GREAT MOMENTS and SCENES FROM THE GREATEST FILMS An extensive collection of the most famous, distinguished, unforgettable or memorable images, scenes, sequences or performances, many from the greatest films of all time Part 24

L (continued)
Little Caesar (1930)	The image of the 'tough guy' gangsters, including vain Caesar Enrico or Rico "Little Caesar" Bandello (Edward G. Robinson) - posing for newspaper photographers after a shootout; and Rico's threatening of rival gangster Little Arnie Lorch (Maurice Black) as he rose to the top: "If you ain't out of town by tomorrow morning, you won't ever leave it except in a pine box. I'm takin' over this territory"; the scene after Rico has taken over as boss of the gang and his threat about cowardly members: "There's a rope around my neck right now and they only hang ya once. If anybody turns yella and squeals, my gun's gonna speak its piece", and the memorable ending death scene as Rico is shot down behind a roadside billboard, and his final cry: "Mother of Mercy! Is this the end of Rico?", in director Mervyn LeRoy's crime/gangster film - one of the first "talkie" gangster movies
The Little Colonel (1935)	Shirley Temple's first costume picture featured her first tap-dance pairing between herself and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, in which they tapped side-by-side down and then up a staircase; their tap dancing was reprised with their competitive tapping "challenge dance" between the two in The Littlest Rebel (1935)
The Little Foxes (1941)	The famous, impressively-filmed, deep-focus scene of the coronary seizure of invalid Horace Giddens (Herbert Marshall) who makes pleas for help as he struggles upstairs behind his expressionless wife Regina (Bette Davis) who sits impassively on a sofa in the foreground, in director William Wyler's family melodrama based upon Lillian Hellman's work
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)	The remake of the 1960 original, with the characters of Rick Moranis as nerdy flower-shop worker Seymour Krelborn in Mushnik's located in "Skid Row", the doo-wop Greek chorus trio, the buxom bimbo and shrill-voiced flower arranger Audrey (Ellen Greene), and the sadistic, motorcycle-riding and torturing dentist Orin Scrivello D.D.S. (Steve Martin) with an addiction to nitrous oxide and his abused masochistic patient Arthur Denton (Bill Murray); also the scene of alien, singing giant, carnivorous fly-trap plant Audrey II ("I'm just a mean green mother from outer space and I'm bad" who voraciously requested: "Feed me, Seymour") who was fed the surly flower store manager (Vincent Gardenia) - and much of the cast in the show-stopping, up-beat finale sequence, in Frank Oz' comedy/sci-fi musical
Little Women (1933)	The snowy opening title credits; the amusing malapropisms by daughter Amy March (Joan Bennett): ("I know what I mean, and you needn't be 'statirical about it! It's proper to use good words and improve your 'vocabilary'"); also the scene of the March sisters discussing what they'll each do with their Christmas present of $1 from their beloved mother Marmee (Spring Byington), and Marmee's reading of a letter to her daughters from their father fighting in the Civil War: ("Give them all my dear love and a kiss. Tell them I know they will remember all I said to them: that they will be loving children to you, they will do their duty faithfully, fight their bosom enemies bravely and conquer themselves so beautifully that when I come back to them, I may be fonder and prouder than ever of my little women"); also Jo's (Katharine Hepburn) enthusiastic favorite expression: "Christopher Columbus!"; and the reassuring words of dying Beth March (Jean Parker) to older sister Jo: "I'm not afraid anymore! I'm learning that I don't lose you, that you'll be more to me than ever, and NOTHING can part us, though it seems to. Oh, Jo! I think I'll be homesick for you - even in heaven"; and Jo's written ode to her sister titled "My Beth"; also Beth's last words: "I think I can sleep now. Oh look, Jo. My birds. They got back in time" - at the moment of her death when the birds fly off from the window sill, in director George Cukor's classic adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel
The Littlest Rebel (1935)	The scene of Virginia Cary (child star Shirley Temple) tap-dancing "Polly Wolly Doodle" with vaudeville and musical stage star Uncle Billy (Bill "Bojangles" Robinson) - especially his concluding "challenge" dance with her, and Virginia's charming of President Lincoln (Frank McGlynn, Sr.) by sharing an apple with him, in director David Butler's musical comedy
