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Mon 3 Jul, 2006 09:14 am
In the past couple of weeks I viewed The Last Picture Show and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, two films that have one unusual thing in common: they both have scenes in which the characters watch other Hollywood films -- not films that are created specifically for that movie, but real honest-to-goodness films. That got me thinking: what films can you think of that show other films?
The Last Picture Show: Father of the Bride and Red River (shown at the cinema)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?: Ex-Lady, Parachute Jumper, and Sadie McKee (film clips shown in the projection room and on television of early performances of "Jane" and "Blanche")
The Shawshank Redemption: Gilda (film shown in prison that gives Tim Robbins the idea to "get" Rita Hayworth)
Cinema Paradiso: too numerous to mention (films shown in the title cinema)
Sullivan's Travels: Playful Pluto (another film shown in another prison)
Sunset Blvd.: Queen Kelly (movie watched by Gloria Swanson and William Holden -- it was directed by Erich von Stroheim, who plays the butler in Sunset Blvd.)
Annie Hall: The Sorrow and the Pity (Woody Allen's idea of a good "date film")
The Green Mile has Top Hat in it.John Coffy watches it as a treat before he gets bzzzzzd.
I love the song from it so much that I got a copy of TH for Christmas, still not watched it tho.
Weird Science has a clip of a Frankenstein film 'its alive, ALIVE'.
Bulletproof Monk had scenes from Phu san Jahn sen shun, the movie that Kar (Seann William Scott) was training with in the theater he lived/worked in.
Aha, True Romance must have had something showing as Slaters character was obsessed with films.In fact he was being shown a film when he was confronting Drexl and he took Alabama to the cinema.
No idea of the names tho.
There is a long list of movies that were referenced or shown in True Romance. The list is
here.
Blimey!!Yep, I remeber the TJ Hooker bit.
During Fame, a couple of the characters watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The Mask features a bit of Red Hot Riding Hood. Does that count?
There's an extended reference to Vertigo in 12 Monkeys. Vertigo is showing while Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe are in the theater, donning disguises. A few minutes later they meet in the lobby in a scene that is itself a reenactment of a scene from Vertigo, right down to the same music.
(Apparently that scene from Vertigo inspired the movie La Jetée, which also contains a "reenactment" of it. La Jetée in turned was the inspiration for 12 Monkeys.)
It has been a long time since I've seen it, but I seem to recall McCauley Culkin watching Miracle on 34th Street in Home Alone, and IMDb says that his family watches It's a Wonderful Life while in their hotel in France.
In Jarhead, the Marine recruits get a little carried away watching the helicopter attack from Apocalypse Now.
Here's an odd one - The Muppet Movie - it actually features the Muppets at the beginning watching their own movie!
Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? has a scene in a cinema where the main characters are watching Myrt and Marge, an early film featuring Ted Healy and the Three Stooges.
An Italian film "We All Loved Each Other So Much" contained homages to Italian film directors such as DeSica and Fellini. This movie was produced in 1975 but part of the story takes place in the 1960's. One character gets a job as a production assistant for Fellini. Fellini himself and Marcello Mastroianni recreated a movie set for "La Dolce Vita" so that the actress in the 1975 film could be seen interacting with them and talking to them!
There's that scene in Scream where they're watching a clip from Halloween.
These aren't actual clips, but there's also that scene in Swingers where they're discussing their favorite camera shots from other movies (like the famous alley-walk from Reservoir Dogs or the backdoor walk through the nightclub in Goodfellas) and the scenes they mention get replicated at various points later in the movie.
from blazing saddles
Lamarr is driven to Grauman's Chinese Theatre [in downtown Hollywood - famous for the cement footprints of film celebrities] where the marquee flashes the current film Blazing Saddles. To hide and escape from Bart, he pays for one full admission to the film after failing to convince the attendant that he is a student. A female tourist remarks to her husband as she tries out the footprints of actress Hedy Lamarr: "Look, Herman, I'm in Hedy Lamarr's shoes!" Hedley corrects her as he passes by: "Hedley." In the lobby of the theatre are noisy, bleating cattle as he purchases Raisinettes at the candy counter.
