what was your name again?

So, farewell then Tony Curtis. I suppose it would have been more realistic if everyone had stood up and said: “You’re not fucking crucifying me - he’s Spartacus.”

Comments

[Richard]

Top five movie scenes men after which men are allowed to cry...

[ajay]

There's a story (too good to check) that the young Michael Douglas was refused a table in a restaurant and shouted: "Don't you know who I am? I'm Kirk Douglas' son!"

On which a nearby diner stood up from his meal and replied "No. I am Kirk Douglas' son."

[Richard J]

The better version of that was that it was Brandon Douglas (in an abortive stand up career) trying that line while dying on stage at the London Comedy Store.

The entire audience is supposed to have reacted as one.

[Richard J]

“You’re not fucking crucifying me - he’s Spartacus.”

[Obvious statement that the whole thing was made up by a blacklisted screenwriter with memories of HUAC still fresh in his mind.] Given that reading, say, Josephus' account of the siege of Jerusalem makes it plain that the Romans thought of 'hearts and minds' only with the appended comment 'but only if they're not wearing armour', it's not utterly implausible.

[jamie]

The impression I got from Josephus was that he was keen to reassure us that, so to speak, every dead Vietnamese was VC.

[Richard J]

My personal view on the man is that he was playing a clever double-game - he's surprisingly quiet on any atrocities committed by the rebels themselves, but in justifying the Roman's actions, seems to find a remarkably large amount of space to recount the story (with gory details) of every Roman atrocity he'd heard of, while all the while piously assuring his readers that, say, crucifying rebels upside down, or slitting the bellies of line-crossers to find any hidden gold they'd swallowed, was either justified, or the work of Roman auxiliaries. A certain deliberate naivety seemed to come off the pages.

[ajay]

I always remember the description of the siege of Jerusalem, during which the Romans, sitting glumly behind their circumvallation looking at this massively fortified city, were suddenly cheered up by realising that a disagreement between two factions of Jewish defenders over who should have overall command had actually escalated into open warfare inside the city, and all they needed to do was wait a bit and then pretty much walk in unopposed. It rather reminds me of the fight in Pilate's palace between the Judaean People's Front and the People's Front of Judaea, with the two bemused legionaries watching.

Richard J: that is indeed a better version. Like the story of Pia Zadora's disastrous stage version of "The Diary of Anne Frank", at which the first-night audience were so fed up that as soon as the Gestapo came on stage they started shouting "She's in the attic!"

[mds]

I suppose it would have been more realistic if everyone had stood up and said: “You’re not fucking crucifying me - he’s Spartacus.”

Especially if they were all pointing at some other poor shmuck who wasn't Spartacus.

[john b]

Brian, for example?

While Jimmy Carr is terrible in many ways, "I went to Amsterdam; there were signs all over the place saying 'Anne Frank's house' - poor girl never stood a chance" is one of the greater gags I've heard.

[skidmarx]

Eric Douglas.

I remember seeing Curtis on TV once recounting how he had been sat with Joseph Kennedy while his son practised his "Ask not what your country can do for you" speech over the phone. He was very aware of how much luck had played a part in his career.

[ejh]

I'd have posted a scene from Some Like It Hot.