The Lives of Others (2006, Germ.)	The scene of the bugging of suspected but successful Socialist playwright Georg Dreyman's (Sebastian Koch) apartment by the East German Stasi (secret police) - and the keyhole shot of an apartment neighbor noticing the activity and being threatened to keep silent; also the continual round-the-clock monitoring of Dreyman's activities by survelliance agent Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) who was slowly transformed into being a conflicted but sympathetic 'guardian angel' (in the elevator scene with a young boy); also the scene in which Dreyman's devoted lover Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) cleansed herself (both physically and emotionally) in the bathtub/shower of the filth after a forced sexual encounter with Cultural Department head Minister Bruno Hempf (Thomas Thieme) in the backseat of his limousine (in exchange for prescription drugs and protection), and was then comforted by Dreyman when she was curled up in a fetal position afterwards and asked: "Just hold me"; also Wiesler's failed attempt to emulate the tenderness of CMS' and Dreyman's relationship with a rigidly-scheduled prostitute in his drab apartment; and the heart-breaking scene in which a distressed Christa-Maria committed suicide by running in front of a truck after she thought she had betrayed Dreyman by revealing the location of his incriminating red-ribboned typewriter that he had used to pen an anonymous article (ironically about suicide in East Germany) for West German magazine Der Spiegel - unaware that Wiesler had secretly removed the typewriter from under the apartment's doorsill to protect her and Dreyman - and the scene of Georg's anguish over her bloody death in the street; and the final sequence in which Georg discovered that Wielser had protected him when he read the declassified surveillance transcripts on himself, and discovered a thumbprint smudge of red ink (from the red-ribboned typewriter) next to his official notation HGW XX/7; then, the scene of his locating Wiesler (now a newspaper deliveryman) and deciding not to introduce himself to the humbled man; and the final scene two years later when Wiesler saw a bookstore poster advertising a new book written by Dreyman titled "Sonata For a Good Man" and its dedication: "HGW XX/7 gewidmet, in Dankbarkeit. (Dedicated to HGW XX/7, in Gratitude)", and the film's final line of dialogue: Wiesler's subdued, double-entendre reply to the cashier's question if he'd like the book he was purchasing gift-wrapped: "No, it's for me," in writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's dramatic thriller (his debut feature film and the Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film)
Lolita (1962)	The erotic pedicure scene under the credits of obsessed, middle-aged boarder and literature professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) cradling the title character's foot and then lovingly and devotedly painting her toenails with bright enamel; the opening mad Ping-Pong match between TV writer/pedophile Quilty (Peter Sellers) and Humbert; the first image of skimpy bikini-clad nymphet teenager Dolores 'Lolita' Haze (Sue Lyon) in the back yard - sporting a broad-brimmed, feathered straw hat and heart-shaped plastic sunglasses - with her "Yi Yi" bubble-gum theme song as Humbert is led through the house by Lolita's blowsy mother Charlotte (Shelley Winters), and later, his watching of her hula-hooping; also Lolita's continual teasing (unintentional and intentional) of Humbert, and when she told Humbert: "Don't forget me" as she went away to summer camp; and the scene following Charlotte's accidental vehicular death when Humbert took a hot bath and sipped from alcohol from a glass floating on the water; also the scene of Humbert's and Lolita's overnight stay at a hotel and Lolita's early morning coquettish suggestion to play a game that she learned at camp, while seductively twirling the hair on his head with her finger --- followed by a discrete fade to black; also the late sequence in which Humbert saw Lolita once again after she had married, and his greeting: "So this is what Mrs. Richard T. Schiller looks like!", in Stanley Kubrick's once-controversial film version of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel
Lolita (1997)	The first view of young nymphet Lolita (14 year-old Dominique Swain) in the garden where a lawn sprinkler soaked her pale sundress, by obsessed professor Humbert Humbert (Jeremy Irons); also the scene in which Lolita nuzzled next to Humbert's crotch and inched her hand up his inner thigh when she asked him for a $2 allowance; in the film's most provocative scene, Lolita rocked pleasurably on Humbert's lap while reading the newspaper comic pages, and in one very controversial love-making scene in a hotel, they slept in the same bed and she wet-kissed him on the mouth after having showed him "everything" -- during the fade-out, Humbert explained in voice-over: "Gentlewomen of the jury, I was not even her first lover", in director Adrian Lyne's controversial version of Vladimir Nabokov's novel about the aberrant, still-taboo and touchy topic of underage sexuality and incestual pedophilia
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)	A film made during the passionate courtship of actor Paul Newman (as sexy and virile Mississippi barnburning arsonist/drifter Ben Quick) and his soon-to-be wife Joanne Woodward (as 23 year-old old-maid schoolteacher daughter Clara of his rich boss Will Varner (Orson Welles)) in their first film together; their scenes at a picnic, and in a department store after closing time are sensually hot and exude on-screen chemistry - w/o nudity or explicit sexual love scenes (except for kissing) - with Clara's repeated turn-downs and Ben's seductive come-ons, and Clara's memorable speech about her ideal relationship, in Martin Ritt's sultry southern romantic melodrama that adapted a melange of William Faulkner stories
