Greatest speech in a movie?

[begin_within]

Poll question: Greatest speech in a movie?

If your favorite is not listed, please reply with yours.

[CBHagman]

1. That's a hard one.

Obviously we should consider Henry Fonda's speech at the end of The Grapes of Wrath, a fair number of speeches out of Frank Capra (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It's a Wonderful Life, You Can't Take It with You), and nearly all of The Lion in Winter.

However, I'll pick Kenneth Branagh's address to the troops at Agincourt in Henry V. Besides, Ken had such a good screenwriter and all. :-)

[begin_within]

5. Thanks

[CaliforniaPeggy]

35. Kenneth Branagh has my vote!

I am staunchly anti-war, but his St. Crispin's Day speech made me want to sign up........

Or are you thinking of a different speech?

[CBHagman]

45. Oh, definitely the St. Crispin's day speech at Agincourt.

It's funny you should mention being antiwar and yet inspired by Henry's effort to rally his exhausted and badly outnumbered troops. The Leonard Maltin guide contains this passage regarding Branagh's Henry V: "...when he finishes his speech before leading his men into battle at Agincourt, you're ready to enlist!" And at my old job I wrote a blurb for the DVD that suggested the St. Crispin's Day speech would induce even a pacifist to sign up.

Branagh's version of Henry V is definitely post-Vietnam and pre-Gulf War, and has a distinct take on the characters (look, for example, at the depiction of Fluellen and of the French). I watched it again recently and found it as riveting as ever, and found myself looking at the story from yet another perspective, given recent events. The same is true of other great war movies, such as Breaker Morant.

JFK, God rest his soul, would likely have seen the World War II era Laurence Olivier version of Henry V. But JFK apparently had a fondness for the St. Crispin's Day speech -- something to warm the cockles of your DU heart. See below.

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Favorite+Shakespeare+quotation+of+John+F.+Kennedy.htm

It would be interesting to see how the Irish-American Kennedy would have responded to the Northern Irish Branagh's reading of the play.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

52. My dear CBHagman!

Thank you for the reference!

As I read it aloud to myself, I could hear Kenneth Branagh saying it, and I could hear faint strains of the movie music........

It brought tears to my eyes...

It's also interesting that I'm not the only pacifist who would want to enlist after hearing that!

I haven't seen the movie in a while......I'm overdue for that........

Thank you for your post this morning!

:hi:

[radwriter0555]

70. Chris Rock in "Head of State" at the end with his debate speech about

being an amature.

I wish I could find a clip of that. The movie wasn't great, but that speech sure was.

[Aristus]

2. Michael Douglas's closing speech in "The American President".

For the last couple of months, Senator Rumson has suggested that being President of this country was, to a certain extent, about character. And although I've not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I've been here three years and three days, and I can tell you without hesitation: Being President of this country is entirely about character.

For the record, yes, I am a card carrying member of the ACLU, but the more important question is "Why aren't you, Bob?" Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, why would a senator, his party's most powerful spokesman and a candidate for President, choose to reject upholding the constitution? Now if you can answer that question, folks, then you're smarter than I am, because I didn't understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years. And I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television and you call her a whore.

Sydney Ellen Wade has done nothing to you, Bob. She has done nothing but put herself through school, represent the interests of public school teachers, and lobby for the safety of our natural resources. You want a character debate, Bob? You better stick with me, 'cause Sydney Ellen Wade is way out of your league.

I've loved two women in my life. I lost one to cancer. And I lost the other 'cause I was so busy keeping my job, I forgot to do my job. Well that ends right now.

Tomorrow morning the White House is sending a Bill to Congress for it's consideration. It's White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a twenty percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I'm throwing it out. I'm throwing it out and writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and hand guns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I'm gonna convince Americans that I'm right, and I'm gonna get the guns.

We've got serious problems, and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about character, Bob, you'd better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I'll show up. This a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up.

edit: Forgot the best part:


My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I AM the President.

