Boxer has decreed the subject for this week’s Movie Clip Wednesday is Best Death.
Obviously, I should have held fire on ‘Anne of The Thousand Days’ and brought in the big guns this week! The voice-over wasn’t in the film but they are the words of the speech she actually made on the scaffold just prior to her execution at 8am on 19th May 1536.
An extraordinarily courageous lady and I will not exclude her just because she got a mention last week for something else.
Or I could have gone with the guys on the crosses whistling ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ from ‘Life of Brian’ or ‘Spartacus’ himself with his wife weeping beneath the cross.
But, thinking back to deaths that have made me cry, I guess it has to be Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
My first experience of the charisma of two male superstars.
I can remember watching this film as a prize at school. Our house had won the most team points for that term.
Even at the tender age of 12, I can recall the sense of electricity between Katherine Ross’s character and both Newman and Redford. Lucky, lucky lady.
Riding the bicycle with Newman and then the scene with Redford where he watches her undress in the half-darkness – which I can’t find on youtube. I’m sure that was a seminal moment in my formative years.
And, of course, I cried at the end.
With thanks to Walker because I can’t believe that I forgot this!!!
What about Patrick Swayze’s death in Ghost – that was a real tearjerker. What a great film.
Great call! I’d forgotten that one, Amy
Oh very good choice Cake! I would have chosen ‘Beaches’. Loved that film, balled my eyes out. Ohhhh….what about best NEAR death?! That’s gotta be ET.
I tried not to do dying women – too easy! Love Story and the like
I actually thought about the final scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (your’s comes up as a copywrite protection error when I go to view it – but I know the scene). And Ann Boleyn featured 2 weeks in a row. I always think of Wednesday Addams and her Ann Boleyn doll for some reason. These were both scenes where you know what happened but didn’t see the blood and gore. Nice choices.
Happy MCW!
Thanks for letting me know, Buzz! It was fine yesterday but I’ve found another one :)
excellent choice, sugar! i’ll have to see anne of the thousand days again! xoxox
LOL, I think I know the dialogue almost off by heart :)
Great choice; Kymmie sorta blog jinxed you but she picked the scene where they didn’t die. Those two men never looked finer than that movie there!
I almost included that clip too because it’s that scene that makes you hope that they just might have made it out of the final one!
Good afternoon Joanna,
Good choice, I find it refreshing that they depicted a French executioner rather than the axman and the block. Although I was once told by the Raven Master, she was actually standing.
Karl, Anne Boleyn was an exceptional case in English history in the manner of her execution. Death by the axe was often a very hit and miss affair and Henry accorded her the final mercy of the French executioner and his sword, although the delays in his journey meant that she had to endure a final day wondering when the execution was actually going to happen. I guess in some ways it might be easier to perform such a task with a sword whilst standing, in terms of trajectory. Pretty horrible thought whichever way!
Most excellent choices. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was another film my parents took us to that formed how my brother and I viewed the world. Basically, my parents parented through . . . film :o)
I think a lot of us absorbed many of our values from the films of those days so you’re definitely not alone ;)
Didn’t think there’d be a blox-jynx this time, but it happened.
Nice selections and Happy MCW!
I should have gone with the Star Trek deaths! ;)
Ah yes, the final scene of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid, great scene and movie but I thought you were a trekkie and gone with Spock’s death scene from The Wrath of Khan or Kirks death In Star Trek Generations
OMG, Walker, I cant believe I never thought of either of those! The ‘Needs of the Many’ scene with Spock and Kirk… well, maybe, it was all just too painful!
bwahahaah to Moi, because my parents took us to Butch Cassidy also. Obviously the rating system back then (and lack of babysitters?) made it hard to keep us at home when they wanted to see movies. Great picks all of them and I would have been happy for a repeat last week… until I got to end and saw Spock. EXCELLENT!!!!!