IMO this is the greatest scene in the history of film, incredible acting, breaks your heart and sums up the entire movie.....thoughts??
Jim Carroll: Time sure flies when you're young and jerking off.
Doesn't just sum up the entire film. It sums up the lives of millions of people who think they missed their one big chance. Think they could have done something better, more satisfying, with their lives. The acting is superb all around in this film, but especially when it comes to Brando and Steiger. I'm not sure where I'd place it in the context of greatest scene in film history. It would be hard for me to say it's even the best scene in the film, with so many great ones to choose from!
That’s a very interesting mixture of poetry and meanness.
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"Do it to him befoah he does it to you."
I love that too, just plain terrific!
Jim Carroll: Time sure flies when you're young and jerking off.
The beauty of Brando's performance is that as a tough guy, he is so weak for the first two thirds of the film. And he expresses it so well with his scenes with Cobb and others. And then he finds inner strength through the love of a good woman and advisement of a Priest. As basic as a story can get, yet brilliant.
shareThe amazing Rod Steiger and Brando created one of the great scenes in cinema.
"I do what I got to do with what I got." Utah in One Night at McCool's
The only negative I ever heard about that scene in the cab was-why the blinds on the back window,where have you seen a cab with window shades?
My answer to that is -It's a cab controlled by John Friendly,of course it has blinds on the window....
Dunno about "greatest scene in the history of film"-- I don't think there really could be ONE, except in one's own personal taste-- but it is a great scene. And some on this board think Steiger wasn't very good in it-- are you kidding me?!
My reaction to it, though, is colored by a couple of things.
My first exposure to the cab scene was in 1974, when the National Lampoon Radio Hour ran a parody of it, Bernstein score and all, with John Belushi playing the "Baby Brando" role. In that version his character was an infant who had taken the fall in a 'cutest baby' contest: "My night? I coulda taken [Tatum] O'Neal apart! So what happens? She gets the Oscar and I get a one-way ticket to Pottyville!"
And that was about all I knew of it for the next 41 years, because, I'm chagrined to admit, in all those decades I never once got around to watching this movie (until last night, on GetTV). So, since I'd recorded that radio show on audio tape and had listened to it many times since, there was no way to keep the parody from coming to mind as I was watching the real scene.
The other thing: Is it just me, or did it seem like Brando and Steiger were starting to crack each other up for real at the beginning of the scene, when their characters are supposed to be making preliminary small talk? I almost expected to hear Kazan yelling, "CUT! All right, you two, settle down and let's do another take!"
Read the trivia page. Whenever you see Steiger alone Brando is not there and Rod resented that for years. Playing to a line reader. Brando had to leave to see his analyst at 4pm. Also this movie has three of the greatest loudmouth actors, Cobb, Malden, and Steiger. They were always able to bring great fury and intensity to many of their movie scenes. Brando takes a backseat.
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