[lizziegrace]

4. This gets my vote.

Well, this one and Clark Griswold's speech in Christmas Vacation. ;)

"Where do you think you're going? Nobody's leaving. Nobody's walking out on this fun, old-fashioned family Christmas. No, no. We're all in this together. This is a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency here. We're gonna press on, and we're gonna have the hap, hap, happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat white ass down that chimney tonight, he's gonna find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. "

[Blue_Tires]

10. the even better one was

when he was in the bar with Christie Brinkley.....those layers of bullshite were the stuff of legend

[begin_within]

7. Good one!

[Generic Brad]

13. This has my vote too

I was initially thinking of the President's speech in "Independence Day" just before the final assault on the aliens and was prepared to offer that one up, but this one is far better.

Thank you for thinking of this one.

[pbartch]

24. YEP THIS IS THE BEST! How come it wasn't included???

Michael Douglas is one HOT President....I think he gets my vote.

[begin_within]

33. Because it's HARD WORK. Because my National Security Adviser failed to

inform me "Osama Bin Laden planning to add Michael Douglas Speech to DU Poll on Movie Speeches." Because the uplink to Karl is on the fritz. Because it's GOD'S WILL WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA?

Because I outsourced Michael Chertoff to collect data for the poll.

[BamaGirl]

25. I love this one

and the one from Independence Day.

[LSK]

68. Add another vote for that one

:thumbsup:

[azmouse]

82. You can add me to list of people who like that speech!

One of the best ever!

[MissMillie]

3. Spencer Tracey in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Though Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird works well too

[begin_within]

8. Good choice

[haf216]

22. I voted for To kill a Mockingbird,

but that was a great one too!!!

[BarenakedLady]

61. Oh yes! yes

I totally agree with that.

"Because in the final analysis, it doesn't matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel...
and how much they feel for each other. And if it's half of what we felt...that's everything." all the while with Katharine Hepburn looking on *sigh* gives me the shivers. hehe.

[RevolutionaryActs]

6. As a Lord of the Rings nerd I had to vote for Theoden.

And it's like five times better in the book. :D

[Coventina]

55. It's a very well done scene. Brings a lump to my throat every time.

I think it ranks up there with the St. Crispin's day speech in Henry V.

[Guava Jelly]

9. Al Pacino scent of a woman

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pJlTmDxiqk0
hands down

[Blue_Tires]

11. two movies that belong on the list are

Network and Apocalypse Now....there are WAY too many juicy bits to pick out---i could practically post the whole script

my personal favorite is Paul Newman's closing speech in "The Hustler"

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. "Back home they'd arrest me; but here, they give me a fucking medal, sir"

Eric Idle's Boer War soldier commenting on the stupidity of killing in "The Meaning of Life"

[Ptah]

14. Other

...“The New York Thruway is closed, man!” ...
“A lot of freaks!” ... “Comin’ in to Los Angeleez,
bringing in a couple of keys, don’t touch my bags
won’t you please, Mr. Customs Man...”

[idgiehkt]

15. I think there are som e good ones by Tom Hanks in "Philadelphia"

I can't remember exactly for sure, the courtroom and when the opera is playing.

[theophilus]

16. Well, this is really "old school". Alec Guiness was in a movie

with Grace Kelly called "The Swan" back in the 50s. A commoner's romance with the princess sort of thing. Anyway, he and Kelly had this dialog. I saw it when I was a wee lad and it impressed me so that I recalled the impression even now that I'm old and gray:



Memorable Quotes from
The Swan (1956)

Prince Albert: Your father used to call you his swan, so I am told. I think that's a good thing to remember. Think what it means to be a swan. To glide like a dream on the smooth surface of the lake, and never go to the shore. On dry land, where ordinary people walk, the swan is awkward, even ridiculous. When she waddles up the bank she painfully resembles a different kind of bird, n'est-ce-pas?

Princess Alexandra: A goose.

Prince Albert: I'm afraid so. And there she must stay, out on the lake; silent, white, majestic. Be a bird, but never fly; know one song but never sing it until the moment of death. And so it must be for you, Alexandra. Cool indifference to the staring crowds along the bank. And the song? Never.

