Lighten up! Let's look at popular death scenes

[Guest]

Psycho stabbing 'best film death' - BBC news online

Janet Leigh's shower scene stabbing in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller Psycho has been named the best death in screen history by Total Film magazine. The famous sequence comes just ahead of Slim Pickens' bizarre demise in 1964's Dr Strangelove - riding a nuclear bomb as it plummets to earth.

King Kong's fall from the Empire State is at three, while Alan Rickman's fatal tumble in 1988's Die Hard comes fourth. Other films featured include Bonnie and Clyde, Gladiator and The Godfather.

"Some of the deaths in the poll, like the Wicked Witch melting in The Wizard of Oz, are iconic but laughable," said Simon Crook, deputy editor of Total Film.

BEST MOVIE DEATHS

1. Janet Leigh - Psycho
2. Slim Pickens - Dr Strangelove
3. King Kong - King Kong
4. Alan Rickman - Die Hard
5. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway - Bonnie and Clyde

"But nearly 45 years on Psycho's shower scene is still distressing." Mr Crook attributed the effectiveness of the sequence to "the sheer violence of the edit", describing it "a masterclass of montage and audience manipulation". The scene, which lasts 45 seconds but took seven days to shoot, is notable for never showing the killer's blade touching Janet Leigh's body. Her "blood" was really Bosco's chocolate syrup, while the stabbing noises were created by plunging a knife into a casaba melon.

Some of the gorier deaths in the poll include John Hurt's exploding stomach in Alien, Tim Roth's fatal haemorrhage in Reservoir Dogs and David Warner's decapitation in The Omen. But not all the passings are so gruesome. The off-camera shooting of Bambi the fawn's mother is in sixth place, while the list also includes a scene in the 1985 thriller Witness where a character is drowned by corn in a grain silo.
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I would add Greta Garbo dying in "Camille", Dame Judith Anderson burning inside Manderlay in "Rebecca", and Marlon Brando as Vito Corleone falling amidst his tomato plants in "The Godfather". Your faves?

Perdita

 

[cookiejar]

It's not a favorite but memorable... The girl being strangled in "Frenzy." It took forever and was was horrible to watch.


For silliness...Hedley LaMarr in "Blazing Saddles."

 

[raphy]

Dennis Leary's exit from Gunmen was funny. Stares straight at the camera, tongue pushed as firmly into his cheek as he can and says 'Fuck me' - Then the bomb he's standing next to explodes.

Funniest death I've ever seen has to be the little yappy dog in Hudson Hawk though. "Oh Bunny.... Ball ball"

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Memorable.......Willem Defoe in "Platoon" coming out of the jungle and being shot to death as the helicopter takes off.

Daniel Day Lewis as John Proctor in "the Crucible", pleading that they could take anything, but no his name.

Julia Roberts dying in "Steele Magnolias" I still cry even after seeing it a thousand times....and...Barbara Hershey in "Beaches"
~A~

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

I don't know his name, but the fat private's deranged suicide in "Full Metal Jacket" haunts me every day as well as Adam Baldwin being sniped in the middle of the field helping his buddy and the slow circle as they shoot the Vietnamese female sniper at the end.

Also, Tim Robbins death in "Jacob's Ladder" has to be the most original. For those who haven't seen the movie, I reveal nothing and urge you to watch it yourself.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Machauly Culkin in the "Good Son". When the mom let's go of his hand on the cliff.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Old Yeller?

Me, I'm partial for the life-exits where Discworld's Death steps in with his scythe, and says something cool. I think the best death in a TP-book is a tie between (one of) the death(s) of Scraps, a dog à la Frankenstein, who's extremely affectionate and playful, and grabs Death's scythe and runs away with it; and ofcourse also the scene in which the mad leader of the streetdogs, Big Fido, kicks it, and the conversation goes as follows:

DEATH: BIG FIDO?
BIG FIDO: *whine*
DEATH: HEEL.



I don't know why I'm hooked on the death scenes of animals. Just couldn't think of any cool death scene for humans.

 

[Guest]

Um, Flicka, this is about movie death scenes. P.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

“Betrayed”

A vicious white supremacist is shot during an unsuccessful bank robbery. They try to make their getaway, and succeed.

Instead of using the excuse for a car chase, the camera stays inside the getaway car, sounds of tires squealing and sirens’ wailing, as the robbers in the back of the car are jostled, and bits of city flash past the windows.

Through the long scene (3-4 minutes, basically a static shot) the movie focuses upon the death of that miserable human being. The anguish and pain on his face, the growing bloodstain over his stomach, his groans and whimpers of pain, until – finally – he dies, as the robbers elude escape.

So often we see even important characters blown away, to be left behind with hardly any thought given. A scene or two later the people who survived are cracking jokes or exchanging witticisms.

I thought this was a praiseworthy attempt to do something different – more honest.

I rented the film from a video store about five or six years ago. No one I have talked to has ever heard of it. I don’t remember much more of the plot than what I have written, but that one scene still stays with me, as a powerful, and unusual use of a death scene.

I am not certain, but I think Tom Berenger played (not the hero, he was the chief white supremacist) the lead, I can’t remember who played the female lead.

