This Island Earth

(the scientist and his wormy assistant stand in the fog, waiting for the plane to arrive. Once it leaves, with the scientist on it, Mike and the ‘Bots hum “La Marseilles”).

Mike (in a bad Humphrey Bogart impression) says a couple of lines from the famous airport scene in Casablanca: “All the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”, etc. This is a now-immortal line, along with “Here’s looking at you, kid” and “Louie, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship”. In my opinion, no one can do a good Humphrey Bogart impersonation. It’s just impossible. “La Marseilles” is played at the end of the last scene in Casablanca (you have to see the movie to get the whole meaning of the reference), as well as a great scene where Paul Henreid drowns out a bunch of “Die Wacht Aum Rhine”-singing Nazis by getting everyone in Rick’s to sing the French anthem. Go to the Overdrawn at the Memory Bank section for more on Casablanca.


(the UFO is falling to earth)
Crow: Whoo-hoo! Whooooo-hooooo!

This is from the scene in Dr. Strangelove, where Slim Pickens drops the A-bomb with himself on it. As he falls to earth, he waves his cowboy hat in the air and yells “Whoo hoo! Whoooooo-hoooo!” It’s a really famous scene, and has been parodied in a lot of films and television shows (I remember seeing it on “The Simpsons” once or twice).


(shot of the plane controls, which are controlled by machines)
Tom: I’m your pilot, Claude Rains, with your co-pilot, Harvey the Rabbit.

Claude Rains played the Invisible Man in The Invisible Man (ooohhhh….), while Harvey the Rabbit is an invisible rabbit in Harvey (ooohhhh again) and since there isn’t anyone manning the controls, we can only assume that they are, indeed, being piloted by Claude Rains and Harvey the Rabbit.


(Alien Guy with the Big Forehead is talking)
Mike: Time to die.

This is a line from the famous cult-fave Blade Runner, starring Harrison Ford, Daryl Hannah, Edward James Olmos, and Rutger Hauer. Being a Harrison Ford fan, I felt I had to watch this movie, and let me say, this is one weird-ass motherfucker. I mean, it’s entertaining, it’s thought-provoking, it's beautiful, but it’s also weird. It reminds me a bit of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, which is a weird movie in itself. Everyone in this movie is just weird as hell: Daryl Hannah is a child-like clone who kills people with her thigh muscles, Rutger Hauer is a sort of homicidal Rocky (from Rocky Horror Picture Show), Edward James Olmos likes to make origami and speaks in a Chinese/Hungarian dialect, even Harrison Ford is kinda weird—he uses a range of facial expressions I don’t remember him using in any of his other movies (the actor himself doesn’t like the movie, saying something like, “I play a detective who doesn’t do any detecting.”—I think he didn’t like the original, which had him doing a narrative and had a different ending, but I don’t know if he approved of the director’s cut. I’ve only seen the director’s cut). The line “Time to die” is said by the clones in the movie—once by Hauer and also by a James Cameron-looking guy who I’ve seen in a couple of movies but can’t remember the name of. I remember reading something about the movie The Avengers (starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman; it was one of the worst movies of the 90’s, apparently) incorporating the line, plus the chess moves from the same scene, into it. I can’t back this up because I never saw The Avengers, nor will I. Ever.