[LibDemAlways]

17. Not really a speech, but the scene in The Godfather

where the camera slowly dollies in on Al Pacino as he explains how he's going to kill Solozzo and the crooked cop in the Italian restaurant. Riveting.

[Arkham House]

18. Jimmy Stewart's speech to the Senate...

...in "Mr Smith Goes to Washington"...

[Pale Blue Dot]

56. That's what I was going to say.

"Lost causes are the ones most worth fighting for."

[sofa king]

19. Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator

The king of the silent screen could also roar, and his words are still timely--perhaps too timely. Check it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVA0uDdxws

Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me I say "Do not despair".

The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress: the hate of men will pass and dictators die and the power they took from the people, will return to the people and so long as men die liberty will never perish...

Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you and enslave you - who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel, who drill you, diet you, treat you as cattle, as cannon fodder.

Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not machines. You are not cattle. You are men. You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate - only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers - don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty!

[Richard Steele]

20. Belushi's "It's not over till WE say it's over" speech in "Animal House"?

"Was it OVER when the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!"

[El Fuego]

21. "Nazis?" "Forget it, he's on a roll."

I was going to say that one. :D

[Blue-Jay]

32. That's got my vote!

[Rude Horner]

80. Damn, you beat me to it!!!

That was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this thread.

What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer...

Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

[Oeditpus Rex]

23. Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) in "Network"

giving Howard Beale (Peter Finch) the facts of teevee life:

It is the international system of currency which determines the vitality of life on this planet. THAT is the natural order of things today. THAT is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today. And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature. And YOU WILL ATONE!

Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little 21-inch screen and howl about America, and democracy. There is no America; there is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it. Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal? That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back. It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity. It is ecological balance. You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations; there are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems; one vast, interwoven, interacting, multivaried, multinational dominion of dollars.

The world is a business, Mr. Beale; it has been since man crawled out of the slime. Our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that perfect world in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality — one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock — all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.

Why me?

Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

I have seen the face of God.

You just might be right, Mr. Beale.

[nedbal]

42. Love that one.

[johnnie]

26. And Justice for all

The whole scene:

Arthur Kirkland: The one thing that bothered me, the one thing that stayed in my mind and I couldn't get rid of it, that haunted me, was why. Why would she lie? What was her motive for lying? If my client is innocent, she's lying, why? Was it blackmail? No. Was it jealousy? No. Yesterday I found out why. She doesn't have a motive, you know why? Because she's not lying... And ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution is not going to get that man today, no, because I'm gonna get him! my client, the Honorable Henry T. Fleming, should go right to fucking jail!


Arthur Kirkland: That man is guilty! that man, there, that man is a slime! he is a *slime*! If he's supposed to go free, then something really wrong is goin' on here!

Judge Rayford: Mr. Kirkland you are out of order!

Arthur Kirkland: You're out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order! They're out of order! That man, that sick, crazy, depraved man, raped and beat that woman there, and he'd like to do it again! It's just a show! It's a show! It's "Let's Make A Deal"! "Let's Make A Deal"! Hey Frank, you wanna "Make A Deal"? I got an insane judge who likes to beat the shit out of women! Whaddya wanna gimme Frank, 3 weeks probation?

[Shakespeare]

27. Maybe not the best, but a good one: Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting

When he's at the job interview with the NSA (spot-on, and rather prescient right at the end):