The Longest Day (1962)	With over three dozen international stars (including John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery, Rod Steiger, Robert Wagner, Richard Burton, etc.) and three directors (Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, and Bernhard Wicki), this war film recreated the Allied invasion of Normandy Beach (D-Day, June 6, 1944) from five separate invasion points, with sweeping B/W Cinemascopic views of the assault, in 20th Century-Fox studio chief/producer Darryl F. Zanuck's semi-documentary war epic
Longtime Companion (1990)	The story of white Manhattanites in the 80s decade, including Bruce Davison's Oscar-nominated performance as David, the lover of a deteriorating AIDS patient who advises his dying partner and 'longtime companion' Sean (Mark Lamos) - a soap opera scriptwriter - with a whispered: "Let go. It's all right. You can let go now"; and the famous closing "Fire Island fantasy" in which the three surviving friends Willy (Campbell Scott), Alan/Fuzzy (Stephen Caffrey) and Lisa (Mary-Louise Parker) stroll on an empty Fire Island beach when Willy wistfully muses: "I just want to be around when they find a cure", which is followed by a heart-breaking fantasy of the joyous reunion/party of the three survivors and their dead loved ones (all of the dead revert back to their healthy selves for a few moments before cutting back to the threesome on the beach alone), in Norman Rene's sensitively-told AIDS film
Lord of the Flies (1963)	The nightmarish and pessimistic story of about 30 English schoolboys (all non-professionals) stranded on a deserted tropical island following a plane crash who became savages and murderers; the scene of the castaways devouring a pig after roasting it, and the scene of the hunt by the leaders in the group to kill the pudgy and bespectacled Piggy (Hugh Edwards) (who had lost his glasses) by crushing him with a large rock boulder shoved from a cliff above, and the later scene of a naval officer (dressed in white) discovering the exiled, democratic leader Ralph (James Aubrey) who was being hunted by the more sinister rival Jack (Tom Chapin), in Peter Brook's adaptation of William Golding's dark novel
Lost Horizon (1937)	The opening scene of a refugee evacuation as bullets fly about an airfield in war-torn China, the first views of Shangri-La - a paradise on Earth, the High Lama's (Sam Jaffe) discussion about his mission and search for a successor, Robert Conway's (Ronald Colman) one last look back at Shangri-La as he departs, and the withered aging of Maria's (Margo) face after leaving the idyllic paradise, in director Frank Capra's classic romantic fantasy
Lost in America (1985)	The story of a Los Angeles couple: neurotic adman David Howard (writer/director Albert Brooks) and his ditzy wife Linda (Julie Hagerty), who forsake their upwardly mobile, workaholic lives to 'drop-out' in exchange for a free-spirited, Easy Rider-inspired road-trip in a Winnebago motorhome; the scene of David's last day at work when he has a long telephone conversation with a Mercedes dealer about buying one of the luxury vehicles; Linda's disastrous experience at a roulette table (gambling on # 22: "Twenty-two, twenty-two, come on back to me, come on back to me!") in Las Vegas' Desert Inn casino when she gambles away their nest-egg to David's dismay ("Say it! Say it! Say 'I lost the nest-egg.' Go on, say it!") as he painfully begs the casino manager (Garry Marshall) for their money back ("As the boldest experiment in advertising history, you give us our money back"), and David's interview with an employment agency counselor in a small town for a $100,000 job, in Albert Brooks' funny road-trip comedy about finding the 'American dream'
Lost in Translation (2003)	The opening views of a garish-nighttime Tokyo from within a limo, the funny scene of middle-aged, disconnected movie star Bob Harris (Bill Murray) shooting a Suntory whiskey commercial in Tokyo requiring many takes, and his scenes of growing friendship with bored newlywed Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) during off hours in a luxury hotel bar (the elevator, hallway, karaoke bars, pachinko parlors, etc.) and throughout the city as they share their disoriented bewilderment about their lives, the scene of a Japanese call girl invading Bob's room and demanding that he "lip" her stockings, and the enigmatic ending in which there's a whisper between Bob and Charlotte on the Tokyo street, in director/writer Sofia Coppola's award-winning romance-drama
The Lost Patrol (1934)	The mirage-like appearance in the desert of a British rescue column and the Sergeant (Victor McLaglen) pointing to the gleaming sabers marking the heads of their graves when answering the colonel's question, "Where are your men?" in the memorable film ending, in John Ford's war/adventure drama
