The Atomic Brain

(as Victor walks up a small double staircase)
Tom: All right, all right, I’m coming (and he hums a little tune).

The “little tune” is the famous “Tara’s Theme” from Gone with the Wind. There was a huge staircase in the movie (there were, come to think of it, a lot of staircases in that movie). In regard to the huge staircase similar to the one in The Atomic Brain—it’s the same staircase that Rhett Butler carried Scarlett O’Hara up in the “This is one night you’re not turning me out” scene, and the same one Scarlett falls down from later on in the movie. I highly recommend Gone with the Wind to anyone who has never seen it. After The Atomic Brain, it’s like a breath of fresh air.


(throughout the movie, one of the ‘Bots always says, “Selznick Productions Presents!” when they show the exterior shot of the house)

David O. Selznick is a legendary Hollywood producer, and his movies always began with a shot of an idyllic mansion with a sign nearby that says “Selznick International Pictures Presents” and then the title of the movie would appear. Obviously, the house in The Atomic Brain looks like the one in this shot. Selznick, by the way, produced such great films as Notorious and, well, Gone with the Wind.


(when the house is burning down)
Mike: Oh no, Tara!

Tara was the plantation in Gone with the Wind. It looks like the mansion in this movie. It also looks like the mansion in David O. Selznick’s opening shot. The plantation in Gone with the Wind doesn’t burn down, although almost every other house in Georgia does. The main house of Tara was actually in the back-lot of Los Angeles, and the door was placed off-center, which explains why you don’t see a lot of front camera shots in the movie.


(when the two women are fighting on top of the roof of the mansion)
Crow: This is no good, we’re on top of the monument!
(and Servo hums a little tune)

Cary Grant says that line to Eva Saint Marie in North by Northwest when they find themselves on top of the Washington Monument. The song Tom hums is the main theme of the movie. North by Northwest is a really good movie, classic Hitchcock movie—twenty bucks to whoever can tell me the name of the guy who played George Kaplan (wink wink). The theme music, by the by, was written by Bernard Herrmann, who scored nearly all of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies, including Psycho and Vertigo. Which leads us to…


(with a shot looking down a square flight of stairs)
Crow: Hey, vert-I-go.
Mike: I think you mean Vertigo.

Vertigo, as previously mentioned, is a classic film by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. There’s a shot a little like the shot mentioned above, except Hitchcock does this great (and simple) special effect to illustrate Stewart’s character’s fear of heights. (To film the vertigo scene, Hitchcock made a miniature of a staircase similar to the one in this movie and pulled out of it while at the same time zooming in. Creates a pretty fun illusion…unless you have vertigo.)


(a weird shot of the cat at the end)
Tom: The 400 Blows.

The 400 Blows is a famous French film, part of a trilogy by Francois Truffaut. It has camera actions similar to the one with the cat: freeze on the cat, move forward/to the side, freeze again. It's probably one of my favorite French movies; it was recently spoofed in an episode of "The Simpsons" titled Any Given Sundance (Nelson's movie about his crappy life ends in the same way The 400 Blows does, with Nelson walking on the seashore and looking into the camera, with the similar freeze shot). The music, in my opinion, was one of the best parts of The 400 Blows; it was done by Jean Constantin. Check it out.


(the dog/human monster is barking at the cat-woman—who’s on the roof—from the ground)
Tom: Stella—woof woof—Stella!

Save for the barking, this is the famous line in A Streetcar Named Desire. Marlon Brando yells to his wife, who’s on an upper floor of an apartment building, after he’s beaten her to a pulp and, oh yeah, she’s pregnant. Stupidly, she goes down to make up with him. This movie also starred Vivien Leigh who was also in…Gone with the Wind. It all comes together, see…


(the old lady gets up from her wheelchair and starts walking)
Crow: Mein fuhrer, I can walk!!

The last line, said by Peter Sellers, before the atom bomb montage in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Sellers plays an insane Nazi scientist with an evil hand and he stands up from his wheelchair and yells out that line, which I believe is one of the funniest lines in a comedy ever. That’s a really great movie; really funny.


Tom (in a British accent): Mrs. Bat Guano, if that is your real name.

