong.
The fabulous submarine movie The Enemy Below has some manly moments. When the American sub picks up the Germans singing over sonar. When Robert Mitchum and Curt Jergens, the two sub commanders, become aware of each other during the cat-and-mouse maneuvers. And especially at the end when they both save Jergens’ friend. Both guys are exceedingly manly. Similar scene at the end of The Hunt for Red October. (I do love me those submarine films…)
Pretty much every minute of James Garner in Murphy’s Romance. When he takes Sally Field’s ex-husband outside to let him know he saw him cheating at cards and he won’t stand for it; when he won’t lend Sally money, but then he buys a horse and pays her to board and train it.
*DRAVOT:Peachy, I’m heartily ashamed for gettin’ you killed instead of goin’ home rich like you deserved to — on account of me bein’ so bleedin’ high and bloody mighty. Do you forgive me?
CARNEHAN:That I do, Danny, free and full and without let or hindrance.*
I’m reminded of Jon Stewart’s hosting of the Oscars and they did the gay western before Brokeback skit. I had never seen Big Country, but my coworker is a big classic film fan and she recognized the scene, but never in that context with Jon’s skit!
Geez, everything reminds me of something else. Can it be that nobody has mentioned “Lonesome Dove,” with Gus McRae (Robert Duvall) finding out his favorite whore has been kidnapped by a murderous renegade, and simply jumping on his horse and riding off after them on a journey he knew might take several days, with his only preparation for the trip being to grab an extra box of ammo?
And when he finally catches up with her, she has been sold to a larger band of renegades, and he calmly kills them all in about ten seconds, and saves her?
And then, maybe manliest of all, he is incredibly gentle and patient with her after her ordeal has left her almost catatonic?
I still think Duvall turned in the greatest performance in history in that show.