The Lost Weekend (1945)	The scene of the discovery of a hidden bottle of whiskey dangling out the window of NY wanna-be writer Don Birnam (Oscar-winning Ray Milland) struggling with writer's block; alcoholic Birnam's pitiful attempt to sell his typewriter and his desperate search from one closed pawn shop to another along Third Avenue on a Jewish holiday; the shadowy outline of a whiskey bottle in his overhead light fixture; his nightmarish hallucinations of a bat and a mouse in his apartment (accompanied by the first major (and effective) use of the spooky-sounding theremin during this and other nightmare sequences), his psychiatric incarceration in the alcoholic ward of Bellevue Hospital, and his rescue from suicide in the final scene, in Billy Wilder's social problem film about alcohol addiction
Love Happy (1949)	Marilyn Monroe as Detective Sam Grunion's (Groucho Marx) beautiful blonde client in a small but early, memorable walk-on role - he asks: "Is there anything I can do for you?" then pauses, reflects, looks at the audience, and says: "What a ridiculous statement." She says: "Two men are following me." He replies: "I can't understand why", in director David Miller's anarchic comedy - the Marx Bros' final starring feature
Love Story (1970)	Oliver's (Ryan O'Neal) opening flashback line ("What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?"), the scene of the doctor informing Oliver that Jenny (Ali MacGraw) is dying, and Oliver's emotionally-numbing walk back to his apartment, the "Love means never having to say you're sorry" scene, and the final sequence in the hospital room including their final dialogue and Jenny's death in Oliver's arms, in director Arthur Hiller's sentimental and "weepie" romance melodrama
Lust for Life (1956)	The scene in which impulsive artist Vincent Van Gogh (Oscar-nominated Kirk Douglas) agonizes over unrequited love and forces himself upon widowed cousin Kay (Jeanette Sterke) - causing her to never talk to him again; the various scenes of his life translated to his painted canvas (such as Vincent's Bedroom at Arles); also the discussion scene between the tortured painter and his fellow housemate/painter-mentor Paul Gauguin (Oscar-winning Anthony Quinn) about their different art styles (Gauguin: "...you paint too fast" -- Van Gogh: "You look too fast"), and also their argument scene (Gauguin: "I didn't have a brother to support me") and the resultant shocking scene of the suffering artist cutting off his part of his own left ear (off-screen) out of extreme loneliness and despair, and the final scene of his death (after a suicide attempt) with his loyal and supportive art dealer/brother Theo (James Donald) at his bedside, in director Vincente Minnelli's CinemaScopic biopic of the nineteenth-century Dutch artist
Lust in the Dust (1985)	Lusty saloon owner Marguerita Ventura's (Lainie Kazan) bawdy, euphemism-filled song "South of My Border" ("I'd like to take you south of my border / Just north of my garter") to lone gunman Abel Wood (Tab Hunter), with corpulent, cat-fighting saloon rival Rosie Velez's (transvestite Divine, aka Glenn Milstead) sung retort ("Let her take you south of her border / If you think you can afford her") in Paul Bartel's campy cult Western comedy spoof (whose title was inspired by the nickname given to Selznick's Duel in the Sun (1946))
M
M (1931, Ger.)	The scene of young Elsie Beckman (Inge Landgut) bouncing her ball against a billboard and standing in front of the poster (Who is the Murderer?) that offers a 10,000 Marks reward as the shadow of psychopathic Berlin child-killer/molester Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) falls over her, Beckert's purchase of a balloon (while whistling a few bars of In the Hall of the Mountain King from Peer Gynt's Suite #1 by Edvard Grieg) from a 'blind man' in order to seduce the young girl, Beckert's look backward toward his reflection and realizing that he has a letter 'M' (meaning "Morder") chalked on the back of his overcoat - branding him with the mark of Cain as an atrocious child-murderer, the nervous and out-of-tune whistling of the murderer - now identified by the blind man and leading to Becker's capture, and the final sequence in the kangaroo court as the tortured, sniveling offender piteously cries out to defend - and self-incriminate himself: "I can't help myself" and "I must!", in Fritz Lang's first sound film
M*A*S*H (1970)	"Suicide is Painless" - the film's theme song playing on the soundtrack during the opening credits sequence, the dark humor of wartime, bloody surgeries, the broadcast over the camp's PA system of Maj. "Hot Lips" Houlihan's (Sally Kellerman) love-making to Maj. Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) ("Oh, Frank, my lips are hot. Kiss my hot lips") with a microphone hidden under their cot, the practical joke of pulling the tent up while Hot Lips is taking a shower, suicidal "Painless Pole" Waldowski's (John Schuck) Last Supper scene with a full rendition of the film's theme song, the climactic football game, and the unique closing credits read by the loudspeaker announcer and ending with "That is all", in director Robert Altman's subversive and irreverent anti-war comedy
Madame Curie (1943)	Lab assistant Marie (Greer Garson) and scientist Pierre Curie (Walter Pidgeon) peering through the laboratory window and seeing the result of years of their work (isolating radium) glowing in a little dish on the table, in director Mervyn LeRoy's fact-based docu-drama/biopic

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