Why shouldn't I work for the N.S.A.? That's a tough one, but I'll give it a shot. Say I'm working at N.S.A. Somebody puts a code on my desk, something nobody else can break. So I take a shot at it and maybe I break it. And I'm real happy with myself, 'cause I did my job well. But maybe that code was the location of some rebel army in North Africa or the Middle East. Once they have that location, they bomb the village where the rebels were hiding and fifteen hundred people I never had a problem with get killed. Now the politicians are sayin', "Send in the marines to secure the area" 'cause they don't give a shit. It won't be their kid over there, gettin' shot. Just like it wasn't them when their number was called, 'cause they were pullin' a tour in the National Guard. It'll be some guy from Southie takin' shrapnel in the ass. And he comes home to find that the plant he used to work at got exported to the country he just got back from. And the guy who put the shrapnel in his ass got his old job, 'cause he'll work for fifteen cents a day and no bathroom breaks. Meanwhile my buddy from Southie realizes the only reason he was over there was so we could install a government that would sell us oil at a good price. And of course the oil companies used the skirmish to scare up oil prices so they could turn a quick buck. A cute little ancillary benefit for them but it ain't helping my buddy at two-fifty a gallon. And naturally they're takin' their sweet time bringin' the oil back, and maybe even took the liberty of hiring an alcoholic skipper who likes to drink martinis and play slalom with the icebergs, and it ain't too long 'til he hits one, spills the oil and kills all the sea life in the North Atlantic. So my buddy's out of work and he can't afford to drive, so he's got to walk to the job interviews, which sucks 'cause the shrapnel in his ass is givin' him chronic hemorrhoids. And meanwhile he's starvin' 'cause every time he tries to get a bite to eat the only blue plate special they're servin' is North Atlantic scrod with Quaker State. So what do I think? I'm holdin' out for somethin' better. Why not just shoot my buddy, take his job and give it to his sworn enemy, hike up gas prices, bomb a village, club a baby seal, hit the hash pipe and join the National Guard? I could be elected president.

[ghostsofgiants]

30. Love that one.

[Shakespeare]

31. Actually, I take that back.

Now that I re-read it, I think it maybe be the best speech given in a movie. Brutual and perfect.

[nedbal]

43. the best

[Wetzelbill]

44. yeah that is good

:)

[cedahlia]

67. that's the first one I thought of...

I love that movie! And yes, that speech is indeed one of the greatest ever in a movie. The scary thing is that it was written years before Lord Pissypants rose to power...its relevance to today is chilling.

[samsingh]

28. tom cruise in jerry mcguire

you complete me.

[mykpart]

29. Henry Fonda's soliloquy at the end of "The Grapes of Wrath."

[Vidar]

36. Henry Fond as Tom Joad.

[GCP]

78. My choice also - how could they forget this one?

The best left wing rant ever on film :grr:

[RoyGBiv]

34. Other ... Jeff Daniels

Jeff Daniels as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in _Gettysburg_

Addressing the soliders from the 2nd Maine who, in the movie, were refusing to serve because their terms of enlistment were up.

"I've been talking with Private Bucklin. He's told me about your problem. There's nothing I can do today. We're moving out in a few minutes. We'll be moving all day. I've been ordered to take you men with me.

I'm told that, uh, if you don't come I can shoot you. Well ... you know I won't do that. Maybe somebody else will, but, so, that's that.

Here's the, uh, situation. The whole Reb army is up that road aways waiting for us, so this is no time for an argument like this, I tell ya. We could surely use you fellas. We're now well below half strength. Whether you fight or not, that's ... that's up to. Whether you come along is ... well, you're coming.

You know who we are and what we're doing here, but if you're going to fight along side us, there's a few things I want you to know.

This regiment was formed last summer in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There are less than three hundred of us now. All of us volunteered to fight for the union, just as you did. Some came mainly because we were bored at home -- thought this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. And all of us have seen men die.

This is a different kind of army. If you look back through history, you will see men fighting for pay, for women, for some other kind of loot. They fight for land, power, because a king leads them or -- or just because they like killing. But we are here for something new. This has not happened much in the history of the world. We are an army out to set other men free.

America should be free ground -- all of it. Not divided by a line between slave state and free -- all the way, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man born to royalty. Here, we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here, you can be something. Here, is the place to build a home.

But it's not the land. There's always more land.

It's the idea that we all have value -- you and me.

What we're fighting for, in the end, we're fighting for each other.

