Heh, heh. I think the line is "Well allow me to retort." (I know you said you were paraphrasing.) And I use it myself occasionally on these boards. I love it, and Pulp Fiction. Sam Jackson is such a bad mofo, just like his wallet.
Anyway, the phone thing, eh, frankly you're right, it doesn't really matter. But the shovel, that was still superdumb. I didn't literally mean that they should separate his head from his body. But hitting him in the knee? WTF? Sorry, if I've gotta kill someone and there's a shovel handy, I'm aiming for the head. At the very least, to knock him out so he shuts up and stops struggling. Anybody can clonk someone on the top of the head with a shovel. That's just not that hard.
I didn't pick up on that he knows he's a goner, not until he opens the window and doesn't scream. In fact, I disagree. Before that, I thought he was just being cocky and self-assured. And yes, while some people are in terror and can't scream, that doesn't apply to our tough guy Gromyk. His not screaming was also dumb.
And finally, the taxicab driver. That was also stupidly played. Like I said, he of all people would most likely be a member of the Stasi. But lets say Hitchcock didn't know that, and the audience didn't know that. The cabbie is taking an American to a farmhouse out in the country. First of all, how many Americans were in East Germany in the first place? That would arouse suspicion immediately. Then, an obvious Stasi guy rides up on a motorcycle. Who else would have a motorcycle and a leather jacket like that? Then he doesn't come out and the American does. Now I'm not saying that the cabbie should have done anything right there; unless he really was some kind of superagent or armed, that would have been just as stupid as well. But as soon as he drives Newman back into the City, he just goes off and picks up his next fare? He would have reported everything immediately. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Here is some of my tasty beverage. Retort some more. (:-)
I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.
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ecarle
17 years ago
I tend to paraphrase all the good lines in movies; never get them exactly right. So, retorting with a tasty Big Kahuna Burger beverage in hand, I'll say:
Not much more to retort.
One of my beliefs in "movie debating" is: you can't make somebody like something they don't, or vice versa. Oh, maybe you can correct somebody on a plot point or a scene they missed. But one man's "brilliant" is another man's "contrived," and there you go.
So I generally only go one round of debate on the merits of a scene.
I suppose I would remark on the shovel that when the woman had it in hand, Newman's head was very near Gromek's head -- one wrong swing, or if Gromek moved, she'd end up knocking Newman unconscious and likely being killed by Gromek.
I would also note that the scene importantly shows it takes Newman AND the woman to kill Gromek. Middle-aged he may be, but Gromek WAS "trained by experts," and Paul Newman looks just thin and spindly enough to have trouble fighting the man alone. (Sean "Marnie/James Bond" Connery wouldn't have worked in this part.) With Newman so close in Gromek's grip for the fight, the woman's options are limited for attack -- especially with the knife.
Now, I divert:
The historical importance of the killing in "Torn Curtain" was to show how hard it is to kill a human being. Movie murders had been quick and clean for many years -- a stranglng might take ten seconds, a person might expire the second the knife hit him (the UN guy in "North by Northwest").
Hitchcock elected here to show,no: it is very hard. It takes a long time. The human body is built for strength. A person fighting for his life won't go down easily. Strangling won't work. The knife blade will break off. A shovel to the shin-bone will hurt like hell and still take a long time to bring a man down (Gromek is visibly in shock by that point, unable to seek escape, trying to strangle Newman on autopilot).
Among the filmmakers who said they were deeply impressed by the "Torn Curtain" murder:
Sam Peckinpah
Martin Scorcese
The Coens
Bryan Singer
Jonathan Demme
For what its worth.
The "Torn Curtain" murder also signalled a certain grim darkening of Hitchcock's sensibilities about death. Even the "Psycho slaughters" had been quick or largely off-screen. But he followed the "Torn Curtain" murder two films later with the rape and strangling of a woman in "Frenzy," and -- given that she lacked Gromek's "villain" complicity -- it was horrifying to watch the woman expire in a strangling which Hitchcock intended to give an approximation of real-life, real-time, strangulation death.
One of Hitchcock's late era lessons was: killing is not fun, quick, or necessarily entertaining. Even though for decades prior, in his hands, it had been.
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