As the film begins to play with the familiar opening song, Lamarr suddenly realizes that he is going to be viewing Blazing Saddles and he exits in disgust. Outside, he is outdrawn in a gunfight with Bart and shot in the groin. As Lamarr falls and dies in front of the theatre, he studies the cement imprints (hand and feet) of Douglas Fairbanks:
How did he do such fantastic stunts with such little feet?
He lands in fresh cement - before he expires, he scratches out his own name followed by a dollar sign in the wet cement for his own epitaph. Bart and the Waco Kid enter the theatre to see the end of the film, both wishing for a happy ending.
Back on the screen (in the film within a film), the film does end with a happy conclusion as the people of the saved town of Rock Ridge say goodbye to their black sheriff. Bart bids them goodbye with the obligatory farewell speech:
Bart: Work here is done. I'm needed elsewhere now. I'm needed wherever outlaws rule the West, wherever innocent women and children are afraid to walk the streets, wherever a man cannot live in simple dignity, wherever a people cry out for justice.
The Townspeople: (in unison) Bullshit!
Bart: All right, you caught me. Speaking the plain truth is getting pretty damn dull around here.
As he rides off, Bart tells everyone: "Keep the faith, brothers!" Around the corner, a snoozing Waco Kid asks if he may join Bart:
Waco Kid: Where ya headed, cowboy?
Bart: Nowhere special.
Waco Kid: Nowhere special. I always wanted to go there.
Bart: Come on.
They both ride into the sunset toward "Nowhere Special." In fact, outside of town they climb off their horses and jump into a chauffeured Cadillac limousine - to be driven into the sunset.
Re: Films inside other films
joefromchicago wrote:In the past couple of weeks I viewed The Last Picture Show and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, two films that have one unusual thing in common: they both have scenes in which the characters watch other Hollywood films -- not films that are created specifically for that movie, but real honest-to-goodness films. That got me thinking: what films can you think of that show other films?
The Last Picture Show: Father of the Bride and Red River (shown at the cinema)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?: Ex-Lady, Parachute Jumper, and Sadie McKee (film clips shown in the projection room and on television of early performances of "Jane" and "Blanche")
The Shawshank Redemption: Gilda (film shown in prison that gives Tim Robbins the idea to "get" Rita Hayworth)
Cinema Paradiso: too numerous to mention (films shown in the title cinema)
Sullivan's Travels: Playful Pluto (another film shown in another prison)
Sunset Blvd.: Queen Kelly (movie watched by Gloria Swanson and William Holden -- it was directed by Erich von Stroheim, who plays the butler in Sunset Blvd.)
Annie Hall: The Sorrow and the Pity (Woody Allen's idea of a good "date film")
In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the characters watch a film in which the protaganists are killed.....apparently a true story.
The Bernardo Bertolucci film The Dreamers contains clips from about a dozen classic movies -- all of them much, much better than The Dreamers, I might add.
Sleepless in Seattle contained at least two other films. One was The Dirty Dozen, the other some old love story featuring Carry Grant. I can't identify it, but I'm sure it's a real movie.
***
Does Bicycle Thief inside Robert Altman's Short Cuts count? Short Cuts was about Hollywood, so including it feels a bit like cheating.
joefromchicago wrote:The Bernardo Bertolucci film The Dreamers contains clips from about a dozen classic movies -- all of them much, much better than The Dreamers, I might add.
I liked the Dreamers quite a bit, perhaps because I was vaguely acquainted with the milieu of the avant garde that found itself bypassed by the abbrasive reality. Anyway, these are some of the films of which clips are shown in the film:
- Shock Corridor
- Freaks
- Bande à part
- City Lights
- Top Hat
- Blonde Venus
- Scarface (1932)
- Queen Christina
- À bout de Souffle
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