Yet another funny line from the classic black comedy (the blackest comedy of them all, in fact), Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. It’s said by Peter Sellers, who plays about three (perhaps more) roles in the whole movie. This movie is extremely funny if you have a dark sense of humor, but if you don’t it’ll just seem incredibly weird and/or incredibly scary. And I think that’s kind of what makes it funny—the fact is that the plot (worldwide nuclear war occurs because of a bureaucratic error) hits so close to home that the fact it’s a comedy makes it all the more funnier. Don’t know if that makes sense. I’ll just go on. Other funny lines or scenes: well, George C. Scott (as Turgidson) makes me laugh when the Russian diplomat comes to the war room—“He can’t come in here! He’ll see the big board!” and when the look on his face when he learns that one of the American planes wasn’t shot down.
There’s also the classic telephone scene between the President of the United States (Sellers again)—“I am as sorry as you are, Dimitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are!”, Mandrake’s conversation with Guano about shooting open the Coke machine, and his conversation with Ripper about “essence”, and Turgidson’s exchange with the President about the chance of simply conducting a full-blown attack on Russia: “Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.” Then there’s the final scene when Dr. Strangelove (also Peter Sellers) yells “Mein Fuhrer, I can walk!” and the bombs drop while “We’ll Meet Again” plays (if I can’t laugh at that then I’m in a really bad mood). And I always laugh, for some reason, at the opening credits, when the romantic music plays while the airplane refuels (maybe you have to see a plane refuel mid-flight to understand the humor in it). And of course, I always, always laugh when Turgidson (in the War Room) trips and rolls a couple of times before resuming his rant about the Big Board. That actually wasn’t scripted, but director Stanley Kubrick liked it so much that he kept it in. Oh, and there’s the classic line by Sellers: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the War Room!”


(the “Austrian” girl picks up the phone and listens, but there is no dial tone, apparently)
Tom (muffled): Watson, come here; Watson, I need you!

For some reason a lot of people think this is from a Sherlock Holmes movie or book (it sounds a bit like “Watson, the needle!” I guess). It’s not. It has nothing to do with movies. Those were the first words Alexander Graham Bell said on the telephone to his assistant Thomas Watson. Actually he said, “Mr. Watson come here, I want you!” because he had accidentally spilled some sort of liquid on his arm. So the first phone conversation was an emergency call.


(the “Austrian” girl and the “Spanish” girl are on top of the roof)
Crow: To catch a cat…

Wow, two Cary Grant/Alfred Hitchcock references in one scene! This time it’s a reference to To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It’s about a former cat burglar named John Robie (Grant) who’s framed and is thus forced out of retirement to catch the real burglar. Grace Kelly plays the girl he takes along for the ride (or is the other way around?) One of Hitchcock’s lighter movies, but still really fun, what with the classic car chase and fireworks scene. Incidentally (and perhaps ironically, in this case), John Robie’s nickname is “the Cat”.


Crow: Take over, Chewie!

Crow says under his breath “You know, Chewie; Chewbacca.” Chewbacca is the famous Wookiee in Star Wars, starring Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher. Star Wars is arguably the best science fiction movie out there (I’m not a big fan of science fiction movies but I am a fan of this one). Star Wars is actually part of a trilogy (the other two movies being The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi). The Empire Strikes Back is personally my favorite Star Wars movie, but everyone has their own favorite. Chewbacca is a very tall hairy creature, and co-pilot to Harrison Ford’s pilot Han Solo of the Millennium Falcon (which doesn’t look like much but it’s got it where it counts, kid.) Star Wars has been named one of the greatest films by both AFI and Entertainment Weekly, which are the only two that matter, really.


(“Austrian” girl and “Spanish” girl on the roof again)
Crow (rather whimsically): Where eagles dare…

Where Eagles Dare is a war movie starring Clint Eastwood and (mah boy) Richard Burton. I’m not too much into war movies, and thus I haven’t seen this one, and thus I can’t tell you too much about it. I can tell you some things about Richard Burton though. Like…uh…he read one book every day. He was in a lot of great movies such as Look Back in Anger, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Longest Day, Hamlet, The Robe, and many others. He’s the most nominated actor to never win an Oscar. He was married to Elizabeth Taylor. Twice. There is countless other trivia connected to him, but I can’t think of any at the moment. It’s late. I’m tired.


(women are walking around in white undergarments)
Mike: They’re at Maggie the Cat auditions!

“Maggie the cat is alive!” Once again, a reference to Elizabeth Taylor’s role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Yet another adapted Tennessee Williams play where an important male character’s homosexuality is swept under the rug. See also: Suddenly, Last Summer and Streetcar Named Desire starring, um, Vivien Leigh…


(The Old Lady is looking out the window. Crow says something about a woman being in Rear Window.)

And another reference to a Hitchcock movie! Unfortunately Cary Grant isn’t in this one. But James Stewart is.


(the Evil Scientist is doing experiments on a Nekkid Lady)
Mike: Jamie Gumm can only dream of the stuff this guy has [or something to that effect]

Christ I’m really half-assing it now. Oh well. Jamie Gumm is the famous freaky villain in Silence of the Lambs—he converted his cellar into a dungeon, with a pit to keep his victims (specifically, to starve them, so he can skin them and…go see the movie) and a tailoring room to keep his…um…you’ll see. This is the guy who kept saying the #1 children’s rhyme about putting the lotion in the basket (LL Cool J can do a really good imitation of it—see his guest spot on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien”). It’ll scare the shit out of you. Silence of the Lambs is one of the scariest movies out there, and it doesn’t even come close to the graphic violence in its sequel Hannibal.