Great Film Quotes, "Casablanca" and "Pulp Fiction"

I can't stop thinking about Charlton Heston's classic "**** dirty ape" line in Planet of the Apes.

It's a great quote. Some have even called it the greatest line ever uttered in a film. Hey, if it isn't the best, it's right up there. But there's a lot of good film quotes. And you can't end a conversation about great film quotes without mention of Casablanca and Pulp Fiction.

There are so many memorable lines in Casablanca. "Play it, Sam. Play As Time Goes By." I love that one! Casablanca is truly one of the best films ever. If it had a Death Star and, perhaps, Imperial Stormtroopers rather than Germans, it might could have been better than Star Wars. Anyone could claim Casablanca is the greatest film ever and I would have to respect that person's opinion. I wouldn't argue the matter. Casablanca is soooo good.

Arguments could be made for Gone With The Wind and The Wizard of Oz. I have not seen Citizen Kane, so I can't comment on that one. I do know though, based on the preponderance of evidence supplied by George Lucas, that Citizen Kane is not better than Star Wars. Neither is Annie Hall or Rocky or The Godfather. When the Academy of Motion Arts and Picture Sciences gave the best picture Oscar to Annie Hall rather than Star Wars, well, the Academy simply got it wrong, wrong, wrong. I must admit I haven't seen Annie Hall either, or Rocky or The Godfather. I don't need to. I've seen Star Wars. I also know that those movies I haven't seen don't have a Death Star, Imperial Stormtroopers, Han Solo, Vader, droids, et cetera ... Tusken Raiders, Banthas, I could go on and on and on. I won't bore you. You know the point. The separation is obvious. Furthermore, Star Wars' screenplay contains more memorable quotes than Annie Hall or Stocky or The Godfather.

Jaws has "You're gonna' need a bigger boat." That's an all-time classic, but even that isn't better than "Tear this ship apart until you've found those plans! And bring me the passengers; I want them alive!"

Vader was fuming mad in that scene.

The latest addition to cinema's all-time great screenplays is Pulp Fiction, even though Forrest Gump was 1994's better picture overall. Quentin Tarantino's dialogue stands up to anything. There is so much memorable language in that one. Pulp Fiction contains more memorable content than even Casablanca.

Still though, Casablanca is a gold standard to which all other screenplays can be measured against. In a way, Casablanca exists to be surpassed like Babe Ruth's 60 home runs in 151 games or the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls' 72 regular season wins. Today's artists and athletes need benchmarks to shoot for. Casablanca, amazingly, after 66 years, remains as one of those benchmarks. Would Pulp Fiction be as good as it is without films like Casablanca setting the Hollywood standard?

Every writer of screenplays should take a cue from Casablanca and come up with at least five or six good lines. If you can manage at least two or three, you have a fighting chance of writing an awesome screenplay. Of course, you also need to infuse your characters with that special kind of flair and vulnerability, and your plot needs to be solid. Great writing is so not easy.

Another modern film with a lot of memorable lines is Mike Judge's Office Space. A Christmas Story, released in 1983, is another great silver screen comedy with classic lines. Then there's The Blues Brothers, the feature-length Saturday Night Live skit packed with memorable quotes and memorable scenes. Nine to Five is another. All of these examples are comedies, which are vastly different from films like Chinatown or All About Eve. Still, I would argue that they have their place, somewhere, among cinema's elite films because of the number of memorable moments they provide.