Attack of the She-Creature

(the detective is talking)
Mike: Shtrawberries…

This is a little reference to The Caine Mutiny, with Humphrey Bogart. Bogart’s Captain Queeg goes on a tangent about people stealing his strawberries. The famous line goes something like this: “Ah, but the strawberries, that’s—that’s where I had them! They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and—with geometric logic—that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist, and I'd have produced that key if they hadn't of pulled the Caine out of action.” and there’s more but I can’t possibly remember it all. Captain Queeg is arguably considered to be Bogart’s greatest role; that specific scene, where Queeg pretty much has a mental breakdown on the stand during the trial, is good evidence for the argument. Mike also says, “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow” as the detective is dying, which is a reference to Bogie in Casablanca. The detective in Attack of the She Creature has that Bogie lisp, kind of.


(two guys are talking [wow, I’m being vague, I know, but it’s just that I can’t remember the scene])
Crow: Big nasally line reads!

Well, damn it all if that didn’t sound like a reference to Cary Grant. It may well not be but this is probably going to be the only time I can talk about him, since he’s never really mentioned on “MST3K”. Okay. Cary Grant is considered one of the best actors ever, the essential screwball comedy star (watch Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Arsenic and Old Lace, and The Philadelphia Story) although he’s equally famous for his Alfred Hitchcock thrillers (Suspicion, North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, and my favorite movie, Notorious). He was born Archie Leach in Bristol, England, although in most of the movies he’s regarded as an American. He was also in Gunga Din, which was a really great adventure movie. He is personally one of my favorite actors, a real handsome guy, and real funny too.


(a shot of the piano player)
Tom: Keyzer Soze is the piano player.

I’m guessing the piano player looks like Kevin Spacey, who in effect played Keyzer Soze/Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects; and I suppose they do look a little alike, in that they are both bald and they are men. Spacey ultimately won his first Oscar for the role of Verbal Kint (or did he win it as Keyzer Soze? Hmm…). Although I like The Usual Suspects, I feel it only fair to cite film critic Roger Ebert’s one-star rating of it in his review. He makes a lot of points in it. Keyzer Soze, by the way, is a Hungarian warlord who once killed his own family so his enemies couldn’t (and in movie his name is amusingly pronounced “Keezer Sozeee” by the John Gielgud of the ‘90’s, Benicio del Toro [sarcasm, perhaps…]).


(Mike gets the Lance Williams’ Book of Acting and tries a few lines from famous movies out)

As far as I can remember, Mike did lines from Waterworld (“My boat.”), Schindler’s List (“I could have done more. I could have saved more people.”) and The Odd Couple (“Now it’s garbage.”). I think the funniest part was with the line from Schindler’s List, because that was a really emotional scene for Oskar Schindler/Liam Neeson. Neeson played the scene perfectly, ending up on the ground sobbing. Mike’s bit was hilarious, in my opinion.


(At the end of the movie, a question mark springs up, as if to ask “Huh?”)
Crow: …And the Mysterians!

It’s the little things, y’see, that make me laugh…


(The Heroine is speaking her Cockney speak)
Tom: In ‘artford, ‘ereford, and ‘ampshire.

That was the classic scene in My Fair Lady where Audrey Hepburn’s talking in the nifty fire machine (don’t ask for technical terms; I don’t even know how to set my VCR)—Eliza Doolittle has to pronounce her h’s (“In Hartford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly happen”) and she burns the sheet of paper with the pronunciations! Ha ha ha—or perhaps, ‘a ‘a ‘a.


(the two guys are still talking)
Servo: Why don’t you kiss him instead of talking him to death?
(during Lombardy’s first act, a shot of the evidence)
Mike: Now wait a minute, you’re crazy, and you’re driving me crazy too!

Both of these lines are from—you guessed it—It’s a Wonderful Life. Or maybe you didn’t guess it. Maybe you assumed it was Gone with the Wind. But no, no, it’s from the 1946 Christmas classic. The first line is said by a strange old man in an undershirt (despite the fact that, a few seconds before, you could see James Stewart and Donna Reed’s breaths) while George and Mary are flirting. George says something to the point of, “Yeah, I’ll show you some kissing,” and then turns to kiss Mary, only to find that she’s run off. The second line is said by George when his Uncle Billy loses all their money. Poor guy.


(the beach is closed)
Mike: No Barbara Hershey-Bette Midler vehicles allowed!

A reference to the Barbara Hershey-Bette Midler drama Beaches, which is in the same vein as Steel Magnolias and Fried Green Tomatoes and Terms of Endearment, in that it’s about friendship and womanhood and death, and everyone cries and, well, estrogen abounds. They were popular during the late 80’s, early 90’s for some reason. In Beaches, Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey (lifelong friends that they are) take a ride on the beach in their (rather nice) red convertible, as a symbol for their spiritual freedom, or something. I saw this movie when I was younger, and was a bit too young to find it tragic and heartbreaking and liberating; I simply found it boring. Buuttt you may be into that sort of thing, and if you are, all the more power to you. It does feature Midler’s song “You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings,” which I must admit I like a lot.