<looks over the men who are staring back in awe, clears throat, pauses, reflects>

Sorry, I didn't mean to preach. You, you go ahead. You talk for awhile. If you -- If you choose to join us, you want your muskets back, you can have 'em. Nothing more will be said by anybody anywhere. If you choose not to join us, well you can come along under guard, and when this is all over I will do what I can to see you get a fair treatment. But for now, we're moving out.

Gentlemen, I think if we lose this fight, we lose the war. So if you choose to join us, I'll be personally very grateful."

[enigmatic]

37. Jason Robards' "Regret" speech in Magnolia

Brilliant.

[enigmatic]

38. And Quint's "USS Indianapolis" speech in Jaws

The entire scene is one of the top 5 ever in Film..

[LeftyMom]

39. absolutely

:thumbsup:

[Shakespeare]

40. Ooooh, another good one. n/t

[jobycom]

63. Creepiest, most engrossing speech ever in a film.

Robert Shaw wrote part of the speech. Incredible performance.

[mduffy31]

41. The closing argument in "A Time to Kill"

Where he reverses it and tells the jurors to imagine that the little girl was white.

[jobycom]

64. McConaughey's finest hour. That was what I thought of when I

clicked on this thread. It wasn't even the speech, it was his performance of it.

What happened to THAT McConaughey? Where'd this clown using his name nowadays come from? I mean, he's quite good in his romantic/comedy role, and even decent in the action/adventure stuff he tries, but he could be great if he applied himself. Why's he piddling around with all these forgetable roles?

Rant over.

[Karenca]

46. Al Pacino---"And Justice For All" . . n/t

[Paladin]

47. Gregory Peck in "Twelve O'Clock High"

The "Pretend You're Already Dead" speech he gives his hard-luck bomber squadron in WWII England. Absolutely bone-chilling.....

[YankeyMCC]

65. Thank you for reminding me of that one...

a good one indeed!

[zcflint09]

48. The best I've seen...

would be Theoden's speech at Pellenor; along with Bill Pullman's speech in "Independence Day" before the final battle.

[begin_within]

49. This thread made me realize: why are there so few speeches by women?

[CBHagman]

50. I noticed that too, and I think the answer is...

...that the selections above reflect primarily the British and American film industries and the traditional tendency to cover material primarily about and written by men. Helen Mirren, on picking up her Emmy this year and noting that she and her fellow nominees had been given remarkable scripts, urged writers to create more great roles for women. Mirren is doing that in 2006, when we've made some progress in terms of how women participate in society. If the selections above come primarily from the 20th century, it's no wonder that the examples cited are primarily from men.

Anyone who's ever looked at an announcement for auditions knows something about the dearth of parts for women and girls in TV, film, and theater. I remember reading that for 50 years, 80 percent of television roles went to males. Eighty percent!

That said, I can recall some marvelous speeches for women (Bette Davis in Now, Voyager, Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter, Barbara Stanwyck in various films, etc.). But look at the roles and material written for women, and the sort of positions envisioned for them (wife, sidekick, girlfriend, femme fatale, daughter, etc.) and you won't wonder at the lack of examples of memorable speeches.

[begin_within]

53. It's a crime.

[tinfoil tiaras]

51. EEEE Gregory Peck!!

I love him. & I love that movie. Alot. :loveya:

[LTR]

54. Steve Martin's nose jokes monologue in "Roxanne"

Funniest. Speech. Ever.

Next would be Walken's "gold watch" speech in Pulp Fiction.

[MissMillie]

81. that certainly is a good one!

:thumbsup:

[NMDemDist2]

57. Other: The American President (Michael Douglas) speech to the Press

and his RW asshat opponent

[ThomCat]

75. That was an awesome speech.

I love that movie, and I love that scene.

[Katina]

58. of those listed

it has to be IMVHO, Gregory Peck's speech.

[Bullwinkle925]

59. James Stewart - "Mr. Smith Goes to WA" & Henry Fonda in

"12 Angry Men".

[begin_within]

60. excellent choices

[Montauk6]

62. Marlon Brando - The Godfather

The boardroom scene when Vito makes one final "offer you can't refuse" to the heads of the Five Families to end the brutal war. After being all-concessions throughout, he adds the following to show that while he'll do anything to make peace but if anything, ANYTHING, happens to Michael, some of the people in this room are going down hard. It's the one time you get the best glimpse of the Godfather's power.

