Column Chronicles: Would-be famous movie quotes, part two

Would-be famous movie quotes, part two

Frank Cotolo
October 12, 2017

Here's more of what I discovered when searching the archives of the edited scenes from famous films. Thanks to a friend I have who has access to the movie archives of a once big-time studio, I was able to witness some of the parts edited from famous movies and made a list of great monologue and dialogue that may have become as famous.

BEN-HUR
In the iconic chariot race Judah Ben-Hur wins, the scene where Judah gets a crown from the emperor was edited because Charlton Heston, portraying Judah, insisted on a piece of dialogue that later he insisted be cut from the epic.

JUDAH: I won that race because of the great Arabian horses, not because I know how to drive four white horses. You might say a divine being, something bigger than all of us, inspired me. Call it a god or a spirit but hell, it's mighty and it's big.

WHITE HEAT
James Cagney's gripping interpretation of a mentally disturbed criminal is immortal but it may have been even more intense if the director didn't edit a scene where Cagney's character Cody displayed rare compassion.

CODY: When I was in prison I convinced my cell mate not to hang himself. Not just that, but he followed my advice and added more vegetables to his diet.

ALL ABOUT EVE
Bette Davis' often quoted line as Margo Channing was originally just the beginning of a longer speech that may have been even more famous had it not been left on the editing floor.

MARGO: Fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy night with a crooked ride through the ragged mountains where all of us may wish we were never born, no less to the mothers that gave birth to us.

GOOD WILL HUNTING
Matt Damon, as Will Hunting, slapped a piece of paper on a window outside a bar to show up a kid who was trying to act smarter. The phrase that scene is known for using was one of a few others cut from the film. They may have been more famous than the one we know, which is: "How do you like those apples?"

WILL: What do you think of that kit and kaboodle?

WILL: Put this in your bucket and swing it around your head more than a few times.

WILL: How do you feel now, dumbbell?

WILL: Memorize this backwards, stand on your hands and shake your feet until your shoes fly off.

WILL: On a scale of one to ten, my efforts getting this piece of information is rated twenty. So there.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.