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Post by dianedebuda on Sept 11, 2023 15:13:07 GMT
There's a good Thelma Ritter movie  |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Sept 11, 2023 16:22:48 GMT
This is kind of a complicated moment in Rear Window, because Raymond Burr is technically looking out at Jimmy Stewart (and Thelma Ritter, which made me think of this), even though he's looking directly into the camera, which puts the viewer in a weird kind of no-man's-land in the middle, which I would say still obliterates the fourth wall. The pov is through Stewart's camera lens, so in that case we're Jimmy Stewart, so where is the wall if we're looking right at each other? Anyway, it's so scary.  |
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Post by BunnyWhit on Sept 15, 2023 2:30:26 GMT
Arrivederci, Baby! (1966) has numerous breaks in the fourth wall. Rosanna Schiaffino starts it off right at the beginning with a wink at us (about 1:07). Tony Curtis has numerous good ones throughout the film as well. I especially like the end when he yells at us, "What are you looking at? Get outta here!" and slams shut the windows.
It's Tony Curtis, Rosanna Schiaffino, Zsa Zsa Gabor, and Nancy Kwan. What could go wrong?
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Post by BunnyWhit on Nov 17, 2023 21:07:15 GMT
84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
As Helene Hanff, Anne Bancroft does a fair amount of breaking the fourth wall in this film. It's quite effective. The most impactful scene though is nearer the end when both Helene and Frank, played by Anthony Hopkins, have an extended conversation. They speak and reply back and forth through the viewers. I love it.
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Post by Fading Fast on Nov 17, 2023 21:21:02 GMT
84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
As Helene Hanff, Anne Bancroft does a fair amount of breaking the fourth wall in this film. It's quite effective. The most impactful scene though is nearer the end when both Helene and Frank, played by Anthony Hopkins, have an extended conversation. They speak and reply back and forth through the viewers. I love it.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jan 1, 2024 21:03:32 GMT
And Then There Were None (1945)
At the beginning of the film, the gentlemen gather in a sitting room and introduce themselves to each other. They do this through a break in the fourth wall, allowing them to introduce themselves to viewers as well. There's some other business later in the film....but no spoilers here. It's nicely done. (The scene begins at 6:00.)
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Post by lonesomepolecat on Jan 2, 2024 9:06:53 GMT
 Groucho does it a few times in ANIMAL CRACKERS, such as the “Strange Interlude” section, but my favorite is later in the film. Groucho tells a lame joke then talks directly into the camera: “Well, ALL the jokes can’t be good. You’ve got to expect that once in a while!” |
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Post by marysara1 on Jan 4, 2024 9:07:07 GMT
Sometimes the filmmaker uses it for hints. In the latest Dr. Who movie a character Mrs. Flood tells the audience you don't see many Tauris. (She's not supposed to know what one is)
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jan 17, 2024 3:13:08 GMT
In the closing scene of See How They Run (2022), Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) directly address the audience.
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Post by BunnyWhit on Feb 12, 2024 3:58:17 GMT
The Ruling Class (1972)
The final thing the 13th Earl of Gurney (Harry Andrews) will ever do is to directly address viewers during his "artistic" behavior at the start of the film. He was nutty as a fruitcake. But just wait till you see the 14th Earl.....
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Post by I Love Melvin on Feb 12, 2024 22:46:21 GMT
I just watched Wes Anderson's Asteroid City (2023) and, without explaining too much (because I can't), it's structured as a play being workshopped, but which becomes fully fleshed out scenes in a stylized landscape, then reverts back to behind-the-scenes. Anyway, Bryan Cranston functions as a narrator who directly addresses the audience, ostensibly the theater audience but really the movie audience as well. Or something like that. Other characters break the fourth wall as well.  And Santa brought me the Criterion release of the David Byrne movie True Stories (1986), which features David tooling around a small Texas town in his convertible acting as narrator/tour guide, constantly addressing the camera. Love that movie.  |
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Post by BunnyWhit on Feb 12, 2024 23:23:42 GMT
In pure Coen Brothers style, Buster Scruggs (Tim Blake Nelson) talks to us quite a bit in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).
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Post by BunnyWhit on Jun 2, 2024 4:08:20 GMT
The Mating of Millie (1948)
Doug Andrews (Glenn Ford) leafs through Millie McGonigle's (Evelyn Keyes) diary. Finding nothing has been written on any of the pages, he breaks the fourth wall with a shrug to tell the audience, "Nothing ever happened to her."
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Post by christine on Jun 4, 2024 4:20:28 GMT
In the 1955 movie YOU'RE NEVER TOO YOUNG, Dean Martin breaks the fourth wall. Jerry Lewis plays an adult man (Wilbur Hoolick) trying to pass for a juvenile. Dean's character (Bob Miles) suspects that he's not the boy he pretends to be. He catches him with his girlfriend (played by Diana Lynn) and delivers one of the best lines in the film - 'You stick to the little ones, the big ones are mine!' After that Dean offers Jerry a cigar and Jerry lights it up like a pro - that's when Dean looks right at the camera and invites the audience in!   This film also co-stars Raymond Burr and Nina Foch. Paramount remade this from the 1942 movie THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland but reversed the female and male roles. Dean also breaks the fourth wall in the western 5 CARD STUD 1968. In a scene with his co-star Inger Stevens as she's telling him what he does and doesn't understand about women, Dean briefly looks into the camera and gives a little smile and then continues the scene. I think he was able to use the fourth wall effectively. |
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Post by I Love Melvin on Aug 19, 2024 19:53:26 GMT
I thought of you, Bunny, when I was posting elsewhere a musical clip from Hellzapoppin' (1941). There are a number of instances of breaking the fourth wall, particularly when the stars (Olsen and Johnson) get into fits of temperament with the projectionist (Shemp Howard) who is supposedly screening the movie they're in. On another occasion they convince him to rewind the movie so they can swap out a visual joke for a different one, taking the movie in a whole different direction.. It was actually very modern in it's tampering with the particular reality (and unreality) of the film medium itself. There have supposedly been rights issues keeping it from being released for home video or streaming, but there's a good print on YouTube for anyone interested in something truly nutty and inventive.
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