[SaveElmer]

66. Morgan Freeman in "Glory"

Explaining the meaning of the war to Denzel...

George C. Scott in Patton a close second!!!

[kwassa]

69. Terrence Howard in "Hustle and Flow" the opening speech

about man is not a dog.

[Lautremont]

71. Greg Swanson's mock- Southern Senator speech in "Terror Train."

"Ah don’t wanna get involved in any contr-versy on th’ sitch’ation in th’ Middle East, but as senior senator from mah state, Ah think Ah can speak for mah constit-uents, indeed all Amer’cans, when Ah say, fuck ‘em!
"Y’know, there are ce’tain phrases in Amer’can hist’ry that’ve caught the fancy of th’ Amer’can people. Well, the phrase that’s always caught mah fancy, or roused me as’t were, is 'Let’s bomb them suckahs into th’ stone age!' Y’ know, it wouldn’t be like Vietnam. They don’t have no jungle to hide undah, jes sand an’ rock. To my way o’ thinkin’, if the U-nited States cav’lry can take care o’ Paiutes and Comanches, a B-52 oughta do jes’ fine with these ol’ camel jockeys."

That speech was delivered in a cheap horror movie in 1980, but it could have been anytime in real life in 2003, by any number of Republicans (or, sad to say, Democrats).

[Tikki]

72. Miller......from 'Repo Man'....

Miller:
A lot o' people don't realize what's really going on. They view life as a bunch o' unconnected incidents 'n things.
They don't realize that there's this, like, lattice o' coincidence that lays on top o' everything.
Give you an example; show you what I mean: suppose you're thinkin' about a plate o' shrimp.
Suddenly someone'll say, like, plate, or shrimp, or plate o' shrimp out of the blue, no explanation.
No point in lookin' for one, either. It's all part of a cosmic unconciousness.




Tikki

[tigereye]

73. Mockingbird - on your list

but I like Jimmy Stewart's speeches in Capra movies best....

[Mendocino]

74. Not a speech so much but

a conversation.

Kicking Bird "How many white men will come"?
John Dunbar "Like the stars in the sky".

Dances With Wolves

[Broken_Hero]

76. My first gut

feeling is at the end of Blow...

While Ray Liotta is listening to Johnny Depps tape towards the end of the movie...

[peekaloo]

77. Ned Beatty to Peter Finch in 'Network'.

the voice of "God" setting the Mad Prophet straight.

[Richardo]

79. Jack Nicholson's Chicken Sal San rant in 'Five Easy Pieces'

:thumbsup:

[Hugin]

85. I was going to say, Jack Nicholson's "Why can't we all just get along?"

Speech near the end of "Mars Attacks!"

[Patiod]

83. Also love Donald Sutherland's exposition at the end of JFK

Since somebody already mentioned my other fave - the great rants in "Network"

[yellowdogintexas]

84. from this list I chose Peck in Mockingbird.

but Peck could read the phone book and it would be awesome.

But...one that has been left out is Spencer Tracy in "Inherit The Wind", also well delivered by Jason Robards years later.

He is playing a fictional version of Clarence Darrow.

[WCGreen]

86. Doc she was 15 going on 27, if you know what I mean...

McMurtry in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest...

[Serial Mom]

87. There are so many, but Michael Douglas in The American President

kinda of fits current events...

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechtheamericanpresident.html

America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

I've known Bob Rumson for years. And I've been operating under the assumption that the reason Bob devotes so much time and energy to shouting at the rain was that he simply didn't get it. Well I was wrong. Bob's problem isn't that he doesn't get it. Bob's problem is that he can't sell it!

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem is, I promise you Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it. He is interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections. You gather a group of middle age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character, and you wave an old photo of the President's girlfriend and you scream about patriotism. You tell them she's to blame for their lot in life. And you go on television and you call her a whore.