Edited: A "ban robbery?" What's that? A hygeine problem?

 

[Carl East]

There's a film called 'Blow Out,' staring John Travolta where he has to get a perfect scream for the director of this porn flick. He gets a recording of the murderers last victim, and uses it at the end. Pretty good film.

Carl

 

[Guest]

Thanks, Virtu, you sound like my kind of film critic. I had not heard of this either but will check it out. P.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

There's a couple scenes in The Seven Samurai:

At the beginning, a bandit is hiding in a shack where he's kidnapped a child and the head samurai promises to help. He dresses in priest's robes and has his head shaved, and goes over to the shack with a couple of rice balls and offers them to the hysterical bandit. He tosses them inside and stands up, then suddenly rushes into the shack. All you hear is the wind blowing (the wind is all over this movie), and then the bandit comes staggering out, raises up on is toes and stands there, a look of horror on his face. Cut back to the samurai coming out of the shack with a bloody knife. Back to the bandit who falls into the dust in agonizing slow motion.

I understand that this was the first scene to doi violence in slow motion, a technique used by Peckinpah and so many others that now it's a cliche.

Later on there's another scene during the battle where a bandit is trying to get away from the angry villagers. It's pouring rain and they've got him trapped against a wall and are stabbing at him with sharpened bamboo while he flails around in the slop trying to get away or cut slash them with his sword. It is such a dirty, despicable death.

Ther's also the master swordsman who's shot by a gun and in his last act throws his sword away as if he can't stand the sight of it.

It's a great movie.

---dr.M.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Kurosawa was brilliant!

 

[Boota]

My favorite death scene is the last scene from One Night at McCools. I love a funny death scene. Paul Reubens long drawn-out death scene in the film version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was good, too.

Probably my favorite serious death scene was the murder of Sonny Corleone in The Godfather.

 

[raphy]

This probably won't mean anything to that many people, but Lord Refa's death in the Babylon 5 episode "And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place" has to be one of the most memorable death scenes I've ever seen.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

The little guy that Jack Palance shot in "Shane."

There are whole series of funny deaths in "Miracles" starring Tom Conti and Terry Garr.

 

[Guest]

Let's stick to film scenes, please (Flicka, now Raph).

Mab., you reminded me; the death scene at the end of Kurosawa's take on Macbeth, "Throne of Blood". Toshiro Mifume stuck with dozens of arrows and the 'swish' of them as they hit him and the wall behind him. One of the greatest scenes in all cinema.

Perdita

 

[CrazyyAngel]

How about Eric Bana's Death as Hector in Troy? Or Sean Bean's Death as Boromir in Lord of the Rings?

CA

 

[MathGirl]

Mort

Great death scene:
Jimmy Durante literally kicking the bucket in the old movie "Mad Mad Mad World.
Cinematically,
MG

 

[rgraham666]

This probably won't mean anything to that many people, but Lord Refa's death in the Babylon 5 episode "And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place" has to be one of the most memorable death scenes I've ever seen.

It means plenty to me Raph. B5 is my favourite all time television program.

I liked Neroon's death the best though. I hope when I kick off, it is with such little fear and to so great a purpose.

 

[Guest]

Not a movie, but -

Violetta's Addio, del passato and death in La Traviata.

(performed properly, of course)

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Memorable death scenes:

John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima. For any who haven't seen it, he's the Sgt. of a squad of marines. He makes it to the top of Sirubachi, only to be shot while they are all taking a breather by a Japanese sniper in a spider hole. The man he has been at odds with the whole move pulls out a letter Wayne's character was writing to his son. It's a very poignant scene.

Sudden Impact: the bad guy falls through the glass dome of an old fashioned carosuel and end up impaled on the horn of a unicorn.


-Collt

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Mort

Great death scene:
Jimmy Durante literally kicking the bucket in the old movie "Mad Mad Mad World.
Cinematically,
MG

That's EXACTLY the first scene I thought of when I read Perdita's post! Only I didn't mention it because I didn't want people to laugh at me.

Haw haw!

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

Old Yeller?

Nooooo!

Also nooooo: Bambi's mother. Died in that horrible fire.

Makes me cry no matter how often I see it: Kevin Spacy in American Beauty.

The suicide in Dead Poets Society.

I still hate them for shooting Old Yeller. I don't believe for one moment that he had rabies. Of course, what can you expect? They made Jody shoot his own pet deer in The Yearling.

 

[shereads]

Or Sean Bean's Death as Boromir in Lord of the Rings?

I sobbed until my nose was running, and I didn't have a Kleenex. Embarrassing. That scene was so effective, because of the music and the editing and...sniff...He didn't mean to be bad! He was sorry!



Note: Never, ever drag a friend to see a movie that you love. My friend not only hated it but she was vocal about it and I thought we'd be lynched by the crowd. When they were all buried under an avalanche, she snapped, "Thank God! Are they dead and can we leave now?"

After Boromir bit the dust, and people were quietly sniffing and sobbing all over the theater, she blurted out: "All righty then. There's three hours of my life that I can never get back."