The subject of movies came up, particularly scenes that bring a lump to the throat or a tear to the eye ... and stay with you. I submit a few for your consideration:
In Double Indemnity, one of the great movies, and by far Fred MacMurray’s best, Fred is making a dying confession, telling how it happened that he killed Barbara Stanwyck and her husband. He’s an insurance salesman. Edward G. Robinson is his close friend and claims investigator for the company. He has never been satisfied that Barbara’s husband’s death was an accident—but he had never suspected Fred. The scene: Fred is wheezing out his last words. He says, “Keyes, the reason you couldn’t solve this case was that it was too close to you, right across your desk.”
Robinson says, “Closer than that, Walter, closer than that.”
In 12 O-Clock High, maybe the best movie about the air war over Europe, Hugh Marlowe has been goofing off, all sorts of problems and turn-backs, etc.
Gregory Peck, his new CO, chews him out, up one side and down the other, calling him a disgrace to the country ... and assigns him to a plane with all the misfits of the outfit. Runs him down. Verbally destroys him.
Later, Hugh, obviously reformed, performs a heroic act, bringing his plane back after being hurt with an especially painful wound. Hugh is lying in his hospital bed, strapped and tractioned and unable to move. Peck comes to see him and says the usual niceties, and this not too long after the riot act. Hugh just blinks and says, “Thank you, Sir.” Peck leaves. In a moment, a nurse comes in and says, “Hey, you must be somebody special. He told me to give you anything you wanted.” A tear moves down Hugh’s cheek.
Then there’s maybe the most moving scene in moviedom. This is in Mr. Roberts. The movie is perfect from beginning to end with a great cast— Henry Fonda as Mr. Roberts, trying to shield his men from the captain, Jimmy Cagney; William Powell as the ship doctor and Roberts’ friend; and Jack Lemmon, in his first major role, as kind of Fonda’s intern, learning how to keep from going crazy by doing crazy things.
Fonda, with the help of the crew, finally gets transferred off the backwater tub he’s on to where the action is.
He writes back to Lemmon, who reads the letter to everybody. And there’s another letter, from a friend of Fonda’s on his new ship. Lemmon opens it.
Silence.
“C’mon. Read it. Whatsa matter? Read it!
Finally, Lemmon says, “Doug’s Dead.”
And for goodness sakes, don’t forget Kirk Douglas’s dying scene with William Bendix in Detective Story.
If those won’t bring a tear or a lump, I hate to say it, but something’s wrong.
Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.
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