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Tue 6 Sep, 2005 10:21 am
I watched Annie Hall over the weekend, and I was reminded of the number of small cameo performances in that film. My favorite is Jeff Goldblum talking to (one would suppose) his guru on the phone and saying "I forgot my mantra."
That led me to think of other one-line cameos in other films. I'm thinking of the kind of fleeting, now-you-see-them-now-you-don't performances where you say to yourself "was that who I think it was?" It could be someone who is already famous or someone who would become famous afterwards. For instance, in The Graduate there are cameos by Richard Dreyfuss (as a lodger in the boarding house) and Mike Farrell (as a bellhop in the hotel), both just starting their careers. In The Blues Brothers, Steven Spielberg plays the city clerk at the end of the movie. Bing Crosby would regularly appear briefly as a gag in Bob Hope movies. And then there are all the Alfred Hitchcock sightings.
So, any other favorite cameos?
Stephen King usually makes an appearance in the movies based on his books. Unfortunately, his cameo is the most entertaining part of those films.
I loved Billy Bob Thornton's cameo in "Indecent Proposal" with Robert Redford, Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. He was standing on the sidelines of a big poker game making funny little comments, two minutes tops of film time, and he was hilarious.
"That's one rich sombitch there. You think she'll ever come back?"
My favorite Cameo performance is the "Word Up" video.
synonymph-could you be any funnier!!!!!
I found it odd that Kevin Spacey was in an 80's Meryl Streep film, I think it was called Heartburn.I also think he is in Working Girl.
Samuel L Jackson was in the beginning of Sea of Love, and I think he wasnt really known in Jurassic Park.
Jamie Fox is a supporting actor in a fab film called The truth about cats and dogs.
On a semi-recent flight to America, one of the films was "Dodge Ball". The film is completely unremarkable except for one cameo performance. The hero of the film sits in a bar, depressed, drinking, thinking about giving up. He starts talking about it to his neighbor. The neigbor turns out to be Lance Armstrong, who says the following three sentences: "I thought about quitting once myself, when I was diagnosed with cancer, my marriage was failing, and I was on the brink of death. I decided to hang on and ended up winning the Tour de France six times. But hey, I'm sure you have a good reason!" The quote has become a lot less inspirational over the past few years, but it was still a nice line.
Here's another favorite, from
Annie Hall. (I assume that the "Marshal McLuhan" in the script exists and is really Marshal Mc Luhan. I never heard of the guy so wouldn't know, but the scene itself is priceless. It happens as Woody Allen ("Alvie Singer")and Diane Keaton ("Annie Hall") stand in line for a movie, and the guy behind them keeps muttering pretentious complaints about how they just aren't making good movies anymore.
Quote:MAN IN LINE (Even louder now) :
It's the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, you understand? A hot medium ... as opposed to a ...
ALVY (More and more aggravated):
What I wouldn't give for a large sock o' horse manure.
MAN IN LINE:
... as opposed to a print ...
(Alvy steps forward, waving his hands in frustration, and stands facing the
camera.)
ALVY (Sighing and addressing the audience):
What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean, it's just maddening!
(The man in line moves toward Alvy. Both address the audience now.)
MAN IN LINE:
Wait a minute, why can't I give my opinion? It's a free country!
ALVY:
I mean, d- He can give you- Do you hafta give it so loud? I mean, aren't you ashamed to pontificate like that? And-and the funny part of it is, M-Marshall McLuhan, you don't know anything about Marshall McLuhan's...work!
MAN IN LINE (Overlapping):
Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called "TV Media and Culture"! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan-well, have a great deal of validity.
ALVY :
Oh, do yuh?
MAN IN LINE:
Yes.
ALVY:
Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So ... so, here, just let me-I mean, all right. Come over here ... a second.
(Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuban from behind the poster.)
MAN IN LINE:
Oh.
ALVY: (To McLuban)
Tell him.
MCLUHAN (To the man in line):
I hear-I heard what you were saying. You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.
ALVY (To the camera):
Boy, if life were only like this!
"... my whole fallacy is wrong ..." fallacy? HA HA
that's a double negative I guess, does he mean he's right ?
funny scene
Thomas: Yes, Marshall McLuhan was a real guy, and that was McLuhan in Annie Hall.
Some other cameos:
Count Basie and his Orchestra make a surprisingly incongruous appearance in Blazing Saddles.
Anti-tax activist Howard Jarvis appears as a cab passenger at the start of Airplane (his one line: "Taxi!").
If I recall correctly (it has been a long time since I've seen the film), hockey legend Stan Mikita makes a brief appearance in Wayne's World.
Norma Desmond's bridge partners in Sunset Boulevard were silent screen stars Buster Keaton, H.B. Warner (who played Jesus in the 1927 King of Kings), and Anna Q. Nilsson.
And then there's a movie that was chock-filled with cameo appearances, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
In Portland Oregon there is a cut-rate furniture store that runs really cheesy ads where the owners say "Tom Peterson's and Gloria's too". Those ads show up in every Gus Van Sant movie.
The only good part (to me) of "Magnolia" was Arte Johnson (?) showing up in that bar scene.
Actually, in a bad movie, Walter Matthau as the drunk in the bar in "Earthquake."
Gene Hackman in "Young Frankenstein"
Lightwizard wrote:Actually, in a bad movie, Walter Matthau as the drunk in the bar in "Earthquake."
I'd actually typed this same response the other day but shelved it because, would you consider his performance a cameo or was he a part of the supporting cast? But on the other hand, wasn't he listed under an alias or something? I seem to remember something like that.
I mentioned Billy Bob Thornton in "Indecent Proposal" earlier but I really don't think that can be considered a cameo either because he wasn't well known back then. It was more like a bit part.
Well, we've all been riding pretty wild and loose on this one anyway.
Matthau was billed as "Walter Matuschanskayasky" and I'd consider it a cameo rather than a supporting role.
Gore Vidal appearing at the end of "Fellini's Roma" is also one of my favorite cameos.
Wow! Marshall McLuhan in Annie Hall?
I know all about that guy; Canadian, of course. <smile>
I just realized that Richard Gere was in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar." Was that a cameo?
And, of course, Alfred Hitchcock.
Gere in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" wasn't a cameo.
A cameo is generally uncredited (in the case of Matthau, it was a little inside joke to bill him with that boxcar name) and isn't entirely integral to the plot (although Hackman in "Young Frankenstein" was right out of the book and was an episode revealing more about the monster).
Maybe not only one's favorites count but the most famous.
Robert De Niro showing up at the end of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil," for instance. Still haven't figured out what he was doing there but the movie is an enigma, after all.
I know, Mr. Wizard. It just was a touch of memory. I was being facetious.
I think there was a cameo in "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" but can't remember who it was.
In "Superman," Phyllis Kirk, Louis Lane in the TV series, appeared on the train the young Superman ws racing at the beginning of the film. This has been repeated in remakes of TV series many times where the original stars walk on in cameos.
What was that Rodney Dangerfield flick where he goes back to college at an advanced age? There's a cameo in there by author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Rodney has to defend a thesis he has written on one of Vonnegut's books. He brings the author himself to class. Uncredited, even unexplained for those who might not recognize Vonnegut from his jacket blurb photos.
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