I’ve recently gotten into Sherlock Holmes, both canon and extended canon, and, through some effort, have obtained the Nicholas Myers film “The Seven Per Cent Solution”. While I think it’s a pretty entertaining film, it does include one line that truly makes me say, “what the fuck?”
The line comes when Holmes, Watson, and Sigmund Freud are investigating a farmhouse. Out of nowhere, six white horses burst from the barn and seem to try to trample the three men to death.
Watson: “They’re just horses!”
Freud: “They’re not just horses! They’re the most intelligent horses in the world, and they want to kill you!”
WTF? Did I miss something? Was it mentioned, offhand, that the villain was breeding super-intelligent, bloodthirsty horses? What the hell, movie?
Anyway, I’m not so much looking for an explanation. What I want are more movie lines that make you say, WTF? Where the hell did that come from?
This often happens in movies when a scene which would have explained the line is filmed and then cut from the final release. A similar sort of thing sometimes happens in TV episodes which for one reason or another are shown out of the originally intended sequence.
There’s a good example of this in Singles. A minor character, Bailey, makes an offhanded remark of “I live my life like a French movie.” There’s no response and it seems like it came out of nowhere. In the deleted scenes on the DVD, it goes into a two or three minute aside in which Bailey is…well, living his life like a French movie. Complete with subtitles.
I know you don’t want an explanation, but perhaps they were lippezaners - very highly trained horses, they tend to be fairly intelligent for horses. Dressage is simply a peaceful application of warhorse training =)
One of the most famous examples of this is from The Wizard of Oz. Just before sending the Flying Monkeys after Dorothy and the gang, the Wicked Witch of the West tells them, “I’ve sent a little insect on ahead to take the fight out of them.” She’s referring to the Jitterbug, a bug that bites Dorothy and the rest and makes them dance uncontrollably. The Jitterbug song and dance sequence was cut from the film, but the Witch’s line remains. I think you can actually see and hear some cobbled-together rehearsal footage of the scene on some versions of the DVD.
Plan 9 is kind of a ringer in this regard, but still: “Future events such as these will affect you… IN THE FUTURE!” It’s that much better because the narrator can’t decide if the events of the movie are set in the past or the future.
In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” there’s a scene where the never-been-born George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) wanders into the bar and has an argument with the bartender, who he thinks is a friend of his. The bartender says “I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox.” Or something.
From context, it is clear that this is some bizarre version of “I don’t know you from Adam” that has since faded into obscurity, but it always strikes me as a very strange thing to say, no matter how many times I see the film.
If it’s delivered in a snarky way it works. Just imagine Xander from Buffy saying it. The problem was more that it was given to a character not known for cracking jokes and an actress not necessarily known for comedy.
The octopus scene got cut because apparently the octopus looked very cheesey. The scene was also immortalized on one of the Burger King collectble glasses.