You ain't heard nuthin' yet: Great Quotes about Movies & TV

Noel Coward's comment on his Bunny Lake Is Missing co-star:

"Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."

 

"Nobody knows anything...not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what's going to work. Every time out it's a guess and, if you're lucky, an educated one."

William Goldman, Adventures in the Screen Trade

 

"No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough."

- Roger Ebert

 

"Always get the check. An actor may stick by you through thick and thin, ask you to be godfather for their children. But the first time you get them a million-dollar payday, and they have to write you a check for $150,000, all that goes out the window. Always get the check."

- Bernie Brillstein

 

“Dave Madden was hired by Rowan and Martin. They wanted a cast member who would always be less funny than they were.” - Laugh-In producer George Schlatter

 

"You know you're out of shape when you have a heart attack when you're watching television." ~ Robert Schimmel (R.I.P.)

 

"...when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.
You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom."
Newton Minow, FCC Chairman 1961

 

The only thing he got wrong was stations don't sign off anymore, lol!

 

Tony Curtis on doing a love scene with Marilyn Monroe, it was like kissing Hitler....

the sickest burn LOL

 

Edward R. Murrow, 1958:

[Television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it's nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who is generally believed to have known something about weapons, is reported to have said, "When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard." The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

 

"Taylor Lautner can't carry a movie any more than Abigail Breslin can carry a refrigerator."

R. Kurt Oselund, Slate Magazine, 2011

 

Chance is another name that we give to our mistakes. And all of the best things in my films are mistakes.

Robert Altman

 

An anecdote about Tallulah Bankhead. She was from a prominent Southern family (her father was Speaker of the US House of Representatives). Groucho and Chico Marx were at a party, and Groucho pleaded Chico to behave and for once not indulge in the womanizing for which he was famous.

Again , Chico Marx had been cautioned to not display any of his typically crude comments and behaviour. The two met over the punch bowl and exchanged greetings:

“Hello, Miss Bankhead, ” said Chico.

Tallulah: “Nice to meet you, Mr Marx.”

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Chico: “You know, I really want to **** you.”

Tallulah: “And so you shall, you old fashioned boy.”

 

My aunt saw her on Broadway, She said you could feel her presence in the room. Even when she had no lines, all eyes were on her.

 

Some interviewer said that he made "cult films", and Altman replied:

"What is a cult? Just not enough people to make a minority. "

 

"All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl." - Charlie Chaplin

 

"I'm a writer by choice, a producer by necessity and a director in self-defense." - Mel Shavelson

 

“I'm sick of carrying guns and beating up women.”
― James Cagney

 

DIRECTOR: "Can't you give your part a little variety?"

ZEPPO MARX: "How many different ways are there to say 'Yes'?"

 

James Mason on director Max Ophuls:

A shot that does not call for tracks
Is agony for poor old Max,
Who, separated from his dolly,
Is wrapped in deepest melancholy.
Once, when they took away his crane,
I thought he'd never smile again.

 

Coppola on Apocalypse Now: "It was crazy... we had access to too much money and too much equipment, and little by little we went insane."

 

"It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic" - producer Lew Grade on Raise the Titanic.