Classic Closing Lines

Question: Of what movie monster was it said, “Oh no. It wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast”?

Answer: Be that as it may, King Kong is mortally wounded by machine guns fired from airplanes and plunges to his death from the top of the Empire State Building.

Question: What movie character lamented that “I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook”?

Answer: The character is based on the real-life mob associate Henry Hill.

Question: In what movie did a cabdriver exclaim in exasperation, “I’m not a cabdriver, I’m a coffeepot”?

Answer: Mortimer Brewster confounds the cabbie by yelling, “I’m not a Brewster! I’m the son of a sea cook!”

Question: In what locale did Rick Blaine and Louis Renault finally establish a “beautiful friendship”?

Answer: Before the two men stroll off into the fog, Louis drops a bottle of Vichy water into a garbage can.

Question: What movie character posed the menacing question, “You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do you, punk?”

Answer: A police inspector known as Dirty Harry shoots and kills an unlucky punk.

Question: In what movie did the title character rise from his wheelchair and triumphantly declare, “Mein Führer, I can walk!”

Answer: The line, spoken by a Nazi scientist, may suggest the rebirth of fascism in the wake of a nuclear war.

Question: In what movie did the character Norma Desmond declare, “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”?

Answer: Norma Desmond’s character was played by Gloria Swanson, who worked with director Cecil B. DeMille early in her career.

Question: What character announced to an assembled family, “There’s no place like home”?

Answer: Dorothy learns a lesson in a Technicolor dream.

Question: What was the stuff that dreams are made of?

Answer: Sam Spade describes the prized statue, now revealed to be a fake. The line is a slight misquotation of one in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Question: Who shall say that Ninotchka was a bad Russian?

Answer: The good communist Ninotchka discovers patriotic reasons for staying with Leon, her bourgeois admirer.

Question: In what movie did a certain bad guy ask, “Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?”

Answer: Rico Bandello, known as Little Caesar, meets his end in a hail of police gunfire.

Question: Which misbehaving mother announces to herself that she wouldn’t even swat a fly?

Answer: Norma Bates, the long dead mother of Norman, talks and acts through her son.