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Thursday, November 27, 2008


More food & drink in film.

Charlie Chaplin making his dinner rolls dance in The Gold Rush. Paul Newman making coffee in the opening of Harper. James Dean making tea for Elizabeth Taylor in Giant (then later telling her she looks "pert nar good enough to eat" just before her husband's fist meets his black-oil-covered face). James Dean pressing that cold bottle of milk to his forehead in Rebel Without a Cause. Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson serving her wheelchair-bound sister a special treat in Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? Brando's description of how he'd eat a rat if he had one in Last Tango in Paris, and, of course, the butter scene from the same movie. Also, Brando with the orange at the end of The Godfather.

Lucille Ball gave us many wonderful food moments in I Love Lucy. Yeah, it's TV but her routines are right up there with the best in cinema. There's the episode where William Holden stares her down as she tries to casually eat her lunch - great spaghetti slapstick; the beloved chocolate factory episode; and my favourite: the way she eats her bread crumbs after starving herself on a diet. She also did a rollicking food scene in The Long Long Trailer, a second rate but entertaining movie she made with Desi Arnaz.

Woody Allen being scared of the lobsters in Annie Hall, Alastair Sim savouring his gruel in Scrooge, Joan Crawford baking pies in Mildred Pierce, Kate Hepburn flipping olives in Bringing Up Baby, Shirley Temple singing Animal Crackers in My Soup (do funny things to me...)

Lastly, a truly brilliant bit of food footage: Too Many Ritz - the soup scene.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

... Babette's Feast, Big Night, Eat Drink Man Woman ....

Vargas said...

Yeah, great movies where the food is a key ingredient of the story. That's a whole other post: that's a post you could write, AS. Most of the scenes I've mentioned are just that, scenes that involved some element of food in a movie where food is not a big deal, with the exception perhaps of Too Many Ritz. Too Many Ritz may belong with the great food flicks that you mention.

Catharine Amato said...

just catching up on Vargas since I got home...now we've got lnstant links to youtube I could get lost in time and space following from one clip to another. Great stuff!